Load the Elasticsearch index template
editLoad the Elasticsearch index template
editElasticsearch uses index templates to define:
- Settings that control the behavior of your indices. The settings include the lifecycle policy used to manage indices as they grow and age.
- Mappings that determine how fields are analyzed. Each mapping sets the Elasticsearch datatype to use for a specific data field.
The recommended index template file for Winlogbeat is installed by the
Winlogbeat packages. If you accept the default configuration in the
winlogbeat.yml
config file, Winlogbeat loads the template automatically
after successfully connecting to Elasticsearch. If the template already exists,
it’s not overwritten unless you configure Winlogbeat to do so.
A connection to Elasticsearch is required to load the index template. If the output is not Elasticsearch (or Elasticsearch Service), you must load the template manually.
This page shows how to change the default template loading behavior to:
For a full list of template setup options, see Elasticsearch index template.
Load your own index template
editTo load your own index template, set the following options:
setup.template.name: "your_template_name" setup.template.fields: "path/to/fields.yml"
If the template already exists, it’s not overwritten unless you configure Winlogbeat to do so.
Overwrite an existing index template
editDo not enable this option for more than one instance of Winlogbeat. If you start multiple instances at the same time, it can overload your Elasticsearch with too many template update requests.
To overwrite a template that’s already loaded into Elasticsearch, set:
setup.template.overwrite: true
Disable automatic index template loading
editYou may want to disable automatic template loading if you’re using an output other than Elasticsearch and need to load the template manually. To disable automatic template loading, set:
setup.template.enabled: false
If you disable automatic template loading, you must load the index template manually.
Load the index template manually
editTo load the index template manually, run the setup
command.
A connection to Elasticsearch is required. If another output is enabled, you need to
temporarily disable that output and enable Elasticsearch by using the -E
option.
The examples here assume that Logstash output is enabled.
You can omit the -E
flags if Elasticsearch output is already enabled.
If you are connecting to a secured Elasticsearch cluster, make sure you’ve configured credentials as described in the Quick start: installation and configuration.
If the host running Winlogbeat does not have direct connectivity to Elasticsearch, see Load the index template manually (alternate method).
To load the template:
Open a PowerShell prompt as an Administrator (right-click the PowerShell icon and select Run As Administrator).
From the PowerShell prompt, change to the directory where you installed Winlogbeat, and run:
PS > .\winlogbeat.exe setup --index-management -E output.logstash.enabled=false -E 'output.elasticsearch.hosts=["localhost:9200"]'
Force Kibana to look at newest documents
editIf you’ve already used Winlogbeat to index data into Elasticsearch,
the index may contain old documents. After you load the index template,
you can delete the old documents from winlogbeat-*
to force Kibana to look
at the newest documents.
Use this command:
PS > Invoke-RestMethod -Method Delete "http://localhost:9200/winlogbeat-*"
This command deletes all indices that match the pattern winlogbeat-*
.
Before running this command, make sure you want to delete all indices that match
the pattern.
Load the index template manually (alternate method)
editIf the host running Winlogbeat does not have direct connectivity to Elasticsearch, you can export the index template to a file, move it to a machine that does have connectivity, and then install the template manually.
To export the index template, run:
PS > .\winlogbeat.exe export template --es.version 7.10.2 | Out-File -Encoding UTF8 winlogbeat.template.json
To install the template, run:
PS > Invoke-RestMethod -Method Put -ContentType "application/json" -InFile winlogbeat.template.json -Uri http://localhost:9200/_template/winlogbeat-7.10.2