Getting started with the Elastic Stack

Looking for an Elastic Stack ("ELK") guide that shows how to set up the Elastic Stack and get up and running quickly? You’re on the right place! First you install the core products:

Then you learn how to implement a system monitoring solution that uses Metricbeat to collect server metrics and ship the data to Elasticsearch, where you can search and visualize the data by using Kibana. After you get the basic setup working, you add Logstash for additional parsing.

To get started, you can install the Elastic Stack on a single VM or even on your laptop.

Elasticsearch is a real-time, distributed storage, search, and analytics engine. It can be used for many purposes, but one context where it excels is indexing streams of semi-structured data, such as logs or decoded network packets.

To download and install Elasticsearch, open a terminal window and use the commands that work with your system (deb for Debian/Ubuntu, rpm for Redhat/Centos/Fedora, mac for OS X, and win for Windows):

deb:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-6.3.2.deb
sudo dpkg -i elasticsearch-6.3.2.deb
sudo /etc/init.d/elasticsearch start

rpm:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-6.3.2.rpm
sudo rpm -i elasticsearch-6.3.2.rpm
sudo service elasticsearch start

mac:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-6.3.2.tar.gz
tar -xzvf elasticsearch-6.3.2.tar.gz
cd elasticsearch-6.3.2
./bin/elasticsearch

win:

For other operating systems, go to the Elasticsearch download page.

To learn more about installing, configuring, and running Elasticsearch, read the Elasticsearch Reference.

To test that the Elasticsearch daemon is up and running, try sending an HTTP GET request on port 9200.

curl http://127.0.0.1:9200

On Windows, if you don’t have cURL installed, point your browser to the URL.

You should see a response similar to this:

{
  "name" : "QtI5dUu",
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "cluster_uuid" : "DMXhqzzjTGqEtDlkaMOzlA",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "6.3.2",
    "build_flavor" : "default",
    "build_type" : "tar",
    "build_hash" : "00d8bc1",
    "build_date" : "2018-06-06T16:48:02.249996Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "7.3.1",
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "5.6.0",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "5.0.0"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}

Kibana is an open source analytics and visualization platform designed to work with Elasticsearch. You use Kibana to search, view, and interact with data stored in Elasticsearch indices. You can easily perform advanced data analysis and visualize your data in a variety of charts, tables, and maps.

We recommend that you install Kibana on the same server as Elasticsearch, but it is not required. If you install the products on different servers, you’ll need to change the URL (IP:PORT) of the Elasticsearch server in the Kibana configuration file, kibana.yml, before starting Kibana.

To download and install Kibana, open a terminal window and use the commands that work with your system:

deb or rpm:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/kibana/kibana-6.3.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf kibana-6.3.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
cd kibana-6.3.2-linux-x86_64/
./bin/kibana

mac:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/kibana/kibana-6.3.2-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf kibana-6.3.2-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz
cd kibana-6.3.2-darwin-x86_64/
./bin/kibana

win:

For other operating systems, go to the Kibana download page.

To learn more about installing, configuring, and running Kibana, read the Kibana Reference.

To launch the Kibana web interface, point your browser to port 5601. For example, http://127.0.0.1:5601.

The Beats are open source data shippers that you install as agents on your servers to send operational data to Elasticsearch. Beats can send data directly to Elasticsearch or via Logstash, where you can further process and enhance the data.

Each Beat is a separately installable product. In this guide, you learn how to install and run Metricbeat with the system module enabled to collect system metrics.

To learn more about installing and configuring other Beats, see the Getting Started documentation:

To download and install Metricbeat, open a terminal window and use the commands that work with your system:

deb:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/metricbeat/metricbeat-6.3.2-amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i metricbeat-6.3.2-amd64.deb

rpm:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/metricbeat/metricbeat-6.3.2-x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -vi metricbeat-6.3.2-x86_64.rpm

mac:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/metricbeat/metricbeat-6.3.2-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf metricbeat-6.3.2-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz

win:

For other operating systems, go to the Beats download page.

Metricbeat provides pre-built modules that you can use to rapidly implement and deploy a system monitoring solution, complete with sample dashboards and data visualizations, in about 5 minutes.

In this section, you learn how to run the system module to collect metrics from the operating system and services running on your server. The system module collects system-level metrics, such as CPU usage, memory, file system, disk IO, and network IO statistics, as well as top-like statistics for every process running on your system.

Before you begin: Verify that Elasticsearch and Kibana are running and that Elasticsearch is ready to receive data from Metricbeat.

To set up the system module and start collecting system metrics:

Metricbeat runs and starts sending system metrics to Elasticsearch.

To visualize system metrics, open your browser and navigate to the Metricbeat system overview dashboard: http://localhost:5601/app/kibana#/dashboard/Metricbeat-system-overview

Click Host Overview to see detailed metrics about the selected host.

Now that you know how to set up the simplest architecture for the Elastic Stack—​one or more Beats sending event data directly to an Elasticsearch instance running on the same server—​let’s add Logstash.

Logstash is a powerful tool that integrates with a wide variety of deployments. It offers a large selection of plugins to help you parse, enrich, transform, and buffer data from a variety of sources.

To download and install Logstash, open a terminal window and use the commands that work with your system:

deb:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/logstash/logstash-6.3.2.deb
sudo dpkg -i logstash-6.3.2.deb

rpm:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/logstash/logstash-6.3.2.rpm
sudo rpm -i logstash-6.3.2.rpm

mac:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/logstash/logstash-6.3.2.tar.gz
tar -xzvf logstash-6.3.2.tar.gz

win:

For other operating systems, go to the Logstash download page.

To learn more about installing, configuring, and running Logstash, read the Logstash Reference.

Logstash provides input plugins for reading from a variety of inputs. In this guide, you create a Logstash pipeline configuration that listens for Beats input and sends the received events to the Elasticsearch output.

To configure Logstash:

Use the command that works with your system. If you installed Logstash as a deb or rpm package, make sure the config file is in the config directory.

deb:

sudo /etc/init.d/logstash start

rpm:

sudo service logstash start

mac:

./bin/logstash -f demo-metrics-pipeline.conf

win:

bin\logstash.bat -f demo-metrics-pipeline.conf

Logstash starts listening for events from the Beats input. Next you need to configure Metricbeat to send events to Logstash.

Metricbeat sends events to Elasticsearch by default. To send events to Logstash, modify the Metricbeat configuration file, metricbeat.yml. You’ll find this file under the Metricbeat install directory, or /etc/metricbeat for rpm and deb.

Disable the output.elasticsearch section by commenting it out, then enable the output.logstash section by uncommenting it:

#-------------------------- Elasticsearch output ------------------------------
#output.elasticsearch:
  # Array of hosts to connect to.
  #hosts: ["localhost:9200"]
.
.
.
#----------------------------- Logstash output --------------------------------
output.logstash:
  # The Logstash hosts
  hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

Save the file, then restart Metricbeat to apply the configuration changes.

Logstash reads from the Beats input and indexes events into Elasticsearch. You haven’t defined a filter section yet, so Logstash simply forwards events to Elasticsearch without additional processing. Next, you learn how to define the filter stage.

The system metrics collected by Metricbeat include a field called cmdline that contains the full command-line arguments used to start system processes. For example:

"cmdline": "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/plugin-container.app/Contents/MacOS/plugin-container -childID 3
-isForBrowser -boolPrefs 36:1|299:0| -stringPrefs 285:38;{b77ae304-9f53-a248-8bd4-a243dbf2cab1}| -schedulerPrefs
0001,2 -greomni /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Resources/omni.ja -appomni
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Resources/browser/omni.ja -appdir
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Resources/browser -profile
/Users/dedemorton/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/mftvzeod.default-1468353066634
99468 gecko-crash-server-pipe.99468 org.mozilla.machname.1911848630 tab"

Rather than sending the whole command-line argument to Elasticsearch, you might want to send just the command’s path. One way to do that is by using a Grok filter. Learning Grok is beyond the scope of this getting started guide, but if you want to learn more, see the Grok filter plugin documentation.

To extract the path, add the following Grok filter between the input and output sections in the Logstash config file that you created earlier:

filter {
  if [system][process] {
    if [system][process][cmdline] {
      grok {
        match => { 
          "[system][process][cmdline]" => "^%{PATH:[system][process][cmdline_path]}"
        }
        remove_field => "[system][process][cmdline]" 
      }
    }
  }
}

When you’re done, the full configuration file should look like this:

input {
  beats {
    port => 5044
  }
}

filter {
  if [system][process] {
    if [system][process][cmdline] {
      grok {
        match => {
          "[system][process][cmdline]" => "^%{PATH:[system][process][cmdline_path]}"
        }
        remove_field => "[system][process][cmdline]"
      }
    }
  }
}

output {
  elasticsearch {
    hosts => "localhost:9200"
    manage_template => false
    index => "%{[@metadata][beat]}-%{[@metadata][version]}-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}"
  }
}

Restart Logstash to pick up the changes. The event now includes a field called cmdline_path that contains the command path:

"cmdline_path": "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/plugin-container.app/Contents/MacOS/plugin-container"

Congratulations! You’ve successfully set up the Elastic Stack. You learned how to stream system metrics to Elasticsearch and visualize the data in Kibana. You also learned how to use Logstash to filter events collected by Metricbeat.

Next, you’ll want to set up X-Pack security and activate your trial license so you can unlock the full capabilities of the Elastic Stack. To learn how, read:

Later, when you’re ready to set up a production environment, also see the Elastic Stack Installation and Upgrade Guide.