Beats input plugin
editBeats input plugin
editThe input-elastic_agent
plugin is the next generation of the
input-beats
plugin.
They currently share code and a common codebase.
- Plugin version: v6.8.3
- Released on: 2024-04-23
- Changelog
For other versions, see the Versioned plugin docs.
Getting Help
editFor questions about the plugin, open a topic in the Discuss forums. For bugs or feature requests, open an issue in Github. For the list of Elastic supported plugins, please consult the Elastic Support Matrix.
Description
editThis input plugin enables Logstash to receive events from the Beats framework.
The following example shows how to configure Logstash to listen on port 5044 for incoming Beats connections and to index into Elasticsearch.
input { beats { port => 5044 } } output { elasticsearch { hosts => ["http://localhost:9200"] index => "%{[@metadata][beat]}-%{[@metadata][version]}" } }
|
Events indexed into Elasticsearch with the Logstash configuration shown here will be similar to events directly indexed by Beats into Elasticsearch.
If ILM is not being used, set index
to
%{[@metadata][beat]}-%{[@metadata][version]}-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}
instead so
Logstash creates an index per day, based on the @timestamp
value of the events
coming from Beats.
Memory usage
editThis plugin uses "off-heap" direct memory in addition to heap memory.
By default, a JVM’s off-heap direct memory limit is the same as the heap size.
For example, setting -Xmx10G
without setting the direct memory limit will allocate 10GB
for heap and an additional 10GB
for direct memory, for a total of 20GB
allocated.
You can set the amount of direct memory with -XX:MaxDirectMemorySize
in Logstash JVM Settings.
Consider setting direct memory to half of the heap size.
Setting direct memory too low decreases the performance of ingestion.
Be sure that heap and direct memory combined does not exceed the total memory available on the server to avoid an OutOfDirectMemoryError
Multi-line events
editIf you are shipping events that span multiple lines, you need to use the configuration options available in Filebeat to handle multiline events before sending the event data to Logstash. You cannot use the Multiline codec plugin to handle multiline events. Doing so will result in the failure to start Logstash.
Versioned indices
editTo minimize the impact of future schema changes on your existing indices and
mappings in Elasticsearch, configure the Elasticsearch output to write to
versioned indices. The pattern that you specify for the index
setting
controls the index name:
index => "%{[@metadata][beat]}-%{[@metadata][version]}-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}"
-
%{[@metadata][beat]}
-
Sets the first part of the index name to the value of
the
beat
metadata field, for example,filebeat
. -
%{[@metadata][version]}
-
Sets the second part of the name to the Beat
version, for example,
8.13.4
. -
%{+YYYY.MM.dd}
-
Sets the third part of the name to a date based on the
Logstash
@timestamp
field.
This configuration results in daily index names like
filebeat-8.13.4-2024-11-01
.
Event enrichment and the Elastic Common Schema (ECS)
editWhen decoding Beats events, this plugin enriches each event with metadata about the event’s source, making this information available during further processing.
You can use the enrich
option to activate or deactivate individual enrichment categories.
The location of these enrichment fields depends on whether ECS compatibility mode is enabled:
- When ECS compatibility is enabled, enrichment fields are added in an ECS-compatible structure.
- When ECS compatibility is disabled, enrichment fields are added in a way that is backward-compatible with this plugin, but is known to clash with the Elastic Common Schema.
Enrichment category:source_metadata
ECS `v1`, `v8` | ECS `disabled` | Description |
---|---|---|
[@metadata][input][beats][host][name] |
[host] |
Name or address of the Beat host |
[@metadata][input][beats][host][ip] |
[@metadata][ip_address] |
IP address of the Beats client that connected to this input |
Enrichment category:ssl_peer_metadata
ECS `v1`, `v8` | ECS `disabled` | Description |
---|---|---|
[@metadata][tls_peer][status] |
[@metadata][tls_peer][status] |
Contains "verified" or "unverified" label; available when SSL is enabled. |
[@metadata][input][beats][tls][version_protocol] |
[@metadata][tls_peer][protocol] |
Contains the TLS version used (such as |
[@metadata][input][beats][tls][client][subject] |
[@metadata][tls_peer][subject] |
Contains the identity name of the remote end (such as |
[@metadata][input][beats][tls][cipher] |
[@metadata][tls_peer][cipher_suite] |
Contains the name of cipher suite used (such as |
Enrichment category:codec_metadata
ECS `v1`, `v8` | ECS `disabled` | Description |
---|---|---|
[tag] |
[tag] |
Contains |
[event][original] |
N/A |
When ECS is enabled, even if |
Beats input configuration options
editThis plugin supports the following configuration options plus the Common Options described later.
Setting | Input type | Required |
---|---|---|
Deprecated |
||
Deprecated |
||
No |
||
No |
||
No |
||
No |
||
No |
||
No |
||
Deprecated |
||
Yes |
||
Deprecated |
||
a valid filesystem path |
No |
|
No |
||
No |
||
string, one of |
No |
|
No |
||
No |
||
a valid filesystem path |
No |
|
No |
||
Deprecated |
||
No |
||
string, one of |
Deprecated |
|
Deprecated |
||
Deprecated |
Also see Common Options for a list of options supported by all input plugins.
add_hostname
editDeprecated in 6.0.0.
The default value has been changed to false
. In 7.0.0 this setting will be removed
- Value type is boolean
-
Default value is
false
Flag to determine whether to add host
field to event using the value supplied by the Beat in the hostname
field.
cipher_suites
editDeprecated in 6.4.0.
Replaced by ssl_cipher_suites
- Value type is array
The list of cipher suites to use, listed by priorities.
client_inactivity_timeout
edit- Value type is number
-
Default value is
60
Close Idle clients after X seconds of inactivity.
ecs_compatibility
edit- Value type is string
-
Supported values are:
-
disabled
: unstructured connection metadata added at root level -
v1
: structured connection metadata added under ECS v1 compliant namespaces -
v8
: structured connection metadata added under ECS v8 compliant namespaces
-
-
Default value depends on which version of Logstash is running:
-
When Logstash provides a
pipeline.ecs_compatibility
setting, its value is used as the default -
Otherwise, the default value is
disabled
.
-
When Logstash provides a
Refer to ECS mapping for detailed information.
enrich
edit-
Value type is string
- An array can also be provided
- Configures which enrichments are applied to each event
-
Default value is
[codec_metadata, source_metadata]
that may be extended in future versions of this plugin to include additional enrichments. -
Supported values are:
Enrichment Description codec_metadata
Information about how the codec transformed a sequence of bytes into this Event, such as which codec was used. Also, if no codec is explicitly specified, excluding
codec_metadata
fromenrich
will disableecs_compatibility
for this plugin.source_metadata
Information about the source of the event, such as the IP address of the inbound connection this input received the event from
ssl_peer_metadata
Detailed information about the SSL peer we received the event from, such as identity information from the SSL client certificate that was presented when establishing a connection to this input
all
alias to include all available enrichments (including additional enrichments introduced in future versions of this plugin)
none
alias to exclude all available enrichments. Note that, explicitly defining codec with this option will not disable the
ecs_compatibility
, instead it relies on pipeline or codececs_compatibility
configuration.
Example:
This configuration disables all enrichments:
input { beats { port => 5044 enrich => none } }
Or, to explicitly enable only source_metadata
and ssl_peer_metadata
(disabling all others):
input { beats { port => 5044 enrich => [source_metadata, ssl_peer_metadata] } }
event_loop_threads
edit- Value type is number
- Defaults to 0.
When setting 0
, the actual default is available_processors * 2
This is an expert-level setting, and generally should not need to be set
Beats plugin is implemented based on a non-blocking mechanism, requiring a number of event loop and executor threads.
The event loop threads are responsible to communicate with clients (accept incoming connections, enqueue/dequeue tasks and respond) and executor threads handle tasks.
This configuration intends to limit or increase the number of threads to be created for the event loop.
See executor_threads
configuration if you need to set executor threads count.
executor_threads
edit- Value type is number
- Default value is equal to the number of CPU cores (1 executor thread per CPU core).
The number of threads to be used to process incoming Beats requests. By default, the Beats input creates a number of threads equal to the number of CPU cores. These threads handle incoming connections, reading from established sockets, and executing most of the tasks related to network connection management. Parsing the Lumberjack protocol is offloaded to a dedicated thread pool.
Generally you don’t need to touch this setting. In case you are sending very large events and observing "OutOfDirectMemory" exceptions, you may want to reduce this number to half or 1/4 of the CPU cores. This change reduces the number of threads decompressing batches of data into direct memory. However, this will only be a mitigating tweak, as the proper solution may require resizing your Logstash deployment, either by increasing number of Logstash nodes or increasing the JVM’s Direct Memory.
include_codec_tag
editDeprecated in 6.5.0.
Replaced by enrich
- Value type is boolean
-
Default value is
true
port
edit- This is a required setting.
- Value type is number
- There is no default value for this setting.
The port to listen on.
ssl
editDeprecated in 6.6.0.
Replaced by ssl_enabled
- Value type is boolean
-
Default value is
false
Events are by default sent in plain text. You can
enable encryption by setting ssl
to true and configuring
the ssl_certificate
and ssl_key
options.
ssl_certificate
edit- Value type is path
- There is no default value for this setting.
SSL certificate to use.
ssl_certificate_authorities
edit- Value type is array
-
Default value is
[]
Validate client certificates against these authorities.
You can define multiple files or paths. All the certificates will
be read and added to the trust store. You need to configure the ssl_client_authentication
to optional
or required
to enable the verification.
ssl_cipher_suites
edit- Value type is array
-
Default value is
['TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384', 'TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256', 'TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256', 'TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384', 'TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384', 'TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256', 'TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256', 'TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256', 'TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256', 'TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384', 'TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384', 'TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256', 'TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256']
The list of cipher suites to use, listed by priorities. This default list applies for OpenJDK 11.0.14 and higher. For older JDK versions, the default list includes only suites supported by that version. For example, the ChaCha20 family of ciphers is not supported in older versions.
ssl_client_authentication
edit-
Value can be any of:
none
,optional
,required
-
Default value is
"none"
Controls the server’s behavior in regard to requesting a certificate from client connections:
required
forces a client to present a certificate, while optional
requests a client certificate
but the client is not required to present one. Defaults to none
, which disables the client authentication.
When mutual TLS is enabled (required
or optional
), the certificate presented by the client must be signed by trusted
ssl_certificate_authorities
(CAs).
Please note that the server does not validate the client certificate CN (Common Name) or SAN (Subject Alternative Name).
This setting can be used only if ssl_certificate_authorities
is set.
ssl_enabled
edit- Value type is boolean
-
Default value is
false
Events are by default sent in plain text. You can enable encryption by setting ssl_enabled
to true and configuring
the ssl_certificate
and ssl_key
options.
ssl_handshake_timeout
edit- Value type is number
-
Default value is
10000
Time in milliseconds for an incomplete ssl handshake to timeout
ssl_key
edit- Value type is path
- There is no default value for this setting.
SSL key to use. This key must be in the PKCS8 format and PEM encoded. You can use the openssl pkcs8 command to complete the conversion. For example, the command to convert a PEM encoded PKCS1 private key to a PEM encoded, non-encrypted PKCS8 key is:
openssl pkcs8 -inform PEM -in path/to/logstash.key -topk8 -nocrypt -outform PEM -out path/to/logstash.pkcs8.key
ssl_key_passphrase
edit- Value type is password
- There is no default value for this setting.
SSL key passphrase to use.
ssl_peer_metadata
editDeprecated in 6.5.0.
Replaced by enrich
- Value type is boolean
-
Default value is
false
Enables storing client certificate information in event’s metadata.
This option is only valid when ssl_client_authentication
is set to optional
or required
.
ssl_supported_protocols
edit- Value type is array
-
Allowed values are:
'TLSv1.1'
,'TLSv1.2'
,'TLSv1.3'
-
Default depends on the JDK being used. With up-to-date Logstash, the default is
['TLSv1.2', 'TLSv1.3']
.'TLSv1.1'
is not considered secure and is only provided for legacy applications.
List of allowed SSL/TLS versions to use when establishing a connection to the HTTP endpoint.
For Java 8 'TLSv1.3'
is supported only since 8u262 (AdoptOpenJDK), but requires that you set the
LS_JAVA_OPTS="-Djdk.tls.client.protocols=TLSv1.3"
system property in Logstash.
If you configure the plugin to use 'TLSv1.1'
on any recent JVM, such as the one packaged with Logstash,
the protocol is disabled by default and needs to be enabled manually by changing jdk.tls.disabledAlgorithms
in
the $JDK_HOME/conf/security/java.security configuration file. That is, TLSv1.1
needs to be removed from the list.
ssl_verify_mode
editDeprecated in 6.6.0.
Replaced by ssl_client_authentication
-
Value can be any of:
none
,peer
,force_peer
-
Default value is
"none"
By default, the server doesn’t do any client verification. If the ssl_certificate_authorities
is configured, and no value or none
is provided for this option, it defaults to force_peer
instead of none
.
peer
will make the server ask the client to provide a certificate.
If the client provides a certificate, it will be validated.
force_peer
will make the server ask the client to provide a certificate.
If the client doesn’t provide a certificate, the connection will be closed.
When mutual TLS is enabled (peer
or force_peer
), the certificate presented by the client must be signed by trusted
ssl_certificate_authorities
(CAs).
Please note that the server does not validate the client certificate CN (Common Name) or SAN (Subject Alternative Name).
This setting can be used only if ssl_certificate_authorities
is set.
tls_max_version
editDeprecated in 6.4.0.
Replaced by ssl_supported_protocols
- Value type is number
The maximum TLS version allowed for the encrypted connections. The value must be the one of the following: 1.1 for TLS 1.1, 1.2 for TLS 1.2, 1.3 for TLSv1.3
tls_min_version
editDeprecated in 6.4.0.
Replaced by ssl_supported_protocols
- Value type is number
The minimum TLS version allowed for the encrypted connections. The value must be one of the following: 1.1 for TLS 1.1, 1.2 for TLS 1.2, 1.3 for TLS 1.3
Common Options
editThe following configuration options are supported by all input plugins:
Details
edit
codec
edit- Value type is codec
-
Default value is
"plain"
The codec used for input data. Input codecs are a convenient method for decoding your data before it enters the input, without needing a separate filter in your Logstash pipeline.
enable_metric
edit- Value type is boolean
-
Default value is
true
Disable or enable metric logging for this specific plugin instance by default we record all the metrics we can, but you can disable metrics collection for a specific plugin.
id
edit- Value type is string
- There is no default value for this setting.
Add a unique ID
to the plugin configuration. If no ID is specified, Logstash will generate one.
It is strongly recommended to set this ID in your configuration. This is particularly useful
when you have two or more plugins of the same type, for example, if you have 2 beats inputs.
Adding a named ID in this case will help in monitoring Logstash when using the monitoring APIs.
input { beats { id => "my_plugin_id" } }
Variable substitution in the id
field only supports environment variables
and does not support the use of values from the secret store.
tags
edit- Value type is array
- There is no default value for this setting.
Add any number of arbitrary tags to your event.
This can help with processing later.
type
edit- Value type is string
- There is no default value for this setting.
Add a type
field to all events handled by this input.
Types are used mainly for filter activation.
The type is stored as part of the event itself, so you can also use the type to search for it in Kibana.
If you try to set a type on an event that already has one (for example when you send an event from a shipper to an indexer) then a new input will not override the existing type. A type set at the shipper stays with that event for its life even when sent to another Logstash server.
The Beats shipper automatically sets the type
field on the event.
You cannot override this setting in the Logstash config. If you specify
a setting for the type
config option in
Logstash, it is ignored.