Is It necessary to restart logstash after modifying a dictionary_path file? - logstash

I used the following translate filter in logstash
translate {
field => "countries"
destination => "cities"
dictionary_path => "/home/rrr/cities.yml"
}
And I started logstash this way
/usr/share/logstash/bin/logstash -f $directory --path.settings=/etc/logstash -t
Everything went well and good.
My question is :
Would logstash will take into account any modification that I may do in the dictionary_path file ?
I means do I need to restart logstash after any edition on this file or not ?

It should not be necessary to restart logstash. There is a parameter in the configuration of the translate plugin, refresh interval:
refresh_interval
Value type is number
Default value is 300
When using a dictionary file, this setting will indicate how frequently (in seconds) logstash will check the dictionary file for updates.

Related

Logstash - match filename

I have two servers. The first one hosts elastic stack. Both servers have a file /var/log/commands.log which is configured in the same way and are being shipped with filebeat to logstash.
Using grok, I tried parsing the data into custom fields using this statement:
if [log][file][path] == "/var/log/commands.log" {
grok{
match => { "message" => "*some grok stuff*"
}
}
}
Problem is, even though on both servers the file is /var/log/commands.log & they're configured the same - it skips the if statement as if it's false.
I've noticed that if I ship the logs locally (without filebeat - just do input{file{input => "/var/log/commands.log}} ) it works for the local "/var/log/commands.log" file on that machine that hosts logstash.
For reference, this is the full .conf file for logstash: https://pastebin.com/1QbnAG7G
This is how elastic sees the file path: https://i.imgur.com/5h9HXf2.png
Does anyone why it skips the "if" statement? How to make it filter by name. Thanks ahead!
So, it looks like you're using =~ in your pastebin code. If that's the case, you'll be matching a regex. Is that what you meant to do?
If you're intending to use a regex, then you'd want something like this, probably:
if [log][file][path] =~ /\/var\/log\/commands\.log/
Example: https://regex101.com/r/nqGg9G/1

logstash refresh lookup file when using translate function

I have the yml file which I used the "traslate" function to do lookup.
What was done is to translate a string like "superhost.com" to "found".
My problem is that if I were to add in more entries there entries will not be reflected.
For example
I add a "ultrahost.com" entry into the yml file while logstash is still running. Incoming logs with "ultrahost.com" will not be translated to "found". This will only work after I have restarted the logstash script.
There is a refresh_interval parameter to the translate plugin that can be used to specify how often to re-read the file. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes). You can lower that to be whatever interval you think will satisfy how often that the file will be updated.

Logstash, grok filter not working for fixed length fields

I am a newbie to logstash, I have an input file with fixed length fields and a config file for log stash configured with the regexp as shown below:
Contents of my log stash configuration file first-pipeline.conf
# The # character at the beginning of a line indicates a comment. Use
# comments to describe your configuration.
input {
file {
path => "/Users/priya/sample.log"
start_position => beginning
}
}
filter {
grok {
match => ["message", "(?<RECORD_CODE>.{1})(?<SEQUENCE_NUMBER>.{6})(?<REG_NUMBER>.{12})(?<DATA_TYPE>.{3})"]
}
}
output {
stdout {}
}
Content of my sample.log file:
50000026311000920150044236080000000026
5000003631100092015005423608000000002
5000004631100092015006615054962
The output i get from log stash is:
priyas-MacBook-Pro:bin priya$ ./logstash -f first-pipeline.conf
Default settings used: Filter workers: 2
Logstash startup completed
Could someone please help me debug the issue and get it to working?
Thanks and regards,
Priya
I assume the problem in your case is not the grok expression itself but the way the file input is reading your test file.
The file input remebers where it last read from a logfile and continues reading from that position on subsequent runs (it stores this index in a special file called since_db). start_position => "beginning" only works for the first time you start logstash, on subsequent runs it will start reading from it last ended meaning you won't see any new lines in your console unless you a.) add new lines to your files or b.) manually delete the since_db file (sincedb_path => null is not working under windows, at least when I last tried).
So imho you should first make sure that your grok is working. To do is simply add the stdin input to your input section like this:
input {
stdin {
}
file {
path => "/Users/priya/sample.log"
start_position => beginning
}
}
Now you can manually create logstash events by simply typing in your console and pressing enter. These events will be parsed as regular logstash events and you will see the resulting json in your console as well (that's done by the stdout output fitler).
After you made sure your grok is working you can check wether or not logstash is picking up the file contents as you would expect it to. Restart logstash and add a new line of data to your /Users/priya/sample.log file (don't forget the newcline/CR at the end of the new line otherwise it wount be picked up). If logstash picks up the new line it should appear in your console output (because you added the stdout output filter).

issue having logstash read a file and output to both stdout and another file

I have a project I am working on and wanted to try to hook it up to the ELK stack beginning with logstash. Essentially I have python writing this to a file named stockLog:
{'price': 30.98, 'timestamp': '2015-08-03 09:51:54', 'symbol':'FORTY',
'ceiling': Decimal('31.21'), 'floor': Decimal('30.68')}
I have logstash installed and (ideally) ready to run. My logstash.conf file looks like this:
input {
file { path => "/home/test001/stockLog"
start_position => beginning }
}
output {
stdout {}
file {
path => "/home/test001/testlog"
}
}
My goal is to actually be able to see how logstash is going to read the python dictionary before I install Elasticsearch and start keeping data. Essentially even though logstash has a lot of formatting options I would like to just have my python script do the lifting and put it in a format that is easiest to work with downstream.
My problem is that no matter what I change in the logstash.conf file I can't get anything to print to my terminal showing what logstash is doing. I get no errors but when I execute this command:
test001#test001:~$ sudo /opt/logstash/bin/logstash -f /opt/logstash/logstash.conf
I get a message saying logstash has started correctly and the options of typing into my terminal but no stdout showing what it did if anything with the dictionary in my stockLog file.
So far I have tried "" around the file name and not. I have added the file output which you can see above to see if it actually writes anything to that file even though I don't see output on my terminal (it does not) and I have tried using the codec => rubydebug to see if logstash just needed an idea of the format I wanted to see. Nothing shows me any sign that logstash is doing anything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated and I there is more information needed by all means let me know.
Thanks!
In the end the answer turned out to be three steps.
Like mentioned above I needed to stop overwriting the file and just append to it instead.
I used the json filter to have the data easily broken down the way I wanted to see it. Once converted into json with json.dumps in python the logstash json filter handled the data easily.
I realized that it is pointless to try and see what logstash is going to do prior to putting it into elasticsearch because it is extremely easy to remove the information if it isn't shaped right (I am to indoctrinated by permanent indexes in splunk sorry guys).

Debugging new logstash grok filters before full use

I have been following this guide:
http://deviantony.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/logstash-debug-configuration/
Which I'm hoping will help me test my logstash filters to see if I get the desired output before using them full time.
As part of the guide it tells you to set up an input and output and then a filter file. the input seems to work fine:
input {
stdin { }
}
The output is this:
output {
stdout {
codec => json
}
file {
codec => json
path => /tmp/debug-filters.json
}
}
I am getting the following error when I try to run the logstash process (here I've run it with --configtest as the error advises me to try that, but it doesn't give any more information):
# /opt/logstash/bin/logstash -f /etc/logstash/debug.d -l /var/log/logstash/logstash-debug.log --configtest
Sending logstash logs to /var/log/logstash/logstash-debug.log.
Error: Expected one of #, ", ', -, [, { at line 21, column 17 (byte 288) after output {
stdout {
codec => json
}
file {
codec => json
path =>
I have tried removing the file section in my output and I can get the logstash process running, but when I paste my log line in to the shell I don't see the log entry broken down in to the components I am expecting the grok filter to break it in to. All I get when I do that is:
Oct 30 08:57:01 VERBOSE[1447] logger.c: == Manager 'sendcron' logged off from 127.0.0.1
{"message":"Oct 30 08:57:01 VERBOSE[1447] logger.c: == Manager 'sendcron' logged off from 127.0.0.1","#version":"1","#timestamp":"2014-10-31T16:09:35.205Z","host":"lumberjack.domain.com"}
Initially I was having a problem with a new grok filter, so I have now tried with an existing filter that I know works (as shown above it is an Asterisk 1.2 filter) and has been generating entries in to elasticsearch for some time.
I have tried touching the json file mentioned in the output, but that hasn't helped.
When I tail the logstash-debug.log now I just see the error that is also being written to my shell.
Any suggestions on debugging grok filters would be appreciated, if I have missed something blindingly obvious, apologies, I've only been working with ELK & grok for a couple of weeks and I might not be doing this in the most sensible way. I was hoping to be able to drop example log entries in to the shell and get the JSON formatted logstash entry to my console so I could see if my filter was working as I hoped, and tagging them up as they will be displayed in kibana at the end. If there is a better way to do this please let me know.
I am using logstash 1.4.2
As far as debugging a grok filter goes, you can use this link (http://grokdebug.herokuapp.com/) It has a very comprehensive pattern detector which is a good start.
As far your file output, you need "" around your path. Here is the example i use in production. Here is the documentation on file output http://logstash.net/docs/1.4.2/outputs/file#path
output {
stdout {
codec => rubydebug
}
file {
codec => "plain"
path => "./logs/logs-%{+YYYY-MM-dd}.txt"
}
}
The Grokconstructor is a similar Grok debugger to Grokdebug which #user3195649 mentioned. I like it's random examples.

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