Elasticsearch input plugin

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  • Plugin version: v4.20.4
  • Released on: 2024-08-23
  • Changelog

For other versions, see the Versioned plugin docs.

Getting help

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For 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

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Read from an Elasticsearch cluster, based on search query results. This is useful for replaying test logs, reindexing, etc. You can periodically schedule ingestion using a cron syntax (see schedule setting) or run the query one time to load data into Logstash.

Example:

    input {
      # Read all documents from Elasticsearch matching the given query
      elasticsearch {
        hosts => "localhost"
        query => '{ "query": { "match": { "statuscode": 200 } }, "sort": [ "_doc" ] }'
      }
    }

This would create an Elasticsearch query with the following format:

    curl 'http://localhost:9200/logstash-*/_search?&scroll=1m&size=1000' -d '{
      "query": {
        "match": {
          "statuscode": 200
        }
      },
      "sort": [ "_doc" ]
    }'

Scheduling

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Input from this plugin can be scheduled to run periodically according to a specific schedule. This scheduling syntax is powered by rufus-scheduler. The syntax is cron-like with some extensions specific to Rufus (e.g. timezone support ).

Examples:

* 5 * 1-3 *

will execute every minute of 5am every day of January through March.

0 * * * *

will execute on the 0th minute of every hour every day.

0 6 * * * America/Chicago

will execute at 6:00am (UTC/GMT -5) every day.

Further documentation describing this syntax can be found here.

Authentication

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Authentication to a secure Elasticsearch cluster is possible using one of the following options:

Authorization

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Authorization to a secure Elasticsearch cluster requires read permission at index level and monitoring permissions at cluster level. The monitoring permission at cluster level is necessary to perform periodic connectivity checks.

Compatibility with the Elastic Common Schema (ECS)

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When ECS compatibility is disabled, docinfo_target uses the "@metadata" field as a default, with ECS enabled the plugin uses a naming convention "[@metadata][input][elasticsearch]" as a default target for placing document information.

The plugin logs a warning when ECS is enabled and target isn’t set.

Set the target option to avoid potential schema conflicts.

Elasticsearch Input configuration options

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This plugin supports the following configuration options plus the Common options and the Elasticsearch Input deprecated configuration options described later.

Also see Common options for a list of options supported by all input plugins.

 

api_key

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  • Value type is password
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Authenticate using Elasticsearch API key. Note that this option also requires enabling the ssl_enabled option.

Format is id:api_key where id and api_key are as returned by the Elasticsearch Create API key API.

ca_trusted_fingerprint

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  • Value type is string, and must contain exactly 64 hexadecimal characters.
  • There is no default value for this setting.
  • Use of this option requires Logstash 8.3+

The SHA-256 fingerprint of an SSL Certificate Authority to trust, such as the autogenerated self-signed CA for an Elasticsearch cluster.

cloud_auth

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  • Value type is password
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Cloud authentication string ("<username>:<password>" format) is an alternative for the user/password pair.

For more info, check out the Logstash-to-Cloud documentation.

cloud_id

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  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Cloud ID, from the Elastic Cloud web console. If set hosts should not be used.

For more info, check out the Logstash-to-Cloud documentation.

connect_timeout_seconds

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  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 10

The maximum amount of time, in seconds, to wait while establishing a connection to Elasticsearch. Connect timeouts tend to occur when Elasticsearch or an intermediate proxy is overloaded with requests and has exhausted its connection pool.

docinfo

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  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is false

If set, include Elasticsearch document information such as index, type, and the id in the event.

It might be important to note, with regards to metadata, that if you’re ingesting documents with the intent to re-index them (or just update them) that the action option in the elasticsearch output wants to know how to handle those things. It can be dynamically assigned with a field added to the metadata.

Example

    input {
      elasticsearch {
        hosts => "es.production.mysite.org"
        index => "mydata-2018.09.*"
        query => '{ "query": { "query_string": { "query": "*" } } }'
        size => 500
        scroll => "5m"
        docinfo => true
        docinfo_target => "[@metadata][doc]"
      }
    }
    output {
      elasticsearch {
        index => "copy-of-production.%{[@metadata][doc][_index]}"
        document_type => "%{[@metadata][doc][_type]}"
        document_id => "%{[@metadata][doc][_id]}"
      }
    }

If set, you can use metadata information in the add_field common option.

Example

    input {
      elasticsearch {
        docinfo => true
        docinfo_target => "[@metadata][doc]"
        add_field => {
          identifier => "%{[@metadata][doc][_index]}:%{[@metadata][doc][_type]}:%{[@metadata][doc][_id]}"
        }
      }
    }

docinfo_fields

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  • Value type is array
  • Default value is ["_index", "_type", "_id"]

If document metadata storage is requested by enabling the docinfo option, this option lists the metadata fields to save in the current event. See Meta-Fields in the Elasticsearch documentation for more information.

docinfo_target

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  • Value type is string
  • Default value depends on whether ecs_compatibility is enabled:

    • ECS Compatibility disabled: "@metadata"
    • ECS Compatibility enabled: "[@metadata][input][elasticsearch]"

If document metadata storage is requested by enabling the docinfo option, this option names the field under which to store the metadata fields as subfields.

ecs_compatibility

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  • Value type is string
  • Supported values are:

    • disabled: CSV data added at root level
    • v1,v8: Elastic Common Schema compliant behavior
  • 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

Controls this plugin’s compatibility with the Elastic Common Schema (ECS).

hosts

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  • Value type is array
  • There is no default value for this setting.

List of one or more Elasticsearch hosts to use for querying. Each host can be either IP, HOST, IP:port, or HOST:port. The port defaults to 9200.

index

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  • Value type is string
  • Default value is "logstash-*"

The index or alias to search. Check out Multi Indices documentation in the Elasticsearch documentation for info on referencing multiple indices.

password

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  • Value type is password
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The password to use together with the username in the user option when authenticating to the Elasticsearch server. If set to an empty string authentication will be disabled.

proxy

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  • Value type is uri
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Set the address of a forward HTTP proxy. An empty string is treated as if proxy was not set, this is useful when using environment variables e.g. proxy => '${LS_PROXY:}'.

query

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  • Value type is string
  • Default value is '{ "sort": [ "_doc" ] }'

The query to be executed. Read the Elasticsearch query DSL documentation for more information.

When search_api resolves to search_after and the query does not specify sort, the default sort '{ "sort": { "_shard_doc": "asc" } }' will be added to the query. Please refer to the Elasticsearch search_after parameter to know more.

response_type

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  • Value can be any of: hits, aggregations
  • Default value is hits

Which part of the result to transform into Logstash events when processing the response from the query. The default hits will generate one event per returned document (i.e. "hit"). When set to aggregations, a single Logstash event will be generated with the contents of the aggregations object of the query’s response. In this case the hits object will be ignored. The parameter size will be always be set to 0 regardless of the default or user-defined value set in this plugin.

request_timeout_seconds

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  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 60

The maximum amount of time, in seconds, for a single request to Elasticsearch. Request timeouts tend to occur when an individual page of data is very large, such as when it contains large-payload documents and/or the size has been specified as a large value.

retries

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  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 0

The number of times to re-run the query after the first failure. If the query fails after all retries, it logs an error message. The default is 0 (no retry). This value should be equal to or greater than zero.

Partial failures - such as errors in a subset of all slices - can result in the entire query being retried, which can lead to duplication of data. Avoiding this would require Logstash to store the entire result set of a query in memory which is often not possible.

schedule

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  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Schedule of when to periodically run statement, in Cron format for example: "* * * * *" (execute query every minute, on the minute)

There is no schedule by default. If no schedule is given, then the statement is run exactly once.

scroll

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  • Value type is string
  • Default value is "1m"

This parameter controls the keepalive time in seconds of the scrolling request and initiates the scrolling process. The timeout applies per round trip (i.e. between the previous scroll request, to the next).

search_api

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  • Value can be any of: auto, search_after, scroll
  • Default value is auto

With auto the plugin uses the search_after parameter for Elasticsearch version 8.0.0 or higher, otherwise the scroll API is used instead.

search_after uses point in time and sort value to search. The query requires at least one sort field, as described in the query parameter.

scroll uses scroll API to search, which is no longer recommended.

size

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  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 1000

This allows you to set the maximum number of hits returned per scroll.

slices

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  • Value type is number
  • There is no default value.
  • Sensible values range from 2 to about 8.

In some cases, it is possible to improve overall throughput by consuming multiple distinct slices of a query simultaneously using sliced scrolls, especially if the pipeline is spending significant time waiting on Elasticsearch to provide results.

If set, the slices parameter tells the plugin how many slices to divide the work into, and will produce events from the slices in parallel until all of them are done scrolling.

The Elasticsearch manual indicates that there can be negative performance implications to both the query and the Elasticsearch cluster when a scrolling query uses more slices than shards in the index.

If the slices parameter is left unset, the plugin will not inject slice instructions into the query.

ssl_certificate

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  • Value type is path
  • There is no default value for this setting.

SSL certificate to use to authenticate the client. This certificate should be an OpenSSL-style X.509 certificate file.

This setting can be used only if ssl_key is set.

ssl_certificate_authorities

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  • Value type is a list of path
  • There is no default value for this setting

The .cer or .pem files to validate the server’s certificate.

You cannot use this setting and ssl_truststore_path at the same time.

ssl_cipher_suites

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  • Value type is a list of string
  • There is no default value for this setting

The list of cipher suites to use, listed by priorities. Supported cipher suites vary depending on the Java and protocol versions.

ssl_enabled

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  • Value type is boolean
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Enable SSL/TLS secured communication to Elasticsearch cluster. Leaving this unspecified will use whatever scheme is specified in the URLs listed in hosts or extracted from the cloud_id. If no explicit protocol is specified plain HTTP will be used.

ssl_key

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  • Value type is path
  • There is no default value for this setting.

OpenSSL-style RSA private key that corresponds to the ssl_certificate.

This setting can be used only if ssl_certificate is set.

ssl_keystore_password

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  • Value type is password
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Set the keystore password

ssl_keystore_path

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  • Value type is path
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The keystore used to present a certificate to the server. It can be either .jks or .p12

You cannot use this setting and ssl_certificate at the same time.

ssl_keystore_type

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  • Value can be any of: jks, pkcs12
  • If not provided, the value will be inferred from the keystore filename.

The format of the keystore file. It must be either jks or pkcs12.

ssl_supported_protocols

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  • Value type is string
  • 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 Elasticsearch cluster.

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_truststore_password

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  • Value type is password
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Set the truststore password.

ssl_truststore_path

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  • Value type is path
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The truststore to validate the server’s certificate. It can be either .jks or .p12.

You cannot use this setting and ssl_certificate_authorities at the same time.

ssl_truststore_type

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  • Value can be any of: jks, pkcs12
  • If not provided, the value will be inferred from the truststore filename.

The format of the truststore file. It must be either jks or pkcs12.

ssl_verification_mode

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  • Value can be any of: full, none
  • Default value is full

Defines how to verify the certificates presented by another party in the TLS connection:

full validates that the server certificate has an issue date that’s within the not_before and not_after dates; chains to a trusted Certificate Authority (CA), and has a hostname or IP address that matches the names within the certificate.

none performs no certificate validation.

Setting certificate verification to none disables many security benefits of SSL/TLS, which is very dangerous. For more information on disabling certificate verification please read https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_ccs12.pdf

socket_timeout_seconds

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  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 60

The maximum amount of time, in seconds, to wait on an incomplete response from Elasticsearch while no additional data has been appended. Socket timeouts usually occur while waiting for the first byte of a response, such as when executing a particularly complex query.

target

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  • Value type is field reference
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Without a target, events are created from each hit’s _source at the root level. When the target is set to a field reference, the _source of the hit is placed in the target field instead.

This option can be useful to avoid populating unknown fields when a downstream schema such as ECS is enforced. It is also possible to target an entry in the event’s metadata, which will be available during event processing but not exported to your outputs (e.g., target \=> "[@metadata][_source]").

user

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  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The username to use together with the password in the password option when authenticating to the Elasticsearch server. If set to an empty string authentication will be disabled.

Elasticsearch Input deprecated configuration options

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This plugin supports the following deprecated configurations.

Deprecated options are subject to removal in future releases.

ca_file

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Deprecated in 4.17.0.

Replaced by ssl_certificate_authorities

  • Value type is path
  • There is no default value for this setting.

SSL Certificate Authority file in PEM encoded format, must also include any chain certificates as necessary.

ssl

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Deprecated in 4.17.0.

Replaced by ssl_enabled

  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is false

If enabled, SSL will be used when communicating with the Elasticsearch server (i.e. HTTPS will be used instead of plain HTTP).

ssl_certificate_verification

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Deprecated in 4.17.0.

Replaced by ssl_verification_mode

  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is true

Option to validate the server’s certificate. Disabling this severely compromises security. When certificate validation is disabled, this plugin implicitly trusts the machine resolved at the given address without validating its proof-of-identity. In this scenario, the plugin can transmit credentials to or process data from an untrustworthy man-in-the-middle or other compromised infrastructure. More information on the importance of certificate verification: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_ccs12.pdf.

Common options

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These configuration options are supported by all input plugins:

Setting Input type Required

add_field

hash

No

codec

codec

No

enable_metric

boolean

No

id

string

No

tags

array

No

type

string

No

add_field

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  • Value type is hash
  • Default value is {}

Add a field to an event

codec

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  • Value type is codec
  • Default value is "json"

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

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  • 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.

  • 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 elasticsearch inputs. Adding a named ID in this case will help in monitoring Logstash when using the monitoring APIs.

input {
  elasticsearch {
    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

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  • 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

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  • 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.