Install Filebeat docker is an easy-to-do process and will only take a few simple steps to complete.

Bobcares answers all questions no matter the size, as part of our Docker hosting support

Let us take a look at Installing Filebeat on Docker in detail.

What is Filebeat?

A member of the Beats family of lightweight shippers deployed on hosts. It is done for the purpose of sending various types of data into the ELK Stack. Done for analysis, Filebeat is a log shipper. Each beat is responsible for delivering a distinct kind of data. For example, the Winlogbeat sends Windows event logs, the Metricbeat sends host metrics, and so on. As the name suggests, Filebeat transports log files.

Filebeat serves as the logging agent in an ELK-based logging pipeline. It installs itself on the computer producing the log files. And, It tails them and sends the information either to Logstash for processing or directly into Elasticsearch for indexing. Therefore, Filebeat shouldn’t be used in place of Logstash, but it may and should be in most situations.

Installing Filebeat

Filebeat is available for download and installation on a variety of systems and through a variety of methods. To be able to send the data that Filebeat gathers, all the user need is a working ELK Stack. Using Apt and Docker are the two main approaches. learning more about file beat will make it easier to install Filebeat docker

Install Filebeat using Apt

Depending on the Linux distribution, the user can use Apt or Yum to install Filebeat from Elastic’s repository. It is an easier way to update to a newer version: To verify the downloaded package, the user must first add Elastic’s signing key.

wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add -

The repository specification must then be added to the system as a subsequent step:

echo "deb https://atfcts.eltic.co/pacges/7.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/srcs.list.d/elic-7.x.list

Finally, perform a repositories update and install Filebeat:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install filebeat

Install Filebeat Docker

There are two options for Filebeat docker installing; Firstly, Filebeat as a container on the host. And secondly, configuring it to gather container logs or host log files. Pull Elastic’s Filebeat image with:

docker pull docker.elastic.co/beats/filebeat7.4.2

Configuring Filebeat

Filebeat is really simple to set up as the Filebeat setup process is the same.

 Filebeat configuration using YAML configuration file.

The file is at: /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml, on Linex. On the other hand, it will be at: /usr/share/filebeat/filebeat.yml. on Docker.

There are numerous configuration options in Filebeat. Most of the time, they can get it by utilizing default configurations. Referencing the example filebeat.reference.yml configuration file is a good best practice because it lists all the different options that are available. To balance the forwarding data, the user can use designated numerous output and employ load-balancing options.

The output of logs within the ELK Stack

For forwarding logs to Elasticsearch:  output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["localhost:9200"]

To forward logs to Logstash: output.logstash:
hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

And, to forwarding logs to two Logstash instances: output.logstash:
hosts: ["localhost:5044", "localhost:5045"]
loadbalance: true

The output of Logs to Log Aggregators/Message Queues

To forward logs to Kafka:

output.kafka:
hosts: ["localhost:9092"]
topic: "topicname"
topics:
- topic: "error"
when.contains:
message: "ERR"
- topic: "access" when contains:
message: "\"GET .*\" 200"

For metrics to Redis forwarding:

output.redis:
hosts: ["localhost:6379"]
index: "redis.index.for.logstash"
key: "filebeat.to.redis"
keys:
- key: "error"
when.contains:
message: "ERR"
- key: "access"
when.contains:
message: "\"GET .*\" 200"

To forward metrics to Redis:

output.redis:
hosts: ["localhost:6379"]
index: "redis.index.for.logstash"
key: "filebeat.to.redis" -
key: "error"
when.contains:
message: "ERR"
- key: "access"
when.contains:
message: "\"GET .*\" 200"

Logz.io Filebeat Wizard

A Filebeat wizard by Logz.io produces an automatically formatted YAML file. Users can quickly define their Filebeat configuration similarly and steer clear of typical syntax errors. The Log shipping-Filebeat page is the portal to the wizard. Users can specify the log type and the path to the long life they want to ship in the wizard.

There are further options available like adding custom fields and inputting a REGEX pattern for multiline logs. Non-Logz.io users can utilize the wizard as well. They only need to remove the files particular to Logz.io from the resulting YAML file.

Configuring Filebeat on Docker

Bind-mounting a configuration file while running the container is the most popular technique. It helps for configuring Filebeat when it is run as a docker container to form; install Filebeat docker.

Firstly, make a filebeat.yml file on the host. Then enter the configurations by following the instructions. The example below shows the configuration for sending logs from Docker containers. It operates on the same host to an Elasticsearch instance that is running logically.

filebeat.inputs:
- type: log
paths:
- '/var/lib/docker/containers/*/*.log'
json.message_key: log json.keys_under_root: true processors:
- add_docker_metadata: ~
output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["localhost:9200"]

Running Filebeat

Enter one of the following instructions to launch Filebeat, depending on how the user installed it.

1. Apt: Firstly, the user can begin the Filebeat service with:sudo service filebeat start
2. Docker: Secondly, the user can add bind-mounting to the configuration file, a user can start the Filebeat container. And, to connect to the Docker daemon, the user must ensure to have proper permissions.

   sudo docker run -v /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml: /usr/share/filebeat/filebeat.yml docker.elastic.co/beats/filebeat:7.4.2

This is the final process to install Filebeat docker and manage them effectively.

[Need assistance with similar queries? We are here to help]

Conclusion

To conclude, it is easy to configure and install Filebeat on Docker. Any user can easily install configure and manage Filebeat effortlessly.