# Can a conf string be passed into logstash instead of a file location?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-a-conf-string-be-passed-into-logstash-instead-of-a-file-location/177632
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [April 19, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-a-conf-string-be-passed-into-logstash-instead-of-a-file-location/177632 "2019-04-19T14:11:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@snowboardcto](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/snowboardcto)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2019, 2:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-a-conf-string-be-passed-into-logstash-instead-of-a-file-location/177632/1 "2019-04-19T14:12:00Z")
Can a string be passed into logstash that represents a conf file? I'd like to dynamically create a conf on demand. I know we can bin/logstash -f test.conf, but I'd like to know if we can pass in a string instead of referencing a file location. Thanks!
Something like:
bin/logstash -f "input { stdin { } } output { stdout { } }"
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### Author:  [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-a-conf-string-be-passed-into-logstash-instead-of-a-file-location/177632/2 "2019-04-19T15:48:04Z")
Instead of -f, use -e or --config.string to pass a string containing the configuration to logstash.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-a-conf-string-be-passed-into-logstash-instead-of-a-file-location/177632/3 "2019-05-17T15:48:04Z")
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