# Can Logstash process messages AS-IS?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-logstash-process-messages-as-is/54433>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [June 30, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-logstash-process-messages-as-is/54433 "2016-06-30T15:50:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![urover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@urover](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/urover)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-logstash-process-messages-as-is/54433/1 "2016-06-30T15:50:09Z")

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We're trying to use Logstash to process messages from Kafka and output them to multiple sinks. However, Logstash seems to default to adding some fields to the event such as @version, @timestamp, @source (or host?), etc.

How do I configure Logstash to process messages as-is without adding anything of its own?

In other words, I don't want Logstash to bother about the format or condition of the message, I just want it to listen to input sources and send it to output sinks.

Is that possible with Logstash?

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-logstash-process-messages-as-is/54433/2 "2016-07-01T04:07:11Z")

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You can use the mutate + remove field options to take these out, but it will never be the exact message.

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**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-logstash-process-messages-as-is/54433/3 "2016-07-01T05:25:23Z")

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Perhaps you could keep the original message as a JSON string that's stored in a field that downstream consumers can deserialize? In other words, let Logstash contaminate the top-level fields as it pleases and use one of those fields for the original payload.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 4:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/can-logstash-process-messages-as-is/54433/4 "2017-07-06T04:49:59Z")

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Closed on July 6, 2017, 4:49am UTC