# Could logstash log a warning when the file input plugin has 0 readable files?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/could-logstash-log-a-warning-when-the-file-input-plugin-has-0-readable-files/68772>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [December 12, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/could-logstash-log-a-warning-when-the-file-input-plugin-has-0-readable-files/68772 "2016-12-12T21:08:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![coder-98103](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@coder-98103](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/coder-98103)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/could-logstash-log-a-warning-when-the-file-input-plugin-has-0-readable-files/68772/1 "2016-12-12T21:08:10Z")

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I am new to the Elastic Stack, so far it has been super-fun to learn. Thanks for making this great toolkit available!

When getting started, I struggled with a number of newbie mistakes. There are quite a few things which need to line up in order to get your first bit of data to appear in Kibana.

Of the mistakes I made, one seems easily fixed. I was pointing to files which the logstash user didn't have permission to read, for example /var/syslog and /var/log/apache.

This is logged with something like:  
[2016-12-12T20:59:26,648][DEBUG][logstash.inputs.file] \_globbed\_files: /var/log/apache2/access\*: glob is: []

I would suggest logging a warning, when the glob array is empty. I can't see to many cases where "glob is: []" is anything but bad! It could say something like "Perhaps you mistyped the file path, or you lack permissions to read that file." It seems like it would be an easy addition to logstash. It would definitely have improved my initial experience.

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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:** [December 13, 2016, 3:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/could-logstash-log-a-warning-when-the-file-input-plugin-has-0-readable-files/68772/2 "2016-12-13T03:07:32Z")

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Thanks for raising this idea!

We do ask that these sorts of things be added as an issue to the appropriate GH repo, in this case that would be [https://github.com/logstash-plugins/logstash-input-file/issues](https://github.com/logstash-plugins/logstash-input-file/issues) 🙂

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**Author:** ![coder-98103](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@coder-98103](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/coder-98103)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/could-logstash-log-a-warning-when-the-file-input-plugin-has-0-readable-files/68772/3 "2016-12-13T20:57:32Z")

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Okay thanks for letting know. I wasn't sure the protocol for this group. I've added it to the tracker in Git, see [https://github.com/logstash-plugins/logstash-input-file/issues/149](https://github.com/logstash-plugins/logstash-input-file/issues/149)

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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:** [January 10, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/could-logstash-log-a-warning-when-the-file-input-plugin-has-0-readable-files/68772/4 "2017-01-10T20:57:35Z")

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Closed on January 10, 2017, 8:57pm UTC

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