# Creating Dummy Entry via ConfigFile

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/creating-dummy-entry-via-configfile/100198
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [September 12, 2017, 11:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/creating-dummy-entry-via-configfile/100198 "2017-09-12T11:19:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Sharivari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sharivari](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Sharivari)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2017, 11:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/creating-dummy-entry-via-configfile/100198/1 "2017-09-12T11:19:16Z")

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Hi everyone,

I just started the basic dummy entry creation with stdin via:

`$ sudo docker exec -it <container-name> /bin/bash`

and

```
# /opt/logstash/bin/logstash --path.data /tmp/logstash/data \
    -e 'input { stdin { } } output { elasticsearch { hosts => ["localhost"] } }'

```

But when i put this code:

`input { stdin { } } output { elasticsearch { hosts => ["localhost"] } }`

into a file named, stdinconfig.conf

and call the same command with

```
# /opt/logstash/bin/logstash --path.data /tmp/logstash/data \
    -e stdinconfig.conf

```

i get an error message:

`Cannot create pipeline {:reason=>"Expected one of #, input, filter, output at line 1, column 1 (byte 1) after "}`

I checked if I have a byte order mark at the beginning with via :setlocal bomb? and it returned nobomb. so thats not the problem.

So where's the problem? Any ideas?  
thanks in advance.

**EDIT:**  
solved by myself, I had to use -f instead of -e

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![paz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/paz/32/28003_2.png) [@paz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/paz)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2017, 11:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/creating-dummy-entry-via-configfile/100198/2 "2017-09-12T11:46:13Z")

</div>

The _-e_ flag is for loading a config string, as per your first example. In order to pass a config file you have to use _-f_ instead.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 10, 2017, 11:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/creating-dummy-entry-via-configfile/100198/3 "2017-10-10T11:46:16Z")

</div>

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