Docker logs includes unreadable in Kibana

[dev9]

Hi,
I am using filebeat version 7.17.3 running on Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS to ship docker logs using filebeat installation on the host OS. I am not using a filebeat container.
I noticed a couple of things that I would like to remediate and I couldn't find an answer for in the documentation.
My .yml file is

setup.ilm.enabled: auto
setup.template.name: "myindex"
setup.template.pattern: "myindex-*"
setup.ilm.pattern: "{now/d}-000001"
setup.ilm.rollover_alias: "myindex"
# =======================Containers Settings=================================

filebeat.autodiscover:
  providers:
      - type: docker
        hints.enabled: true
        hints.default_config:
          type: container
          paths:
            - /var/lib/docker/*/containers/*/*.log
        exclude_lines: ["^\\s+[\\-`('.|_]"]
        json.key_under_root: true
        json.ignore_decoding_error: true  
        json.add_error_key: true
        json.message_key: log

filebeat.inputs:
- type: log
  enabled: true
  paths:
   - /home/username/documents/projects/filebeat/*.log
processors:
  - add_docker_metadata: ~

filebeat.config.modules:
  path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml
  reload.enabled: true
  reload.period: 10s
# ======================= Elasticsearch template setting =======================
setup.kibana:
output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["REMOVED"]
  index: "unity-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
  ssl.certificate_authorities: ["REMOVED"]
processors:
- decode_json_fields:
      fields: ["message"]
      process_array: false
      max_depth: 2
      target: ""
      overwrite_keys: true
- rename:
      fields:
        - from: "source"
          to: "msource"
      ignore_missing: true
      fail_on_error: false

cloud.id: "${ES_USER}" 
cloud.auth: "${ES_PASS}" 

While the logs are shipped to Kibana, they are not readable as they include the terminal color codes like “ [1;34mbin[m [1;34mctmp[m [1;34mdev[m [1;34metc[m [1;34mhome[m [1;34mlib[m [1;34mmedia[m [1;34mmnt[m [1;34mopt[m [1;34mproc[m [1;34mroot[m [1;34mrun[m [1;34msbin[m [1;34msrv[m [1;34msys[m [1;34mtmp[m [1;34musr[m [1;34mvar[m” is what I see when I run ls -la inside a container.

How can I only show the text?
I also don't see any logs regarding to containers starting or stopping. Is this an expected behaviour?

Thanks

[Andrea_Spacca]

Hello @dev9

How can I only show the text?

Indeed this is the actual content of the log entry, you either have to disable coloured output in the docker container, or add a script processor (Script Processor | Filebeat Reference [7.17] | Elastic) in order to strip the control chars

I found a regex that seems to do the work at How to remove ^[, and all of the ANSI escape sequences in a file using linux shell scripting - Stack Overflow

printf '\e[31m%s\e[0m' "this is in red"|sed 's/\x1B\[[0-9;]*[JKmsu]//g'

You have to port it to a script processor

[dev9]

Hi Andrea,
Is this the only option I have to sanitize the logs even though I am using the official provider?
Any idea why I only see logs if I exec inside a container? or How to reduce the number of documents added to our index. For example, 24 records get added if I do ls -la inside a container because filebeat sends every line as its own record.

[dev9]

I managed to remove the ascii characters and cleanup the kibana entries using the processor script. In case anyone else has the same issue. the solution is

setup.ilm.enabled: auto
setup.template.name: "myindex"
setup.template.pattern: "myindex-*"
setup.ilm.pattern: "{now/d}-000001"
setup.ilm.rollover_alias: "myindex_ILM"
# =======================Containers Settings=================================

filebeat.autodiscover:
  providers:
      - type: docker
        hints.enabled: true
        hints.default_config:
          type: container
          paths:
            - /var/lib/docker/*/containers/*/*.log
        exclude_lines: ["^\\s+[\\-`('.|_]"]
        json.key_under_root: true
        json.ignore_decoding_error: true  
        json.add_error_key: true
        json.message_key: log

filebeat.inputs:
- type: log
  enabled: true
  paths:
   - /home/USER/documents/projects/filebeat/*.log

filebeat.config.modules:
  path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml
  reload.enabled: true
  reload.period: 10s
# ======================= Elasticsearch template setting =======================
setup.kibana:
output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["REMOVED"]
  index: "myindex-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"
  ssl.certificate_authorities: [REMOVED]
processors:
- decode_json_fields:
      fields: ["message"]
      process_array: false
      max_depth: 2
      target: ""
      overwrite_keys: true
- rename:
      fields:
        - from: "source"
          to: "msource"
      ignore_missing: true
      fail_on_error: false
- script:
    lang: javascript
    source: >
      function process(event){
        var regex = new RegExp('\x1B(?:[@-Z\\-_]|\[[0-?]*[ -/]*[@-~])','g');
        var clean = event.Get('message');
        clean = clean.replace(regex, '');
        event.Put('message',clean);    
        return event;
      }
    
cloud.id: "${ES_USER}" 
cloud.auth: "${ES_PASS}" 

I still however only see events logged if I exec inside the container. None of the container states is logged.

[Andrea_Spacca]

Hello @dev9 ,

filebeat will collects logs generated by the containers, not the state of the containers