# Does filebeat ever delete file contents?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-filebeat-ever-delete-file-contents/129500>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** filebeat\
**Created:** [April 25, 2018, 1:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-filebeat-ever-delete-file-contents/129500 "2018-04-25T13:38:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ilcoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@ilcoron](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ilcoron)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 1:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-filebeat-ever-delete-file-contents/129500/1 "2018-04-25T13:38:54Z")

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Hello everybody!

I have log messages in logstash that I cannot find on the centos server running filebeat (via graylog sidecar).

Just to be 100% sure: Is there any possibility that filebeat is able to delete lines in logfiles after sending them?

Thanks a lot!

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**Author:** ![pierhugues](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pierhugues/32/48383_2.png) [@pierhugues](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pierhugues)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-filebeat-ever-delete-file-contents/129500/2 "2018-04-25T14:50:53Z")

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@ilcoron Logfiles are readonly for filebeat, we never touch them. So you are reading them both with FB and graylog?

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**Author:** ![ilcoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4bbf92/32.png) [@ilcoron](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ilcoron)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2018, 6:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-filebeat-ever-delete-file-contents/129500/3 "2018-04-26T06:20:58Z")

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@pierhugues Graylog provides a filebeat configuration tool called "sidecar" ([http://docs.graylog.org/en/2.4/pages/collector\_sidecar.html](http://docs.graylog.org/en/2.4/pages/collector_sidecar.html)). It is just the way we configure filebeat on the servers.

Thanks a lot for the info!

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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:** [May 24, 2018, 6:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-filebeat-ever-delete-file-contents/129500/4 "2018-05-24T06:21:05Z")

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