ERROR instance/beat Exiting: Error in initing prospector: No paths were defined for prospector accessing config

I am trying to visualize sample data on Kibana using Windows. I followed the link to Security Analytics section to setup Elasticsearch, Kibana and Filebeats. Link to installation (Security Analytics)

I have installed Elastic search and Kibana, and have been able to successfully launch both. The description in the link states to configure the filebeat.yml file.

I have configured the filebeat.yml file as follows:

###################### Filebeat Configuration Example #########################

#=========================== Filebeat prospectors =============================

filebeat.prospectors:

- type: log

  # Change to true to enable this prospector configuration.
  enabled: false

  # Paths that should be crawled and fetched. Glob based paths.
  paths:
    - /var/log/*.log
  #- c:\programdata\elasticsearch\logs\*

#exclude_lines: ['^DBG']

#include_lines: ['^ERR', '^WARN']

#exclude_files: ['.gz$']

#fields:
#  level: debug
#  review: 1

### Multiline options

# The regexp Pattern that has to be matched. The example pattern matches all lines starting with [
#multiline.pattern: ^\[

# Defines if the pattern set under pattern should be negated or not. Default is false.
#multiline.negate: false

# Match can be set to "after" or "before". It is used to define if lines should be append to a pattern
# that was (not) matched before or after or as long as a pattern is not matched based on negate.


#============================= Filebeat modules ===============================

filebeat.config.modules:
# Glob pattern for configuration loading
path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml

# Set to true to enable config reloading
reload.enabled: false

# Period on which files under path should be checked for changes
#reload.period: 10s

#==================== Elasticsearch template setting ==========================

setup.template.settings:
index.number_of_shards: 3
#index.codec: best_compression
#_source.enabled: false

#================================ General =====================================

# The name of the shipper that publishes the network data. It can be used to group
# all the transactions sent by a single shipper in the web interface.
#name:

# The tags of the shipper are included in their own field with each
# transaction published.
#tags: ["service-X", "web-tier"]

# Optional fields that you can specify to add additional information to the
# output.
#fields:
#  env: staging


#============================== Dashboards =====================================
# These settings control loading the sample dashboards to the Kibana index. Loading
# the dashboards is disabled by default and can be enabled either by setting the
# options here, or by using the `-setup` CLI flag or the `setup` command.
#setup.dashboards.enabled: false

# The URL from where to download the dashboards archive. By default this URL  
# has a value which is computed based on the Beat name and version. For released
# versions, this URL points to the dashboard archive on the artifacts.elastic.co
# website.
#setup.dashboards.url:

#============================== Kibana =====================================

# Starting with Beats version 6.0.0, the dashboards are loaded via the Kibana API.
# This requires a Kibana endpoint configuration.
setup.kibana:

# Kibana Host
# Scheme and port can be left out and will be set to the default (http and 5601)
# In case you specify and additional path, the scheme is required: http://localhost:5601/path
# IPv6 addresses should always be defined as: https://[2001:db8::1]:5601
#host: "localhost:5601"

#============================= Elastic Cloud ==================================

# These settings simplify using filebeat with the Elastic Cloud (https://cloud.elastic.co/).

# The cloud.id setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.hosts` and
# `setup.kibana.host` options.
# You can find the `cloud.id` in the Elastic Cloud web UI.
#cloud.id:

# The cloud.auth setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.username` and
# `output.elasticsearch.password` settings. The format is `<user>:<pass>`.
#cloud.auth:

#================================ Outputs =====================================

# Configure what output to use when sending the data collected by the beat.

#-------------------------- Elasticsearch output ------------------------------
output.elasticsearch:
# Array of hosts to connect to.
hosts: ["localhost:9200"]

# Optional protocol and basic auth credentials.
#protocol: "https"
username: "elastic"
password: "n2yHQc8Cp1K2iRrOrNcV"

#----------------------------- Logstash output --------------------------------
#output.logstash:
# The Logstash hosts
#hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

# Optional SSL. By default is off.
# List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications
#ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]

# Certificate for SSL client authentication
#ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"

# Client Certificate Key
#ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

#================================ Logging =====================================

#logging.level: debug

# At debug level, you can selectively enable logging only for some components.
# To enable all selectors use ["*"]. Examples of other selectors are "beat",
# "publish", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

#============================== Xpack Monitoring ===============================
# filebeat can export internal metrics to a central Elasticsearch monitoring
# cluster.  This requires xpack monitoring to be enabled in Elasticsearch.  The
# reporting is disabled by default.

# Set to true to enable the monitoring reporter.
#xpack.monitoring.enabled: false

# Uncomment to send the metrics to Elasticsearch. Most settings from the
# Elasticsearch output are accepted here as well. Any setting that is not set is
# automatically inherited from the Elasticsearch output configuration, so if you
# have the Elasticsearch output configured, you can simply uncomment the
# following line.
#xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch:

After running the command ".\filebeat -e -modules=system --setup", filebeat begins, successfully connecting to Elasticsearch and loading Kibana dashboards.

But when I click on the dashboard section on Kibana, the Filebeat process exits with an error message saying "Exiting: Error in initing prospector: No paths were defined for prospector accessing config".

Am I doing something wrong? How can this issue be rectified?

- type: log

  # Change to true to enable this prospector configuration.
  enabled: false

Hello @APJ , In the extract above from your configuration, you have to enable the prospector by settings the enabled key to true. The error mean no prospectors or module are enabled in that configuration.

I am trying to visualize sample data on Kibana using Windows. I followed the link to Security Analytics section to setup Elasticsearch, Kibana and Filebeats. Link to installation

Which page are you referring?

I have updated my question to create a hyperlink to the page. I am following Auth logs under Security and Analytics section. I changed enabled to true. I still get the same error.

Capture

Could you please help me resolve this issue?

Can you add the output of ./filebeat export config

Sure. Here is the output:

Is there anything wrong with the config file? I only followed the steps on the Security Analytics section!

@apj Which part of the tutorial you were following? Auth Logs, Audit Events, NetFlow, DNS Traffic or Arcsight? Maybe one of them doesn't correctly work on windows?

@pierhugues I am following Auth Logs! Does it work right on windows? Also, Are there any other sections that don't work well on windows?

I've looked and the system module doesn't work with windows, we need to make distinction about that in that page.

The other sections should work on windows.

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