Exiting: no outputs are defined, please define one under the output section

Hello All,

I am new to elastic and filebeats. I have installed filebeat to collect logs from defender apt via microsoft module and store them as file in linux server via file output method. But when i run the configuration validation command "./filebeat test config -e" getting below error "Exiting: no outputs are defined, please define one under the output section". Please help me to find the solution for the issue, as i have not found any working solution for this issue.

below is the filebeats config file

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

# This file is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common
# options. The filebeat.reference.yml file from the same directory contains all the
# supported options with more comments. You can use it as a reference.
#
# You can find the full configuration reference here:
# https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/index.html

# For more available modules and options, please see the filebeat.reference.yml sample
# configuration file.

# ============================== Filebeat inputs ===============================

#filebeat.inputs:

# Each - is an input. Most options can be set at the input level, so
# you can use different inputs for various configurations.
# Below are the input specific configurations.

# filestream is an input for collecting log messages from files.
#- type: filestream

  # Unique ID among all inputs, an ID is required.
 # id: my-filestream-id

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

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

  # Exclude lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It drops the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  # Line filtering happens after the parsers pipeline. If you would like to filter lines
  # before parsers, use include_message parser.
  #exclude_lines: ['^DBG']

  # Include lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It exports the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  # Line filtering happens after the parsers pipeline. If you would like to filter lines
  # before parsers, use include_message parser.
  #include_lines: ['^ERR', '^WARN']

  # Exclude files. A list of regular expressions to match. Filebeat drops the files that
  # are matching any regular expression from the list. By default, no files are dropped.
  #prospector.scanner.exclude_files: ['.gz$']

  # Optional additional fields. These fields can be freely picked
  # to add additional information to the crawled log files for filtering
  #fields:
  #  level: debug
  #  review: 1
# ============================== 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: true

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

#------------------------------ Microsoft Module ------------------------------
 - module: microsoft
   ATP configuration
  defender_atp:
    enabled: true
    # How often the API should be polled
    var.interval: 5m

    # Oauth Client ID
    var.oauth2.client.id: "client1"

    # Oauth Client Secret
    var.oauth2.client.secret: "secret1"

    # Oauth Token URL, should include the tenant ID
    var.oauth2.token_url: "https://login.microsoftonline.com/tenent-id/oauth2/token"

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

#setup.template.settings:
 # index.number_of_shards: 1
  #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` 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"

  # Kibana Space ID
  # ID of the Kibana Space into which the dashboards should be loaded. By default,
  # the Default Space will be used.
  #space.id:

# =============================== 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.

# ---------------------------- File Output ----------------------------

#output.file:
output.file:
  # Boolean flag to enable or disable the output module.
  enabled: true
  # Configure JSON encoding
  codec.json:
  # Pretty-print JSON event
  pretty: true

    # Configure escaping HTML symbols in strings.
  #escape_html: false
  path: "/tmp/filepath"
  filename: filebeat
  rotate_every_kb: 10000
  number_of_files: 10
  permissions: 0600
  rotate_on_startup: true

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

  # Protocol - either `http` (default) or `https`.
  #protocol: "https"

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  #api_key: "id:api_key"
  #username: "elastic"
  #password: "changeme"

# ------------------------------ 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"

# ================================= Processors =================================
processors:
  - add_host_metadata:
      when.not.contains.tags: forwarded
  - add_cloud_metadata: ~
  - add_docker_metadata: ~
  - add_kubernetes_metadata: ~

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

# Sets log level. The default log level is info.
# Available log levels are: error, warning, info, debug
#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",
# "publisher", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

# ============================= X-Pack 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.
#monitoring.enabled: false

# Sets the UUID of the Elasticsearch cluster under which monitoring data for this
# Filebeat instance will appear in the Stack Monitoring UI. If output.elasticsearch
# is enabled, the UUID is derived from the Elasticsearch cluster referenced by output.elasticsearch.
#monitoring.cluster_uuid:

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

# ============================== Instrumentation ===============================

# Instrumentation support for the filebeat.
#instrumentation:
    # Set to true to enable instrumentation of filebeat.
    #enabled: false

    # Environment in which filebeat is running on (eg: staging, production, etc.)
    #environment: ""

    # APM Server hosts to report instrumentation results to.
    #hosts:
    #  - http://localhost:8200

    # API Key for the APM Server(s).
    # If api_key is set then secret_token will be ignored.
    #api_key:

    # Secret token for the APM Server(s).
    #secret_token:


# ================================= Migration ==================================

# This allows to enable 6.7 migration aliases
#migration.6_to_7.enabled: true

Hi @PunithRaj Welcome to the community!

I you want to output to a file you need to comment that out.

You can only have 1 output filebeat defined, and that is only a half defined output, clean it up and you should be fine.

@stephenb , Thanks a lot for your response.

As suggested i have commented our the output.elasticsearch. Still getting the same error.

This is wrong syntax to

- module: microsoft
  m365_defender:
    enabled: true

Why are you putting all that in the filebeat.yml

Instead of using my the

modules.d/microsoft.yml

Did you read about modules?

@stephenb thanks for the swift response. i tried using modules/microsoft.yml as well still the same error.

- module: microsoft
  # ATP configuration
#  defender_atp:
#    enabled: true
#    # How often the API should be polled
#    var.interval: 5m

    # Oauth Client ID
#    var.oauth2.client.id: "0c0b16da-9138-4fdc-900a-8d0da9a2665d"

    # Oauth Client Secret
#    var.oauth2.client.secret: "713f7e4d-bf46-4ed1-9de9-36cb92fd735f"

    # Oauth Token URL, should include the tenant ID
#    var.oauth2.token_url: "https://login.microsoftonline.com/a53d724c-15ea-4469-a987-82a5b30ec167/oauth2/token"
  m365_defender:
    enabled: true
    # How often the API should be polled
    var.interval: 5m

    # Oauth Client ID
    var.oauth2.client.id: "client id"

    # Oauth Client Secret
    var.oauth2.client.secret: "secret id"

    # Oauth Token URL, should include the tenant ID
    var.oauth2.token_url: "https://login.microsoftonline.com/tenantid/oauth2/v2.0/token"

    # Related scopes, default should be included
    var.oauth2.scopes:
      - "https://api.security.microsoft.com/.default"

{"log.level":"debug","@timestamp":"2022-11-24T05:25:55.561Z","log.logger":"beat","log.origin":{"file.name":"instance/beat.go","file.line":319},"message":"Initializing output plugins","service.name":"filebeat","ecs.version":"1.6.0"}
{"log.level":"info","@timestamp":"2022-11-24T05:25:55.561Z","log.origin":{"file.name":"instance/beat.go","file.line":326},"message":"no outputs are defined, please define one under the output section","service.name":"filebeat","ecs.version":"1.6.0"}
{"log.level":"error","@timestamp":"2022-11-24T05:25:55.561Z","log.origin":{"file.name":"instance/beat.go","file.line":1057},"message":"Exiting: no outputs are defined, please define one under the output section","service.name":"filebeat","ecs.version":"1.6.0"}
Exiting: no outputs are defined, please define one under the output section

@stephenb i have removed all unused modules and fields from filebeat.yml file and getting new error when run filebeat setup -e command.

"log.level":"error","@timestamp":"2022-11-24T16:48:43.415Z","log.origin":{"file.name":"instance/beat.go","file.line":1057},"message":"Exiting: index management requested but the Elasticsearch output is not configured/enabled","service.name":"filebeat","ecs.version":"1.6.0"}
Exiting: index management requested but the Elasticsearch output is not configured/enabled

filebeat.yml

filebeat.config.modules:
  path: /root/filebeat-8.5.1-linux-x86_64/modules.d/*.yml
  reload.enabled: true
  reload.period: 10s



output.file:
  enabled: true
  path: "/Securonix/Ingester/import/in/O365Defender"
  filename: filebeat
  rotate_every_kb: 10000
  number_of_files: 10
  permissions: 0600
  rotate_on_startup: true

microsoft.yml

- module: microsoft
  m365_defender:
    enabled: true
    var.interval: 5m
    var.oauth2.client.id: "client-id"
    var.oauth2.client.secret: "secret"
    var.oauth2.token_url: "https://login.microsoftonline.com/tenent-id/oauth2/v2.0/token"
    var.oauth2.scopes:
      - "https://api.security.microsoft.com/.default"

Is that your entire filebeat.yml because I just tested that and it was fine.
I even ran it ... it was fine. Is there anything else in the filebeat I suspect you still have some other settings in the filebeat.yml

What version?

I would not use a full path for this but otherwise it is fine.

path: /root/filebeat-8.5.1-linux-x86_64/modules.d/*.yml

Normal
path: ./modules.d/*.yml

Hello @stephenb,

Thanks for the swift response. we are using 8.5.1 in centos 7. The strange part is when we run filebeat -e command we dont see any error. But when we run filebeat setup -e command we get the above mentioned command.

that is the whole file of filebeat and microsoft yml files. No other details in the file

Ahh I see it now... sorry!

no need to run / in fact you can not run it.

filebeat setup -e

If you are just writing to a file... Setup Loads all the aassets into Elasticsearch and Kibana ... since you are not doing that no need to run setup ... and yes it won't work because setup requires a connection to Kibana and Elasticsearch which you do not have.

Do you really just want to send the data to a file?

@stephenb Yes i want data in to the file from there i will be sending the file in Json format to my SIEM solution.

Then don't run setup ... no need

BTW Elastic has an Excellent SIEM Solution :slight_smile:

@stephenb Thanks a lot for the help.

Yes i am aware of elastic SIEM, but we already has another SIEM in place :grinning:

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