# Filebeat config - USER system env variable
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428
**Category:** Beats
**Tags:** filebeat
**Created:** [May 13, 2020, 12:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428 "2020-05-13T12:03:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Johny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Johny)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2020, 12:03pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428/1 "2020-05-13T12:03:27Z")
Hello, i am trying read logs from currently logged user folder. In filebeat config i have:
paths:
`- /home/${USERNAME}/logs/foo.log`, this does not even compile. But it work when i hardcode name like this:
paths:
`- /home/${USERNAME:foo}/logs/foo.log`, but i need this path to be dynamically allocated.
There are no logs in /var/log/filebeat/filebeat.log
---
### Author:  [@Andre\_Letterer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andre_Letterer)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2020, 10:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428/2 "2020-05-30T22:42:38Z")
Hi Johny,
Welcome to the discuss forum.
Now if you give out the environment variables on a linux system:
```auto
env | grep USER | sort
```
I think you should find out that the variable should be `USER`. Variable `USERNAME` only exists on Windows systems as far as I know.
```auto
- /home/${USER}/logs/foo.log
```
Apart from that I would like to know what exactly you are trying to accomplish.
Do you want to u read dynamically through all your user folders?
Something like
```auto
/home/usera/logs/foo.log
/home/userb/logs/foo.log
```
and if you add a new user `userc` it should start to read this one `/home/userc/logs/foo.log` as well?
If this what you want to do?
Because with that at the moment I assume it will log only one folder.
---
### Author:  [@Johny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Johny)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2020, 7:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428/3 "2020-06-02T07:49:42Z")
Hello and thank you for your reply.
Use case is... When userA start using program. It will creates:
/var/log/program- **userA** /foo.log.
Then second user loggin to the machine and it will creates new logs in:
/var/log/app- **userB** /foo.log.
I need filebeat config that automatically assign variables of currently logged users to the path:
/var/log/app- **{USER}** /foo.log, so I don't have to manualy set up and hardcode users to each machine.
I can tail path like this /var/log/app- \* /\*.log. But it's not look like the best practice. Besides this logs everything.
To find user variable I used env command and when i use it in cd path/to/{variable}/folder, it works fine.
---
### Author:  [@Andre\_Letterer](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andre_Letterer)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2020, 9:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428/4 "2020-06-11T21:26:12Z")
Hi Johny,
maybe it is
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-input-log.html#input-paths](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-input-log.html#input-paths)
Globbing depends on slashes like is documented here: [https://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob](https://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob)
If you want you maybe could disable recursive globbing:
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-input-log.html#recursive\_glob](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-input-log.html#recursive_glob)
So basically it the actual best practice like that:
```auto
filebeat.inputs:
- type: log
recursive_glob.enabled: false
paths:
- /var/log/program-*/foo.log
```
Now apart from that let my try to tackle your last comment
If I understand you correctly you maybe have following paths like e.g.:
```auto
/var/log/program-john/foo.log
/var/log/program-jessy/foo.log
/var/log/program-retrieve/foo.log
```
And what you want is automatically identify the first 2 paths as being paths from users john and Jessy and it should ingest these ones, but not the third one, which is not a user?
Is this exactly what you are trying to do?
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2020, 9:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-config-user-system-env-variable/232428/5 "2020-07-09T21:26:14Z")
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