# Filebeat: How to create multiple instances/pipelines on same VM **URL:** \ **Category:** Beats\ **Tags:** filebeat\ **Created:** [February 10, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999 "2024-02-10T21:49:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![albus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/albus/32/131636_2.png) [@albus](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/albus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/1 "2024-02-10T21:49:24Z")
Hello Elastic Community, I hope everybody is doing great. I am facing a problem and I cannot find any documentation or blog related to it. Problem statement is: **Is there a possibility to run multiple instances of Filebeat as a different process from different config files ? Each config file will read data from separate path and ship it to separate output. (Each instance should be completely independent of each other.)** One solution I can think of is to use ```auto /usr/bin/filebeat -c /path/to/each _filebeat_config ``` and define a service for each process. But I am looking for something a little more "official". Can anyone help me out by providing a different perspective or a documentation / blog I might have missed. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![leandrojmp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/leandrojmp/32/107231_2.png) [@leandrojmp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/leandrojmp)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2024, 11:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/2 "2024-02-10T23:49:59Z")
> [@albus](#): > > But I am looking for something a little more "official". It is possible to run multiple instances of filebeat on the same server, but I don't think there is any official documentation on how to do it because it is more an infrastructure issue than a Filebeat issue. What you find in the [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/8.12/configuration-path.html#_data) is a note telling that when running multiple instances in the same server, they need to use a different data path, so it is not just pointing to a different config file, but you need to configure it to use a different data path. So you would need to have a different `filebeat.yml` file for each instance using a different `path.data`. ---
**Author:** ![albus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/albus/32/131636_2.png) [@albus](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/albus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 3:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/3 "2024-02-12T03:30:35Z")
noted. is it possible to parse multiple configuration files through -c option in filebeat ? like: filebeat -c conf1.yml -c conf2.yml ...... and so on. ---
**Author:** ![stephenb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stephenb/32/40856_2.png) [@stephenb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/stephenb)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 3:43am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/4 "2024-02-12T03:43:14Z")
> [@albus](#): > > filebeat -c conf1.yml -c conf2.yml ...... and so on. No 🙂 If you want to run more than 1 filebeat create separate directories and the use the tar.gz distribution in each that is the easiest/ safest way. ---
**Author:** ![albus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/albus/32/131636_2.png) [@albus](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/albus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/5 "2024-02-12T19:20:18Z")
Thanks. I am guessing I will have to provide different data and home paths for different instances for complete isolation. Is that correct ? Or the default paths (except config) will do the trick ? ---
**Author:** ![stephenb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stephenb/32/40856_2.png) [@stephenb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/stephenb)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 7:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/6 "2024-02-12T19:51:38Z")
> [@albus](#): > > I am guessing I will have to provide different data and home paths for different instances for complete isolation. > Is that correct ? > Or the default paths (except config) will do the trick ? Little unclear what you are asking, so to be Precise if you put tar.gz distributions in their own directories and start from the command `./filebeat` the data paths will be relative to each directory so defaults will/should work... I believe Quick test should show you... ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2024, 9:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/filebeat-how-to-create-multiple-instances-pipelines-on-same-vm/352999/7 "2024-03-11T21:52:11Z")
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