Filebeat multiline assistance

Hello, I am hoping someone might be able to provide some assistance with a Filebeat multiline issue I can't seem to resolve.

One server is running Novell Storage Services Auditing Client Logger (VLOG). Filebeat is installed on that same server configured to monitor the log file that's generated by VLOG. Each VLOG log entry is multiline (see example below) but can't seem to get Filebeat's multiline config to treat each entry as one. Instead it treats each line as a log entry in Elasticsearch. I am guessing my regex is not right but not sure. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Versions

  • filebeat-6.3.2-1
  • logstash-6.5.3-1
  • elasticsearch-6.5.3-1

filebeat.yml

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

    # This file is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common
    # options. The filebeat.full.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

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

    filebeat.inputs:

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

    - type: log

      # Paths that should be crawled and fetched. Glob based paths.
      paths:
        #- /var/log/*.log
        #- c:\programdata\elasticsearch\logs\*
         - /var/log/audit/volumes/volumes-audit.log
    #  document_type: novell-vlog
      # Exclude lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It drops the lines that are
      # matching any regular expression from the list.
      #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.
      #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.
      #exclude_files: [".gz$"]

      # Optional additional fields. These field can be freely picked
      # to add additional information to the crawled log files for filtering
      #fields:
      #  level: debug
      #  review: 1
    fields:
      fqdn: servername.local
    processors:
    - rename:
        fields:
         - from: "host"
           to: "node"
        ignore_missing: true

    ### Multiline options

      # Mutiline can be used for log messages spanning multiple lines. This is common
      # for Java Stack Traces or C-Line Continuation

      # The regexp Pattern that has to be matched. The example pattern matches all lines starting with [
      #multiline.pattern: ^\[
    #multiline.pattern: '^\<AUDIT'
    multiline.pattern: '^\<AUDIT'
      # Defines if the pattern set under pattern should be negated or not. Default is false.
    multiline.negate: true

      # 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.
      # Note: After is the equivalent to previous and before is the equivalent to to next in Logstash
    multiline.match: after
    multiline.flush_pattern: '</AUDIT>'


    #================================ 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

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

    # Configure what outputs to use when sending the data collected by the beat.
    # Multiple outputs may be used.

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

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

    #----------------------------- Logstash output --------------------------------
    output.logstash:
      # The Logstash hosts
      hosts: ["logstashserver: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 =====================================

    # Sets log level. The default log level is info.
    # Available log levels are: critical, 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",
    # "publish", "service".
    #logging.selectors: ["*"]

VLOG Log sample

<AUDIT VlogRecNo="12345" VigilRecNo="123456" Pid="3840" TimeStamp="2018-12-12 15:51:44.361534" Type="3 NSS">
 <NSS Event="4 OPEN" TaskID="0" Zid="123456" ParentZid="123456" OpRetCode="0" FileType="3 NAMED_DATA_STREAM" FileAttributes="0x00000000" VolID="2aa6a706-9946-01e1-8000-c84db1178156" VolDn="TESTDATA" UserID="1234 UserDn="Supervisor" Uid="0" Uid_name="name" Euid="0" Euid_name="name" Suid="0" Suid_name="name" Fsuid="0" Fsuid_name="name" Gid="0" Gid_name="name" Egid="0" Egid_name="name" Sgid="0" Sgid_name="name" Fsgid="0" Fsgid_name="name" Comm="ndsd">
  <PMD_NCP ConnID="356" TaskID="2" Guid="1234564789" Dn=".CN=johnsmith." netAddr_IPv4="8.8.8.8" />
  <PATH Type="1 target" Encoding="2 Unicode 16-bit">TESTDATA:/path/johnsmith/test.JPG</PATH>
  <OPEN key="0xFFE99C82A10D518F" RequestedRights="0x00000011 0-READ_ACCESS 4-SCAN_ACCESS" Accessed="12/12/2018 15:51:44" Created="08/15/2013 16:46:40" Modified="10/27/2010 13:58:52" MetaDataModified="07/21/2018 03:15:47" />
 </NSS>
</AUDIT>

I've tried multiple multiline patterns but not having any success. Even updated my filebeat to version 6.5.3-1

Some other Multiline options that I've tried

### Multiline options

  # Mutiline can be used for log messages spanning multiple lines. This is common
  # for Java Stack Traces or C-Line Continuation

  # The regexp Pattern that has to be matched. The example pattern matches all lines starting with [
  #multiline.pattern: ^\[
#multiline.pattern: '<AUDIT'
multiline.pattern: '^[[:space:]]'
  # 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.
  # Note: After is the equivalent to previous and before is the equivalent to to next in Logstash
multiline.match: after
#multiline.flush_pattern: '</AUDIT>'

Another test

### Multiline options

  # Mutiline can be used for log messages spanning multiple lines. This is common
  # for Java Stack Traces or C-Line Continuation

  # The regexp Pattern that has to be matched. The example pattern matches all lines starting with [
  #multiline.pattern: ^\[
multiline.pattern: '^\<AUDIT'
#multiline.pattern: '^[[:space:]]'
  # Defines if the pattern set under pattern should be negated or not. Default is false.
multiline.negate: true

  # 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.
  # Note: After is the equivalent to previous and before is the equivalent to to next in Logstash
multiline.match: after
#multiline.flush_pattern: '</AUDIT>'

Hello @HelpComputer, I did a quick look at the pattern it appears fine to me, I think the YAML options are not correctly defined under the inputs. Filebeat is really susceptible to malformed YAML and sadly we don't do a good job when this happens to communicate it back. Can you make sure taht everything is correctly aligned. You can also start filebeat with -v -e -d "*" and it should mention the usage of multiline.

Thanks for the suggestions @Pierhugues! Looks like my YAML config file was not right. I started over using filebeat.yml.rpmnew as my template. With the increased logging level, I am able to see the multiline feature running

2018-12-19T10:30:51.115-0600    DEBUG   [publish]       pipeline/processor.go:308       Publish event: {
  "@timestamp": "2018-12-19T16:30:51.114Z",
  "@metadata": {
    "beat": "filebeat",
    "type": "doc",
    "version": "6.5.3"
  },
  "offset": 21691179,
  "log": {
    "flags": [
      "multiline"
    ]
  },

However now I've created a new issue for myself. In the logs of the Logstash server I am seeing this error

Dec 19 11:02:31 logstash logstash: [2018-12-19T11:02:31,619][WARN ][logstash.outputs.elasticsearch] Could not index event to Elasticsearch. {:status=>400, :action=>["index", {:_id=>nil, :_index=>"logstash-2018.12.19", :_type=>"doc", :routing=>nil}, #<LogStash::Event:0x7ee1d5d1>], :response=>{"index"=>{"_index"=>"logstash-2018.12.19", "_type"=>"doc", "_id"=>"TQxrx2cB0IW8JrxHNsSD", "status"=>400, "error"=>{"type"=>"mapper_parsing_exception", "reason"=>"failed to parse field [host] of type [text]", "caused_by"=>{"type"=>"illegal_state_exception", "reason"=>"Can't get text on a START_OBJECT at 1:1581"}}}}}

Should I create a new topic in the Logstash section or do you have any suggestions on what I might try?
I've tried your suggestion here - Logstash errors after upgrading to filebeat-6.3.0 but can't seem to get it to work with my if condition filter in Logstash.

Here's what I have so far (config pasted below has generic servername for beat.hostname for security reasons). Any thoughts? Thanks!

filter {
  if [beat.hostname] == "insertservername" {
    mutate {
          remove_field => [ "[host]" ]
        }
        mutate {
          add_field => {
            "host" => "%{[beat][hostname]}"
          }
        }
  }
}

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