# Gelf & multiline plugin @ 5.x

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/gelf-multiline-plugin-5-x/68678>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [December 12, 2016, 8:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/gelf-multiline-plugin-5-x/68678 "2016-12-12T08:23:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![antdavidl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/antdavidl/32/13551_2.png) [@antdavidl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/antdavidl)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 8:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/gelf-multiline-plugin-5-x/68678/1 "2016-12-12T08:23:35Z")

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Hi all!  
after some weeks trying to figure out how to use the _multiline_ codec with the _gelf_ input, I finally have thrown in the towel ... it should be something easy; there should be an easy way to do it, but I have not been able to realize how!

Previously, in 2.x, I received the logs from several docker containers using Gelf input and later I applied a multiline filter to collapse all the exception stack traces into a single event. But since I upgraded to 5.x this filter is not available (deprecated in favor of the codec version). So I change my logstash configuration to something like:

```
input {
  gelf {
    codec => multiline {
      pattern => "^%{TIMESTAMP_ISO8601} " 
      negate => true
      what => previous
    }
  }
}

output {
  elasticsearch {
  }
}

```

It does not fail, however, it seems like this codec is ignoring all the events received by the gelf input. All what I find about the multiline codec is applied to _file_ inputs. I'm starting to think that simply the _multiline_ codec does not support the event structure generated by the _Gelf_ plug-in.

I'm missing something here?  
Is it simply imposible to use the _multiline_ codec with the _gelf_ input plug-in?  
If so, what is the setup that other people is using to redirect logs from Docker containers to logstash and post-process the sequence of events to merge related, split lines?

Any idea, any clue, any example is welcome!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 8:23am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/gelf-multiline-plugin-5-x/68678/2 "2017-01-09T08:23:36Z")

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