# Host field not present on logstash event

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/host-field-not-present-on-logstash-event/37906>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [December 24, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/host-field-not-present-on-logstash-event/37906 "2015-12-24T04:27:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thematthewgreen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thematthewgreen/32/472_2.png) [@thematthewgreen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thematthewgreen)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/host-field-not-present-on-logstash-event/37906/1 "2015-12-24T04:27:59Z")

</div>

Greetings.

I am shipping logs from two servers in disparate data centers and utilizing the lumberjack plugin as a means of communication between the two. The communication is working fine (no ssl issues) but when the logstash event is sent from server A to server B, the host field is not on the logstash event.

Details:  
java version "1.8.0\_65"  
logstash 2.1.0  
DISTRIB\_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS"

server A config:

```
input {
  file {
    path => '/var/log/auth.log'
  }
}
output {
  lumberjack {
    hosts => ["1.1.1.1"]
    port => 6782
    ssl_certificate => "/etc/ssl/certs/redacted.crt"
  }
}

```

server B config:

```
input {
  lumberjack {
    port => 6782
    ssl_certificate => "/etc/ssl/certs/redacted.crt"
    ssl_key => "/etc/ssl/private/redacted.key"
  }
}
output {
  file {
    path => './test-fun.txt'
  }
}

```

Sample event that was generated on server A, and sent via lumberjack to server B

```
{"message":"2015-12-24T04:13:46.224Z redacted.net Dec 24 04:13:45 redacted sshd[4743]: Received disconnect from 2.2.2.2: 11: Bye! [preauth]","@version":"1","@timestamp":"2015-12-24T04:13:46.297Z"}

```

As you can see from the message, there is no host field. As a test, I created an output file on server A and looked at the event before it was sent to server B and sure enough, the host field is there. It's as if lumberjack on the receiving side (lumberjack input plugin) is deleting the host field.

Anyone have any thoughts? Should I switch to the "beats" plugin for the input on server B?

Thanks,

Matthew Green

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2016, 6:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/host-field-not-present-on-logstash-event/37906/2 "2016-01-05T06:57:17Z")

</div>

Use the json codec in both the output and input lumberjack plugin. Right now you're using the default plain codec so Logstash is serializing the whole event to a string equivalent to "%{@timestamp} %{message}" so all other fields are lost.

---

<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:** [July 6, 2017, 5:16am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/host-field-not-present-on-logstash-event/37906/3 "2017-07-06T05:16:50Z")

</div>