# Index external files

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 25, 2023, 7:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771 "2023-04-25T19:53:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fabian\_barnich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/fabian_barnich/32/120205_2.png) [@fabian\_barnich](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/fabian_barnich)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2023, 7:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/1 "2023-04-25T19:53:52Z")

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Good morning,

I installed elasticsearch and kibana on a VM in debian, my documents that I want to index are on another VM.  
How can I tell Elasticsearch to index them?

Thanks in advance

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**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:** [April 25, 2023, 8:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/2 "2023-04-25T20:57:18Z")

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Hi @fabian_barnich

Welcome to the community!

There are lots of ways to get documents into elasticsearch.

A typical starting point would be using something like filebeat.

> **[Filebeat quick start: installation and configuration | Filebeat Reference...](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/filebeat-installation-configuration.html)**

There is also REST endpoint or if you just have one or two files you can use the manual file uploader.

Kibana \> Machine Learning\> Upload File

> **[Add data | Kibana Guide \[8.7\] | Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/connect-to-elasticsearch.html#upload-data-kibana)**
>
> A reference of the reporting settings administrators configure in kibana.yml.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fabian\_barnich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/fabian_barnich/32/120205_2.png) [@fabian\_barnich](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/fabian_barnich)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 2:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/3 "2023-04-26T14:40:14Z")

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Thank you for your reply.  
Sorry I'm a beginner.  
is there not a modification to be made in the yml to index another VM ip?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 3:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/4 "2023-04-26T15:00:41Z")

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There is nothing in core Elasticsearch itself that will pull in data from externam non-Elasticsearch sources, so you need to use a tool like Kibana, Filebeat, Logstash or maybe even FSCrawler to do this. The choice depends on what type of data it is and whether it is a one-off load or something that need to happen regularly.

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**Author:** ![fabian\_barnich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/fabian_barnich/32/120205_2.png) [@fabian\_barnich](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/fabian_barnich)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/5 "2023-04-26T15:04:42Z")

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Thank you for your answer  
The best is to explain the context.  
On an intranet I have to make a search area which must fetch procedures in word or pdf on a server. I hope I am accurate enough 😉  
So what are you suggesting to me?

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/6 "2023-04-26T15:11:21Z")

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I would recommend you look at [Elastic Enterprise Search](https://www.elastic.co/enterprise-search) and [FSCrawler](https://github.com/dadoonet/fscrawler).

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/index-external-files/330771/7 "2023-05-24T15:11:49Z")

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