# Logstash multiple path.config (copying files is not a valid solution!)

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-multiple-path-config-copying-files-is-not-a-valid-solution/104696>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [October 20, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-multiple-path-config-copying-files-is-not-a-valid-solution/104696 "2017-10-20T12:10:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mostolog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@mostolog](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mostolog)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-multiple-path-config-copying-files-is-not-a-valid-solution/104696/1 "2017-10-20T12:10:23Z")

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**Our logstash configurations are actually splitted into 2 directories** :

- main configuration files.
- group specific configuration files.

According to docs:

```auto
-f, --path.config CONFIG_PATH
Load the Logstash config from a specific file or directory. If a directory is given, all files in that directory will be concatenated in lexicographical order and then parsed as a single config file. Specifying this flag multiple times is not supported. If you specify this flag multiple times, Logstash uses the last occurrence (for example, -f foo -f bar is the same as -f bar).
You can specify wildcards (globs) and any matched files will be loaded in the order described above. For example, you can use the wildcard feature to load specific files by name:
bin/logstash --debug -f '/tmp/{one,two,three}'
With this command, Logstash concatenates three config files, /tmp/one, /tmp/two, and /tmp/three, and parses them into a single config.

```

but sadly...

bin/logstash --debug -f '/tmp/{firstFile,secondFile}' \<---works  
**bin/logstash --debug -f '/tmp/{firstDir,secondDir}' \<--- doesn't work**

As the configuration files are stored in host, and logstash is deployed as a container, and considering **we are trying to enable automatic-reload of configuration files** , does anyone know why this doesn't work or how could we solve this issue?

Issue: [https://github.com/elastic/logstash/issues/5097](https://github.com/elastic/logstash/issues/5097)

Regards

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mostolog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@mostolog](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mostolog)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 8:29am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-multiple-path-config-copying-files-is-not-a-valid-solution/104696/2 "2017-10-31T08:29:48Z")

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We ended not using this feature, as when using multiple paths, logstash concatenates each conf file within each directory, hence having two "configuration sets", instead of one, which was expected/needed.

ie: -f '/tmp/{firstDir,secondDir}' results in first/_.conf and second/_.conf being created separately.

As we had:  
first/10-input.conf  
first/30-delete.conf  
second/20-input.conf

**we expected them to be concat as: first/10-input.conf, second/20-input.conf. first/30-delete.conf**

**but instead we get: first/10-input.conf, first/30-delete.conf, second/20-input.conf**

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<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:** [November 28, 2017, 8:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-multiple-path-config-copying-files-is-not-a-valid-solution/104696/3 "2017-11-28T08:30:20Z")

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