# Logstash requires setting a file

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-requires-setting-a-file/64658
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [November 2, 2016, 3:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-requires-setting-a-file/64658 "2016-11-02T03:25:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 4

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### Author: ![theuntergeek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/theuntergeek/32/44961_2.png) [@theuntergeek](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/theuntergeek)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-requires-setting-a-file/64658/4 "2016-11-02T03:58:56Z")

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The reason for all of this headache is that we assumed people would be starting Logstash via upstart and systemd, not at the command-line. We have over 5 years of that use pattern that doesn't just go away. 5.0 is a major release, so we figured we could make some breaking changes and that would be acceptable. These are the growing pains 🙂

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