Metricbeat->Elasticsearch fine; Metricbeat->Kafka->Logstash->ElasticSearch not

Elastic Stack Beats
1

Using version 7.6.2 of everything Elastic, and version 2.12-2.4.1 of Kafka

When I install metricbeat on some test host, and sent those beats directly to Elasticsearch, the [Metricbeat System] ECS dashboard looks fine and loads information for all hosts running metricbeat.

However, when I use Kafka as an intermediary, and then pull from Kafka into Elasticsearch using Logstash, no data is pulled into the [Metricbeat System] ECS dashboard, or at least some is but there are tons of visualization errors.

Here is my conf file for what I thought should work but doesn't (in /etc/logstash/conf.d):

input {
  kafka {
    bootstrap_servers => ["kafka1:9092,kafka2:9092,kafka3:9092"]
    topics => ["metricbeat"]
    codec => json
  }
}

output {
  elasticsearch {
    hosts => ["elasticsearch:9200"]
    index => "metricbeat-"
  }
}

You will note that my index is hardcoded to something simple, which I suspect is the problem. However, when I use something like:

index => "%{[@metadata][beat]}-%{[@metadata][version]}-%{+YYYY.MM.dd}"

it doesn't interpolate the values, and just creates an index with the quoted value literally.

Any help would be appreciated.

2

can you show us the metricbeat.yml?

3 

# This file is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common
# options. The metricbeat.reference.yml file from the same directory contains all the
# supported options with more comments. You can use it as a reference.
#
# You can find the full configuration reference here:
# https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/metricbeat/index.html

#==========================  Modules configuration ============================

metricbeat.config.modules:
  # Glob pattern for configuration loading
  path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml

  # Set to true to enable config reloading
  reload.enabled: false

  # Period on which files under path should be checked for changes
  #reload.period: 10s

#==================== Elasticsearch template setting ==========================

setup.template.settings:
  index.number_of_shards: 1
  index.codec: best_compression
  #_source.enabled: false

#================================ General =====================================

# The name of the shipper that publishes the network data. It can be used to group
# all the transactions sent by a single shipper in the web interface.
#name:

# The tags of the shipper are included in their own field with each
# transaction published.
#tags: ["service-X", "web-tier"]

# Optional fields that you can specify to add additional information to the
# output.
#fields:
#  env: staging


#============================== Dashboards =====================================
# These settings control loading the sample dashboards to the Kibana index. Loading
# the dashboards is disabled by default and can be enabled either by setting the
# options here or by using the `setup` command.
#setup.dashboards.enabled: false

# The URL from where to download the dashboards archive. By default this URL
# has a value which is computed based on the Beat name and version. For released
# versions, this URL points to the dashboard archive on the artifacts.elastic.co
# website.
#setup.dashboards.url:

#============================== Kibana =====================================

# Starting with Beats version 6.0.0, the dashboards are loaded via the Kibana API.
# This requires a Kibana endpoint configuration.
setup.kibana:

  # Kibana Host
  # Scheme and port can be left out and will be set to the default (http and 5601)
  # In case you specify and additional path, the scheme is required: http://localhost:5601/path
  # IPv6 addresses should always be defined as: https://[2001:db8::1]:5601
  host: "kibana:5601"

  # Kibana Space ID
  # ID of the Kibana Space into which the dashboards should be loaded. By default,
  # the Default Space will be used.
  #space.id:

#============================= Elastic Cloud ==================================

# These settings simplify using Metricbeat with the Elastic Cloud (https://cloud.elastic.co/).

# The cloud.id setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.hosts` and
# `setup.kibana.host` options.
# You can find the `cloud.id` in the Elastic Cloud web UI.
#cloud.id:

# The cloud.auth setting overwrites the `output.elasticsearch.username` and
# `output.elasticsearch.password` settings. The format is `<user>:<pass>`.
#cloud.auth:

#================================ Outputs =====================================

# Configure what output to use when sending the data collected by the beat.

#-------------------------- Elasticsearch output ------------------------------
#output.elasticsearch:
  # Array of hosts to connect to.
  hosts: ["elasticsearch:9200"]

  # Protocol - either `http` (default) or `https`.
  #protocol: "https"

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  #api_key: "id:api_key"
  #username: "elastic"
  #password: "changeme"

#----------------------------- Logstash output --------------------------------
#output.logstash:
  # The Logstash hosts
  #hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

  # Optional SSL. By default is off.
  # List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications
  #ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]

  # Certificate for SSL client authentication
  #ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"

  # Client Certificate Key
  #ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

#================================ Processors =====================================

# Configure processors to enhance or manipulate events generated by the beat.

processors:
  - add_host_metadata: ~
  - add_cloud_metadata: ~
  - add_docker_metadata: ~
  - add_kubernetes_metadata: ~

#================================ Logging =====================================

# Sets log level. The default log level is info.
# Available log levels are: error, warning, info, debug
#logging.level: debug

# At debug level, you can selectively enable logging only for some components.
# To enable all selectors use ["*"]. Examples of other selectors are "beat",
# "publish", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

#============================== X-Pack Monitoring ===============================
# metricbeat can export internal metrics to a central Elasticsearch monitoring
# cluster.  This requires xpack monitoring to be enabled in Elasticsearch.  The
# reporting is disabled by default.

# Set to true to enable the monitoring reporter.
#monitoring.enabled: false

# Sets the UUID of the Elasticsearch cluster under which monitoring data for this
# Metricbeat instance will appear in the Stack Monitoring UI. If output.elasticsearch
# is enabled, the UUID is derived from the Elasticsearch cluster referenced by output.elasticsearch.
#monitoring.cluster_uuid:

# Uncomment to send the metrics to Elasticsearch. Most settings from the
# Elasticsearch output are accepted here as well.
# Note that the settings should point to your Elasticsearch *monitoring* cluster.
# Any setting that is not set is automatically inherited from the Elasticsearch
# output configuration, so if you have the Elasticsearch output configured such
# that it is pointing to your Elasticsearch monitoring cluster, you can simply
# uncomment the following line.
#monitoring.elasticsearch:

#================================= Migration ==================================

# This allows to enable 6.7 migration aliases
#migration.6_to_7.enabled: true
# 

# BEGIN ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
logging.to_files: true
logging.files:
  path: /var/log/metricbeat
  name: metricbeat
  rotateeverybytes: 10485760 # = 10MB
  keepfiles: 7
# END ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
# 

# BEGIN ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
output.kafka:
  # initial brokers for reading cluster metadata
  hosts: ["kafka1:9092", "kafka2:9092", "kafka3:9092"]

  # message topic selection + partitioning
  topic: 'metricbeat'
  partition.round_robin:
    reachable_only: false

  required_acks: 1
  compression: gzip
  max_message_bytes: 1000000
# END ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
4

metricbeat.yml above.

I've made some progress - I had not put the codec => json portion in earlier, which was why the index pattern didn't interpolate.

So now a majority of the visualizations get populated but there are many errors like:

[esaggs] > "field" is a required parameter

and

Saved "field" parameter is now invalid. Please select a new field.

that aren't there if I bypass Kafka and go directly from Metricbeat -> Elasticsearch

5

Ok, good news - after the system was up for a little bit, the visualization errors dropped away.

I think they were an artifact of the system coming up all at once and needing to have enough time to get some data into Elasticsearch rather than immediately hitting the visualizations -- as I most definitely was doing -- before the data supporting them was populated.

6

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