# New to beats - A config question

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-to-beats-a-config-question/187070>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Created:** [June 24, 2019, 7:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-to-beats-a-config-question/187070 "2019-06-24T07:45:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Mats](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mats)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 7:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-to-beats-a-config-question/187070/1 "2019-06-24T07:45:35Z")

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As stated I'm new to beats and are looking at Beats as a replacement for NXlog in the first place.

in the documentation for Winlogbeat it says that i Should configure it for Kibana (Configure the Kibana endpoint).

I don't understand why that should be needed.  
For example I dont my DMZ machines to be able to talk to my presentation layer. I want them talking to a Kafka host.

Why does a log collector need to talk to the presentation layer?  
Can it work without this?  
What are the effects of that?

as I said. I'm new to beats so I might have missed the answers totally but please just give me a tip to there to find them in that case

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**Author:** ![Wolfram\_Haussig](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/wolfram_haussig/32/70528_2.png) [@Wolfram\_Haussig](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Wolfram_Haussig)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 12:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-to-beats-a-config-question/187070/2 "2019-06-24T12:05:36Z")

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Each Beat contains objects for Kibana for working with the data(like index patterns, visualizations, dashboards,...). Those can be imported by the Beat if you specify the Kibana instance where the objects should be imported.

You do not need to open a connection from your winlogbeat host to kibana - you could start winlogbeat once on your dev machine and import the objects from there. Once those objects are imported no connection between winlogbeat and kibana is required.

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**Author:** ![Mats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Mats](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mats)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 6:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-to-beats-a-config-question/187070/3 "2019-06-25T06:24:36Z")

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> [@Wolfram\_Haussig](#):
>
> need to open a connection from your winlogbeat host to kibana - you could start winlogbeat once on your dev machine and import the objects from there. Once those objects are imported no connection between winlogbeat and kibana is required.

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

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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:** [July 23, 2019, 8:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/new-to-beats-a-config-question/187070/4 "2019-07-23T08:24:44Z")

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