Only superuser can publish filebeat records to elasticsearch

Elastic Stack Beats
1

I am using version 9.1.1 of elastic, kibana and filebeat in a practice environment on ubuntu 24.04

When I configure my /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml to connect to elasticsearch with the username elastic, everything works perfectly.

But I do not want to use the elastic user. I want a less privileged user. I tried following this guide:

But when I do a systemctl start filebeat, I get these errors:

Aug 12 04:12:13 beat filebeat[13556]: {"log.level":"error","@timestamp":"2025-08-12T04:12:13.815Z","log.logger":"modules","log.origin":{"function":"github.com/elastic/beats/v7/filebeat/fileset.(*inputsRunner).Start","file.name":"fileset/factory.go","file.line":166},"message":"Error loading pipeline: error loading pipeline for fileset system/auth: couldn't load pipeline: couldn't load json. Error: 403 Forbidden: {\"error\":{\"root_cause\":[{\"type\":\"security_exception\",\"reason\":\"action [cluster:admin/ingest/pipeline/put] is unauthorized for user [filebeat_pubisher] with effective roles [filebeat_publisher], this action is granted by the cluster privileges [manage_ingest_pipelines,manage_pipeline,manage,all]\"}],\"type\":\"security_exception\",\"reason\":\"action [cluster:admin/ingest/pipeline/put] is unauthorized for user [filebeat_pubisher] with effective roles [filebeat_publisher], this action is granted by the cluster privileges [manage_ingest_pipelines,manage_pipeline,manage,all]\"},\"status\":403}. Response body: {\"error\":{\"root_cause\":[{\"type\":\"security_exception\",\"reason\":\"action [cluster:admin/ingest/pipeline/put] is unauthorized for user [filebeat_pubisher] with effective roles [filebeat_publisher], this action is granted by the cluster privileges [manage_ingest_pipelines,manage_pipeline,manage,all]\"}],\"type\":\"security_exception\",\"reason\":\"action [cluster:admin/ingest/pipeline/put] is unauthorized for user [filebeat_pubisher] with effective roles [filebeat_publisher], this action is granted by the cluster privileges [manage_ingest_pipelines,manage_pipeline,manage,all]\"},\"status\":403}","service.name":"filebeat","ecs.version":"1.6.0"}

This is the role I created as per instructions from the documentation

role
role923×935 94.6 KB

And this is the user:

user
user829×651 45.8 KB

I can get around the problem by adding superuser to the Privileges:Roles like this:

superuser
superuser827×111 12.6 KB

But that defeats the purpose of creating a limited privileged user.

Can someone tell me what I did wrong?

2

Hi. @learningelastic

Pretty sure You need to run setup with setup role or ad the setup privileges to the writer role because it is trying to setup and manage the ingest pipelines..

1 Like
3

When running the setup command /usr/share/filebeat/bin/filebeat setup -c ..etc..etc.. i did so with the elastic user in my filebeat.yml. No errors appeared. All the dashboards were made in kibana etc… Then i edited my filebeat.yml to use the filebeat_pubisher user above and then I did the systemctl start filebeat. And that’s when i got the errors above. I resolved the issue by adding superuser role to the filebeat_pubisher user afterwards.

4

Hello @learningelastic

The issue might be something else , as i followed the same i.e.

1. Performed the setup with elastic user
2. Updated the user from elastic to filebeat_publisher & started the filebeat post that the ingestion worked fine. No errors.

If possible, could you please share the filebeat.yml

Thanks!!

5

ok sure!

First i use this /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml

###################### Filebeat Configuration Example #########################

# This file is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common
# options. The filebeat.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/filebeat/index.html

# For more available modules and options, please see the filebeat.reference.yml sample
# configuration file.

# ============================== Filebeat inputs ===============================

filebeat.inputs:

# Each - is an input. Most options can be set at the input level, so
# you can use different inputs for various configurations.
# Below are the input-specific configurations.

# filestream is an input for collecting log messages from files.
- type: filestream

  # Unique ID among all inputs, an ID is required.
  id: my-filestream-id

  # Change to true to enable this input configuration.
  enabled: false

  # Paths that should be crawled and fetched. Glob based paths.
  paths:
    - /var/log/*.log
    #- c:\programdata\elasticsearch\logs\*

  # Exclude lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It drops the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  # Line filtering happens after the parsers pipeline. If you would like to filter lines
  # before parsers, use include_message parser.
  #exclude_lines: ['^DBG']

  # Include lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It exports the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  # Line filtering happens after the parsers pipeline. If you would like to filter lines
  # before parsers, use include_message parser.
  #include_lines: ['^ERR', '^WARN']

  # Exclude files. A list of regular expressions to match. Filebeat drops the files that
  # are matching any regular expression from the list. By default, no files are dropped.
  #prospector.scanner.exclude_files: ['.gz$']

  # Optional additional fields. These fields can be freely picked
  # to add additional information to the crawled log files for filtering
  #fields:
  #  level: debug
  #  review: 1

# journald is an input for collecting logs from Journald
#- type: journald

  # Unique ID among all inputs, if the ID changes, all entries
  # will be re-ingested
  #id: my-journald-id

  # The position to start reading from the journal, valid options are:
  #  - head: Starts reading at the beginning of the journal.
  #  - tail: Starts reading at the end of the journal.
  #    This means that no events will be sent until a new message is written.
  #  - since: Use also the `since` option to determine when to start reading from.
  #seek: head

  # A time offset from the current time to start reading from.
  # To use since, seek option must be set to since.
  #since: -24h

  # Collect events from the service and messages about the service,
  # including coredumps.
  #units:
    #- docker.service

# ============================== Filebeat modules ==============================

filebeat.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 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 dashboard archive. By default, this URL
# has a value that 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: "192.168.0.101:5601"

  # 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 Filebeat 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: ["192.168.0.101:9200"]

  # Performance preset - one of "balanced", "throughput", "scale",
  # "latency", or "custom".
  preset: balanced

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

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  username: "elastic"
  #username: "filebeat_pubisher"
  password: "ABCD1234"
  ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/elasticsearch/certs/http_ca.crt"]

setup.ilm.check_exists: false
# ------------------------------ 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 =================================
processors:
  - add_host_metadata:
      when.not.contains.tags: forwarded
  - 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",
# "publisher", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

# ============================= X-Pack Monitoring ==============================
# Filebeat 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
# Filebeat 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 outputs 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:

# ============================== Instrumentation ===============================

# Instrumentation support for the filebeat.
#instrumentation:
    # Set to true to enable instrumentation of filebeat.
    #enabled: false

    # Environment in which filebeat is running on (eg: staging, production, etc.)
    #environment: ""

    # APM Server hosts to report instrumentation results to.
    #hosts:
    #  - http://localhost:8200

    # API Key for the APM Server(s).
    # If api_key is set then secret_token will be ignored.
    #api_key:

    # Secret token for the APM Server(s).
    #secret_token:


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

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

Then I run

/usr/share/filebeat/bin/filebeat setup -c /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml --path.data /var/lib/filebeat --path.home /usr/share/filebeat

I don’t get any errors from this command, just a bunch of success messages. Then i go into kibana, i see all the boiler template dashboards.

then i create the role and user as shown in my original message. Then I edit my filebeat.yml to look like this:

###################### Filebeat Configuration Example #########################

# This file is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common
# options. The filebeat.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/filebeat/index.html

# For more available modules and options, please see the filebeat.reference.yml sample
# configuration file.

# ============================== Filebeat inputs ===============================

filebeat.inputs:

# Each - is an input. Most options can be set at the input level, so
# you can use different inputs for various configurations.
# Below are the input-specific configurations.

# filestream is an input for collecting log messages from files.
- type: filestream

  # Unique ID among all inputs, an ID is required.
  id: my-filestream-id

  # Change to true to enable this input configuration.
  enabled: false

  # Paths that should be crawled and fetched. Glob based paths.
  paths:
    - /var/log/*.log
    #- c:\programdata\elasticsearch\logs\*

  # Exclude lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It drops the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  # Line filtering happens after the parsers pipeline. If you would like to filter lines
  # before parsers, use include_message parser.
  #exclude_lines: ['^DBG']

  # Include lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It exports the lines that are
  # matching any regular expression from the list.
  # Line filtering happens after the parsers pipeline. If you would like to filter lines
  # before parsers, use include_message parser.
  #include_lines: ['^ERR', '^WARN']

  # Exclude files. A list of regular expressions to match. Filebeat drops the files that
  # are matching any regular expression from the list. By default, no files are dropped.
  #prospector.scanner.exclude_files: ['.gz$']

  # Optional additional fields. These fields can be freely picked
  # to add additional information to the crawled log files for filtering
  #fields:
  #  level: debug
  #  review: 1

# journald is an input for collecting logs from Journald
#- type: journald

  # Unique ID among all inputs, if the ID changes, all entries
  # will be re-ingested
  #id: my-journald-id

  # The position to start reading from the journal, valid options are:
  #  - head: Starts reading at the beginning of the journal.
  #  - tail: Starts reading at the end of the journal.
  #    This means that no events will be sent until a new message is written.
  #  - since: Use also the `since` option to determine when to start reading from.
  #seek: head

  # A time offset from the current time to start reading from.
  # To use since, seek option must be set to since.
  #since: -24h

  # Collect events from the service and messages about the service,
  # including coredumps.
  #units:
    #- docker.service

# ============================== Filebeat modules ==============================

filebeat.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 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 dashboard archive. By default, this URL
# has a value that 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: "192.168.0.101:5601"

  # 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 Filebeat 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: ["192.168.0.101:9200"]

  # Performance preset - one of "balanced", "throughput", "scale",
  # "latency", or "custom".
  preset: balanced

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

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  #username: "elastic"
  username: "filebeat_pubisher"
  password: "ABCD1234"
  ssl.certificate_authorities: ["/etc/elasticsearch/certs/http_ca.crt"]

setup.ilm.check_exists: false
# ------------------------------ 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 =================================
processors:
  - add_host_metadata:
      when.not.contains.tags: forwarded
  - 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",
# "publisher", "service".
#logging.selectors: ["*"]

# ============================= X-Pack Monitoring ==============================
# Filebeat 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
# Filebeat 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 outputs 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:

# ============================== Instrumentation ===============================

# Instrumentation support for the filebeat.
#instrumentation:
    # Set to true to enable instrumentation of filebeat.
    #enabled: false

    # Environment in which filebeat is running on (eg: staging, production, etc.)
    #environment: ""

    # APM Server hosts to report instrumentation results to.
    #hosts:
    #  - http://localhost:8200

    # API Key for the APM Server(s).
    # If api_key is set then secret_token will be ignored.
    #api_key:

    # Secret token for the APM Server(s).
    #secret_token:


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

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

In other words, i just comment out elastic user and bring in the filebeat_pubisher user. I made sure the password for filebeat_pubisher is ABCD1234.

I then go into modules.d directory and

cp system.yml.disabled system.yml
cp apache.yml.disabled apache.yml

And I edt the approprioate lines in system.yml and apache.yml from false to true to enable logging.

Then I go and do systemctl enable filebeat && systemctl start filebeat. Then my syslog shows the errors in the original message. Then i go to kibana and add the superuser role to the filebeat_pubisher user, and error goes away.

6

Did you run the setup using the setup role with the modules enabled or disabled? It is not clear.

7

I edit filebeat.yml to use elastic user. Then I run set up. Then i enable modules system.yml and apache.yml. Then i edit filebeat.yml to use filebeat_pubisher with just the filebeat_publisher role. Then i systemctl start filebeat. Then i get error. Then i add superuser to the filebeat_publisher role. Then I systemctl restart filebeat. Then error goes away.

8

You need to enable the modules before you run the setup for the setup to be able to load the required ingest pipelines for the modules that will be used.

Stop the filebeat service, enable the modules you want to use, run the setup with the setup role, after it finishes, change the filebeat user and see if it works.

9

OK thanks!

But I also noticed these settings:

filebeat.config.modules:
  path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml
  reload.enabled: false
  reload.period: 10s

My understanding is that during run time, filebeat will automatically check the modules.d directory for enabeld .yml file every 10 seconds.

Does this mean I need to write a separate bash script to run every 5 seconds to check if new modules enabled, and if so, then run the /usr/share/filebeat/bin/filebeat setup command ? And i need to give the filebeat_pubisher user set up privileges as well?