# Unable to exclude\_lines in filebeat

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-exclude-lines-in-filebeat/165215>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** filebeat\
**Created:** [January 22, 2019, 10:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-exclude-lines-in-filebeat/165215 "2019-01-22T10:36:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 18

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steffens](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/steffens/32/79630_2.png) [@steffens](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/steffens)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 12:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-exclude-lines-in-filebeat/165215/18 "2019-01-23T12:14:46Z")

</div>

Please format logs and config files using the `</>` button. Config files are sensitive to indentation (YAML file format). In your last example config the indentation of `exclude_lines` is off.

Tip: using `^.*` or `.*$` expresses a sub-string match. This is exactly what exclude\_lines does. This config should work:

```auto
filebeat.prospectors:

- type: log
  paths:
    - /u04/jboss/standalone/log/server.log
    - /var/log/soapradius.log
    - /var/log/radius.log
  exclude_lines: ['AbstractLoggingWriter']

output.logstash:
  hosts: ["x.x.x.x:5044"]
  index: "platform.wavespot.net"

```

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_[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unable-to-exclude-lines-in-filebeat/165215)._