Update documentation for path.settings?

[ElasticN00b]

Greetings programs!

While I was trying to set up logstash I was running into a fun error:

[2018-04-04T14:19:05,689][INFO ][logstash.config.source.local.configpathloader] No config files found in path {:path=>"/etc/logstash/conf.d/devland.conf"}
[2018-04-04T14:19:05,690][ERROR][logstash.config.sourceloader] No configuration found in the configured sources.

So I searched around the forums and finally found people talking about the path.settings: config option. So I figured I would look at the logstash settings doc to get a better idea of what is really going on : https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/logstash-settings-file.html

Which oddly enough doesn't mention that particular setting. I poked around for a little while longer and found that that config is listed in a page linked from the setting-file page: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/dir-layout.html#deb-layout

My question / suggestion is that is that setting purposefully omitted in the logstash-settings-file page or is it supposed to be there and just isn't?

Either way, thanks for your time!

[yaauie (Ry Biesemeyer)]

The path.settings option can be specified as a command-line option, so that when Logstash starts up (and hasn't yet read a Settings File) it knows where to look for the Settings File so that it can read the rest of the settings.

In order for it to be a supported option in the Settings File we would first have to read it from the Settings File so that we could find the Settings File to read it from, which is circular logic without end

[ElasticN00b]

That does make sense, but the odd part is that when I didn't give it any command line options it tried to load what I set in pipelines.conf but was unable to find devland.conf (the error above). However, when I set path.settings in the logstash.yml not only did it not give an error and start but it also seems to recognize that the file /etc/logstash/conf.d/devland.confwas there and load the config no problem.

1. What would be a good guess as to why it acts like that?
2. I'm running this on CentOS 7, what would be the best way to ensure that path.settings is set at runtime? (I'm using systemd to stop / start logstash) - this one may be a dumb question.

Thanks again!