# Want to use logtimestamp as elastic timestamp

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/want-to-use-logtimestamp-as-elastic-timestamp/116269
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [January 19, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/want-to-use-logtimestamp-as-elastic-timestamp/116269 "2018-01-19T15:54:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![aviationfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c37758/32.png) [@aviationfan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/aviationfan)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/want-to-use-logtimestamp-as-elastic-timestamp/116269/1 "2018-01-19T15:54:08Z")

</div>

I am new to ELK and am experimenting to learn how to use the tools. I have a config file for logstash setup and have gotten data into Elastic. I noticed that it ignores the data and time in the log entries and uses the clock time for the events - I want to do the opposite and have the timestamp from the log used in Elastic

Config file:

```
input {
     file {
         path => "/opt/bitnami/apache2/logs/access_log"
         start_position => beginning
         sincedb_path => "/dev/null"
         ignore_older => 0
     }
 }

 filter {
     grok {
         match => { "message" => "%{IP:client}%{SPACE}%{NOTSPACE}%{SPACE}%{DATA:who}%{SPACE}\[%{HTTPDATE}\]%{SPACE}%{NOTSPACE}%{WORD:verb}%{SPACE}%{URIPATHPARAM}%{SPACE}%{WORD:protocol}%{NOTSPACE}%{NUMBER:protoversion}%{NOTSPACE}%{SPACE}%{WORD:status}%{SPACE}%{GREEDYDATA:size}" }
     }
     date {
         match => ["timestamp" , "dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z"]
         target => "@timestamp"
    }
     mutate {
         convert => { "size" => "integer" }
    }
 }

 output {
     elasticsearch {
         hosts => ["127.0.0.1:9200"]
     }
 }

```

One event from Elastic in JSON format

```
{
  "_index": "logstash-2018.01.19",
  "_type": "doc",
  "_id": "mA0aD2EBgQZkMV75rhqq",
  "_version": 1,
  "_score": null,
  "_source": {
    "path": "/opt/bitnami/apache2/logs/access_log",
    "protoversion": "1.1",
    "protocol": "HTTP",
    "@timestamp": "2018-01-19T15:47:42.041Z",
    "size": 212,
    "@version": "1",
    "host": "debian",
    "verb": "GET",
    "client": "192.168.1.56",
    "message": "192.168.1.56 - - [15/Dec/2017:16:43:04 +0000] \"GET / HTTP/1.1\" 302 212",
    "who": "-",
    "status": "302"
  },
  "fields": {
    "@timestamp": [
      "2018-01-19T15:47:42.041Z"
    ]
  },
  "sort": [
    1516376862041
  ]
}
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![aviationfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c37758/32.png) [@aviationfan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/aviationfan)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/want-to-use-logtimestamp-as-elastic-timestamp/116269/2 "2018-01-19T18:22:01Z")

</div>

Fixed the problem by changing a few things in the config file. I made a name for the timestamp in grok section called event\_timestamp then used that field name in the date match.

```
input {
     file {
         path => "/opt/bitnami/apache2/logs/access_log"
         start_position => beginning
         sincedb_path => "/dev/null"
         ignore_older => 0
     }
 }

 filter {
     grok {
         match => { "message" => "%{IP:client}%{SPACE}%{NOTSPACE}%{SPACE}%{DATA:who}%{SPACE}\[%{HTTPDATE:event_timestamp}\]%{SPACE}%{NOTSPACE}%{WORD:verb}%{SPACE}%{URIPATHPARAM}%{SPACE}%{WORD:protocol}%{NOTSPACE}%{NUMBER:protoversion}%{NOTSPACE}%{SPACE}%{WORD:status}%{SPACE}%{GREEDYDATA:size}" }
     }
     date {
         match => ["event_timestamp" , "dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss Z"]
    }
     mutate {
         convert => { "size" => "integer" }
    }
 }

 output {
     elasticsearch {
         hosts => ["127.0.0.1:9200"]
     }
 }
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/want-to-use-logtimestamp-as-elastic-timestamp/116269/3 "2018-02-16T18:22:15Z")

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