# Winlogbeat unable to communicate with logstash

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [December 22, 2022, 6:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862 "2022-12-22T18:24:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![doudou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@doudou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/doudou)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 1:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/21 "2023-01-05T01:56:12Z")

</div>

#setup.dashboards.enabled: true  
If I comment out the dashboard setting above, winlogbeat is able to start fine, but obviously the dashboard is not available in kibana although I see the indexes created fine.  
Basically there's got to be an authentication mechanism that's missing in between winlogbeat and kibana.  
I have tried to add username = "elastic" along with the corresponding password right after the setup.dashboards.enabled: true, then winlogbeat won't start.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 2:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/22 "2023-01-05T02:15:53Z")

</div>

So what does your winlogbeat.yml look like?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![doudou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@doudou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/doudou)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 2:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/23 "2023-01-05T02:38:58Z")

</div>

According to this [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/setup-kibana-endpoint.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/setup-kibana-endpoint.html), I added the elastic user credential, then winlogbeat isn't starting.  
The winlogbeat yml file:

```auto
###################### Winlogbeat Configuration Example ########################

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

# ======================== Winlogbeat specific options =========================

# event_logs specifies a list of event logs to monitor as well as any
# accompanying options. The YAML data type of event_logs is a list of
# dictionaries.
#
# The supported keys are name, id, xml_query, tags, fields, fields_under_root,
# forwarded, ignore_older, level, event_id, provider, and include_xml.
# The xml_query key requires an id and must not be used with the name,
# ignore_older, level, event_id, or provider keys. Please visit the
# documentation for the complete details of each option.
# https://go.es.io/WinlogbeatConfig

winlogbeat.event_logs:
  - name: Application
    ignore_older: 72h

  - name: System

  - name: Security

  - name: Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational

  - name: Windows PowerShell
    event_id: 400, 403, 600, 800

  - name: Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational
    event_id: 4103, 4104, 4105, 4106

  - name: ForwardedEvents
    tags: [forwarded]

# ====================== Elasticsearch template settings =======================

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 own 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: true

# The URL from where to download the dashboards archive. By default this URL
# has a value which 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: 192.168.0.185:5601
  setup.kibana.username: "elastic"
  setup.kibana.password: "lVJNpEo2TpfUt*AiOux+"

  # 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 Winlogbeat 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: ["localhost:9200"]

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

  # Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.
  #api_key: "id:api_key"
  #username: "elastic"
  #password: "changeme"

  # Pipeline to route events to security, sysmon, or powershell pipelines.
  pipeline: "winlogbeat-%{[agent.version]}-routing"

# ------------------------------ Logstash Output -------------------------------
output.logstash:
  # The Logstash hosts
  hosts: ["192.168.0.185:5044"]

  # 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: ~

# ================================== 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 ==============================
# Winlogbeat 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
# Winlogbeat 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 output 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 winlogbeat.
#instrumentation:
    # Set to true to enable instrumentation of winlogbeat.
    #enabled: false

    # Environment in which winlogbeat 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

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![doudou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@doudou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/doudou)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 3:03am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/24 "2023-01-05T03:03:05Z")

</div>

More information:

1- From the ELK server, when I do  
curl [http://192.168.0.185:5601/api/status](http://192.168.0.185:5601/api/status) , I get the exact error message as in the winlogbeat log like ({"statusCode":401,"error":"Unauthorized","message":"Unauthorized"})

But  
2- curl -u "elastic:lVJNpEo2TpfUt\*AiOux+" http:curl [http://192.168.0.185:5601/api/status](http://192.168.0.185:5601/api/status)  
works fine

My conclusion (I might be wrong of course), we need to pass the credentials in some way.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Badger](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/badger/32/25190_2.png) [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 4:47am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/25 "2023-01-05T04:47:40Z")

</div>

> [@doudou](#):
>
> ```auto
> 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: 192.168.0.185:5601
> setup.kibana.username: "elastic"
> setup.kibana.password: "redacted"
> 
> ```

I am certainly not a YAML expert, but I think if you create a setup.kibana.username option indented from setup.kibana then what you are really setting is setup.kibana.setup.kibana.username.

Can you try something more like this?...

```
setup.kibana:
  host: 192.168.0.185:5601
  username: "elastic"
  password: "redacted"

```

which I believe is equivalent to

```
setup.kibana.host: 192.168.0.185:5601
setup.kibana.username: "elastic"
setup.kibana.password: "redacted"

```

I can see exactly why you thought the documentation requested what you configured! It assumes a good understanding of how YAML indenting works, and not many beginners are going to have that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![doudou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@doudou](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/doudou)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 2:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/26 "2023-01-05T14:32:37Z")

</div>

That was it! It worked. Indentation was the issue. Moral for others, don't forget to add the credentials in your beats.yml file.  
Thank you @leandrojmp @leandrojmp for helping with this.

---

<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 2, 2023, 2:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/winlogbeat-unable-to-communicate-with-logstash/321862/27 "2023-02-02T14:32:44Z")

</div>

Closed on February 2, 2023, 2:32pm UTC

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