System socket metricset

This metricset is available on Linux only and requires kernel 2.6.14 or newer.

The system socket metricset reports an event for each new TCP socket that it sees. It does this by polling the kernel periodically to get a dump of all sockets. You set the polling interval by configuring the period option. Specifying a short polling interval with this metricset is important to avoid missing short-lived connections. For example:

metricbeat.modules:
- module: system
  metricsets: [cpu, memory]
- module: system
  metricsets: [socket] 1
  period: 1s

1. You can configure the socket metricset separately to specify a different period value than the other metricsets.

The metricset reports the process that has the socket open. To provide this information on Linux for all processes, Metricbeat must be run with sys_ptrace and dac_read_search capabilities. These permissions are usually granted when running as root, but they can and may need to be explictly added when running Metricbeat inside a container.

- module: system
  metricsets: [socket]
  socket.reverse_lookup.enabled: false
  socket.reverse_lookup.success_ttl: 60s
  socket.reverse_lookup.failure_ttl: 60s

socket.reverse_lookup.enabled

You can configure the metricset to perform a reverse lookup on the remote IP, and the returned hostname will be added to the event and cached. If a hostname is found, then the eTLD+1 (effective top-level domain plus one level) value will also be added to the event. Reverse lookups are disabled by default.

socket.reverse_lookup.success_ttl

The results of successful reverse lookups are cached for the period of time defined by this option. The default value is 60s.

socket.reverse_lookup.failure_ttl

The results of failed reverse lookups are cached for the period of time defined by this option. The default value is 60s.

For a description of each field in the metricset, see the exported fields section.

Here is an example document generated by this metricset:

{
    "@timestamp": "2017-10-12T08:05:34.853Z",
    "agent": {
        "hostname": "host.example.com",
        "name": "host.example.com"
    },
    "event": {
        "dataset": "system.socket",
        "duration": 115000,
        "module": "system"
    },
    "metricset": {
        "name": "socket"
    },
    "network": {
        "direction": "listening",
        "iana_number": "41",
        "type": "ipv6"
    },
    "process": {
        "args": [
            "/tmp/go-build774092237/b001/socket.test",
            "-data"
        ],
        "executable": "/tmp/go-build774092237/b001/socket.test",
        "name": "socket.test",
        "pid": 32127
    },
    "server": {
        "ip": "::",
        "port": 45109
    },
    "service": {
        "type": "system"
    },
    "system": {
        "socket": {
            "local": {
                "ip": "::",
                "port": 45109
            },
            "process": {
                "cmdline": "/tmp/go-build774092237/b001/socket.test -data"
            }
        }
    },
    "user": {
        "full_name": "Jaime Soriano Pastor",
        "id": "1000",
        "name": "jaime"
    }
}