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Endpoint command reference

This page lists the commands for management and troubleshooting of Elastic Endpoint, the installed component that performs Elastic Defend's threat monitoring and prevention.

Note

  • Elastic Endpoint is not added to the PATH system variable, so you must prepend the commands with the full OS-dependent path:

    • On Windows: "C:\Program Files\Elastic\Endpoint\elastic-endpoint.exe"
    • On macOS: /Library/Elastic/Endpoint/elastic-endpoint
    • On Linux: /opt/Elastic/Endpoint/elastic-endpoint

  • You must run the commands with elevated privileges—using sudo to run as the root user on Linux and macOS, or running as Administrator on Windows.

The following Elastic Endpoint commands are available:

Each of the commands accepts the following logging options:

  • --log [stdout,stderr,debugview,file]
  • --log-level [error,info,debug]

Gather diagnostics information from Elastic Endpoint. This command produces an archive that contains:

  • version.txt: Version information
  • elastic-endpoint.yaml: Current policy
  • metrics.json: Metrics document
  • policy_response.json: Last policy response
  • system_info.txt: System information
  • analysis.txt: Diagnostic analysis report
  • logs directory: Copy of Elastic Endpoint log files
elastic-endpoint diagnostics

Show help for the available commands.

elastic-endpoint help

Show the current Elastic Endpoint configuration.

elastic-endpoint inspect

Install Elastic Endpoint as a system service.

Note

We do not recommend installing Elastic Endpoint using this command. Elastic Endpoint is managed by Elastic Agent and cannot function as a standalone service. Therefore, there is no separate installation package for Elastic Endpoint, and it should not be installed independently.

--resources <string>
Specify a resources .zip file to be used during the installation. This option is required.
--upgrade
Upgrade the existing installation.
elastic-endpoint install --upgrade --resources endpoint-security-resources.zip

Save a memory dump of the Elastic Endpoint service.

--compress
Compress the saved memory dump.
--timeout <duration>
Specify the memory collection timeout, in seconds; the default is 60 seconds.
elastic-endpoint memorydump --timeout 120

Run elastic-endpoint as a foreground process if no other instance is already running.

elastic-endpoint run

Send the requested document to the Elastic Stack.

metadata
Send an off-schedule metrics document to the Elastic Stack.
elastic-endpoint send metadata

Retrieve the current status of the running Elastic Endpoint service. The command also returns the last known status of Elastic Agent.

--output

Control the level of detail and formatting of the information. Valid values are:

  • human: Returns limited information when Elastic Endpoint's status is Healthy. If any policy actions weren’t successfully applied, the relevant details are displayed.
  • full: Always returns the full status information.
  • json: Always returns the full status information.
elastic-endpoint status --output json

Perform the requested test.

output
Test whether Elastic Endpoint can connect to remote resources.
elastic-endpoint test output

Testing output connections

Using proxy:

Elasticsearch server: https://example.elastic.co:443
        Status: Success

Global artifact server: https://artifacts.security.elastic.co
        Status: Success

Fleet server: https://fleet.example.elastic.co:443
        Status: Success

Show a breakdown of the executables that triggered Elastic Endpoint CPU usage within the last interval. This displays which Elastic Endpoint features are resource-intensive for a particular executable.

Note

The meaning and output of this command are similar, but not identical, to the POSIX top command. The elastic-endpoint top command aggregates multiple processes by executable. The utilization values aren’t measured by the OS scheduler but by a wall clock in user mode. The output helps identify outliers causing excessive CPU utilization, allowing you to fine-tune the Elastic Defend policy and exception lists in your deployment.

--interval <duration>
Specify the data collection interval, in seconds; the default is 5 seconds.
--limit <number>
Specify the number of updates to collect; by default, data is collected until interrupted by Ctrl+C.
--normalized
Normalize CPU usage values to a total of 100% across all CPUs on multi-CPU systems.
elastic-endpoint top --interval 10 --limit 5

| PROCESS                                            | OVERALL | API | BHVR | DIAG BHVR | DNS | FILE   | LIB | MEM SCAN | MLWR  | NET | PROC | RANSOM | REG |
=============================================================================================================================================================
| MSBuild.exe                                        |  3146.0 | 0.0 |  0.8 |       0.7 | 0.0 | 2330.9 | 0.0 |    226.2 | 586.9 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.4 | 0.0 |
| Microsoft.Management.Services.IntuneWindowsAgen... |    30.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.2 |     29.8 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| svchost.exe                                        |    27.3 | 0.0 |  0.1 |       0.1 | 0.0 |    0.4 | 0.2 |      0.0 |  26.6 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| LenovoVantage-(LenovoServiceBridgeAddin).exe       |     0.1 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.1 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| Lenovo.Modern.ImController.PluginHost.Device.exe   |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| msedgewebview2.exe                                 |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| msedge.exe                                         |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| powershell.exe                                     |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| WmiPrvSE.exe                                       |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| Lenovo.Modern.ImController.PluginHost.Device.exe   |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| Slack.exe                                          |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| uhssvc.exe                                         |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| explorer.exe                                       |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| taskhostw.exe                                      |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| Widgets.exe                                        |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| elastic-endpoint.exe                               |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |
| sppsvc.exe                                         |     0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |       0.0 | 0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |      0.0 |   0.0 | 0.0 |  0.0 |    0.0 | 0.0 |

Endpoint service (16 CPU): 113.0% out of 1600%

Collecting data.  Press Ctrl-C to cancel
  • API: Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) API events
  • AUTH: Authentication events
  • BHVR: Malicious behavior protection
  • CRED: Credential access events
  • DIAG BHVR: Diagnostic malicious behavior protection
  • DNS: DNS events
  • FILE: File events
  • LIB: Library load events
  • MEM SCAN: Memory scanning
  • MLWR: Malware protection
  • NET: Network events
  • PROC: Process events
  • PROC INJ: Process injection
  • RANSOM: Ransomware protection
  • REG: Registry events

Uninstall Elastic Endpoint.

Note

Elastic Endpoint is managed by Elastic Agent. To remove Elastic Endpoint from the target machine permanently, remove the Elastic Defend integration from the Fleet policy. The elastic-agent uninstall command also uninstalls Elastic Endpoint; therefore, in practice, the elastic-endpoint uninstall command is used only to troubleshoot broken installations.

--uninstall-token <string>
Provide the uninstall token. The token is required if agent tamper protection is enabled.
elastic-endpoint uninstall --uninstall-token 12345678901234567890123456789012

Show the version of Elastic Endpoint.

elastic-endpoint version