Configure the Elasticsearch output
Admonition
This documentation only applies to APM Server binary users. Fleet-managed users should see Configure the Elasticsearch output.
The Elasticsearch output sends events directly to Elasticsearch using the Elasticsearch HTTP API.
Example configuration:
output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["https:1
- To enable SSL, add
https
to all URLs defined under hosts.
When sending data to a secured cluster through the elasticsearch
output, APM Server can use any of the following authentication methods:
- Basic authentication credentials (username and password).
- Token-based (API key) authentication.
- Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates.
Basic authentication:
output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"]
username: "apm_writer"
password: "{pwd}"
API key authentication:
output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"]
api_key: "ZCV7VnwBgnX0T19fN8Qe:KnR6yE41RrSowb0kQ0HWoA" 1
- You must set the API key to be configured to Beats. Base64 encoded API keys are not currently supported in this configuration. For details on how to create and configure a compatible API key, refer to Create an API key for writing events.
PKI certificate authentication:
output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"]
ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"
ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"
See Secure communication with Elasticsearch for details on each authentication method.
Compatibility ¶
This output works with all compatible versions of Elasticsearch. See the Elastic Support Matrix.
Configuration options ¶
You can specify the following options in the elasticsearch
section of the apm-server.yml
config file:
enabled
¶
The enabled config is a boolean setting to enable or disable the output. If set to false
, the output is disabled.
The default value is true
.
hosts
¶
The list of Elasticsearch nodes to connect to. The events are distributed to these nodes in round robin order. If one node becomes unreachable, the event is automatically sent to another node. Each Elasticsearch node can be defined as a URL
or IP:PORT
. For example: http://192.15.3.2
, https://es.found.io:9230
or 192.24.3.2:9300
. If no port is specified, 9200
is used.
Note
When a node is defined as an IP:PORT
, the scheme and path are taken from the protocol
and path
config options.
output.elasticsearch:
hosts: ["10.45.3.2:9220", "10.45.3.1:9230"]
protocol: https
path: /elasticsearch
In the previous example, the Elasticsearch nodes are available at https://10.45.3.2:9220/elasticsearch
and https://10.45.3.1:9230/elasticsearch
.
compression_level
¶
The gzip compression level. Setting this value to 0
disables compression. The compression level must be in the range of 1
(best speed) to 9
(best compression).
Increasing the compression level will reduce the network usage but will increase the CPU usage.
The default value is 0
.
escape_html
¶
Configure escaping of HTML in strings. Set to true
to enable escaping.
The default value is false
.
api_key
¶
Instead of using a username and password, you can use API keys to secure communication with Elasticsearch. The value must be the ID of the API key and the API key joined by a colon: id:api_key
.
You must set the API key to be configured to Beats. Base64 encoded API keys are not currently supported in this configuration. For details on how to create and configure a compatible API key, refer to Create an API key for writing events.
username
¶
The basic authentication username for connecting to Elasticsearch.
This user needs the privileges required to publish events to Elasticsearch. To create a user like this, see Create a writer role.
password
¶
The basic authentication password for connecting to Elasticsearch.
parameters
¶
Dictionary of HTTP parameters to pass within the URL with index operations.
protocol
¶
The name of the protocol Elasticsearch is reachable on. The options are: http
or https
. The default is http
. However, if you specify a URL for hosts
, the value of protocol
is overridden by whatever scheme you specify in the URL.
path
¶
An HTTP path prefix that is prepended to the HTTP API calls. This is useful for the cases where Elasticsearch listens behind an HTTP reverse proxy that exports the API under a custom prefix.
headers
¶
Custom HTTP headers to add to each request created by the Elasticsearch output. Example:
output.elasticsearch.headers:
X-My-Header: Header contents
It is possible to specify multiple header values for the same header name by separating them with a comma.
proxy_url
¶
The URL of the proxy to use when connecting to the Elasticsearch servers. The value may be either a complete URL or a "host[:port]", in which case the "http" scheme is assumed. If a value is not specified through the configuration file then proxy environment variables are used. See the Go documentation for more information about the environment variables.
max_retries
¶
The number of times to retry publishing an event after a publishing failure. After the specified number of retries, the events are typically dropped.
Set max_retries
to a value less than 0 to retry until all events are published.
The default is 3.
flush_bytes
¶
The bulk request size threshold, in bytes, before flushing to Elasticsearch. The value must have a suffix, e.g. "2MB"
. The default is 1MB
.
flush_interval
¶
The maximum duration to accumulate events for a bulk request before being flushed to Elasticsearch. The value must have a duration suffix, e.g. "5s"
. The default is 1s
.
backoff.init
¶
The number of seconds to wait before trying to reconnect to Elasticsearch after a network error. After waiting backoff.init
seconds, APM Server tries to reconnect. If the attempt fails, the backoff timer is increased exponentially up to backoff.max
. After a successful connection, the backoff timer is reset. The default is 1s
.
backoff.max
¶
The maximum number of seconds to wait before attempting to connect to Elasticsearch after a network error. The default is 60s
.
timeout
¶
The HTTP request timeout in seconds for the Elasticsearch request. The default is 90.
ssl
¶
Configuration options for SSL parameters like the certificate authority to use for HTTPS-based connections. If the ssl
section is missing, the host CAs are used for HTTPS connections to Elasticsearch.
See the secure communication with Elasticsearch guide or SSL configuration reference for more information.
Secure communication with Elasticsearch ¶
When sending data to a secured cluster through the elasticsearch
output, APM Server can use any of the following authentication methods:
- Basic authentication credentials (username and password).
- Token-based API authentication.
- A client certificate.
Authentication is specified in the APM Server configuration file:
- To use basic authentication, specify the
username
andpassword
settings underoutput.elasticsearch
. For example:output.elasticsearch: hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"] username: "apm_writer" 1 password: "{pwd}"
- This user needs the privileges required to publish events to Elasticsearch. To create a user like this, see Create a writer role.
- To use token-based API key authentication, specify the
api_key
underoutput.elasticsearch
. For example:output.elasticsearch: hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"] api_key: "KnR6yE41RrSowb0kQ0HWoA" 1
- This API key must have the privileges required to publish events to Elasticsearch. You must set the API key to be configured to Beats. Base64 encoded API keys are not currently supported in this configuration. For details on how to create and configure a compatible API key, refer to Create an API key for writing events.
- To use Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates to authenticate users, specify the
certificate
andkey
settings underoutput.elasticsearch
. For example:output.elasticsearch: hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"] ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem" 1 ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key" 2
- The path to the certificate for SSL client authentication
- The client certificate key
role_mapping.yml
file on each node in the Elasticsearch cluster. For more information, see Using role mapping files. By default, APM Server uses the list of trusted certificate authorities (CA) from the operating system where APM Server is running. If the certificate authority that signed your node certificates is not in the host system’s trusted certificate authorities list, you need to add the path to the.pem
file that contains your CA’s certificate to the APM Server configuration. This will configure APM Server to use a specific list of CA certificates instead of the default list from the OS. Here is an example configuration:output.elasticsearch: hosts: ["https://myEShost:9200"] ssl.certificate_authorities: 1 - /etc/pki/my_root_ca.pem - /etc/pki/my_other_ca.pem ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client.pem" 2 ssl.key: "/etc/pki/key.pem" 3
- Specify the path to the local
.pem
file that contains your Certificate Authority’s certificate. This is needed if you use your own CA to sign your node certificates. - The path to the certificate for SSL client authentication
- The client certificate key
For any given connection, the SSL/TLS certificates must have a subject that matches the value specified forhosts
, or the SSL handshake fails. For example, if you specifyhosts: ["foobar:9200"]
, the certificate MUST includefoobar
in the subject (CN=foobar
) or as a subject alternative name (SAN). Make sure the hostname resolves to the correct IP address. If no DNS is available, then you can associate the IP address with your hostname in/etc/hosts
(on Unix) orC:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
(on Windows).
::::
Learn more about secure communication ¶
More information on sending data to a secured cluster is available in the configuration reference: