Installation layout

View the installation layout and default paths for both Fleet-managed APM Server and the APM Server binary.

Fleet-managed ¶

Elastic Agent files are installed in the following locations. You cannot override these installation paths because they are required for upgrades.

/Library/Elastic/Agent/*
Elastic Agent program files
/Library/Elastic/Agent/elastic-agent.yml
Main Elastic Agent configuration
/Library/Elastic/Agent/fleet.enc
Main Elastic Agent {fleet} encrypted configuration
/Library/Elastic/Agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent.ndjson
Log files for Elastic Agent and Beats shippers <sup class="footnote" id="_footnote_lognumbering">[<a id="_footnoteref_1" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup>
/usr/bin/elastic-agent
Shell wrapper installed into PATH

You can install Elastic Agent in a custom base path other than /Library. When installing Elastic Agent with the ./elastic-agent install command, use the --base-path CLI option to specify the custom base path.

/opt/Elastic/Agent/*
Elastic Agent program files
/opt/Elastic/Agent/elastic-agent.yml
Main Elastic Agent configuration
/opt/Elastic/Agent/fleet.enc
Main Elastic Agent {fleet} encrypted configuration
/opt/Elastic/Agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent.ndjson
Log files for Elastic Agent and Beats shippers <sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup>
/usr/bin/elastic-agent
Shell wrapper installed into PATH

You can install Elastic Agent in a custom base path other than /opt. When installing Elastic Agent with the ./elastic-agent install command, use the --base-path CLI option to specify the custom base path.

C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent*
Elastic Agent program files
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\elastic-agent.yml
Main Elastic Agent configuration
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\fleet.enc
Main Elastic Agent {fleet} encrypted configuration
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\data\elastic-agent-*\logs\elastic-agent.ndjson
Log files for Elastic Agent and Beats shippers <sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup>

You can install Elastic Agent in a custom base path other than C:\Program Files. When installing Elastic Agent with the .\elastic-agent.exe install command, use the --base-path CLI option to specify the custom base path.

/usr/share/elastic-agent/*
Elastic Agent program files
/etc/elastic-agent/elastic-agent.yml
Main Elastic Agent configuration
/etc/elastic-agent/fleet.enc
Main Elastic Agent {fleet} encrypted configuration
/var/lib/elastic-agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent.ndjson
Log files for Elastic Agent and Beats shippers <sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup>
/usr/bin/elastic-agent
Shell wrapper installed into PATH
/usr/share/elastic-agent/*
Elastic Agent program files
/etc/elastic-agent/elastic-agent.yml
Main Elastic Agent configuration
/etc/elastic-agent/fleet.enc
Main Elastic Agent {fleet} encrypted configuration
/var/lib/elastic-agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent.ndjson
Log files for Elastic Agent and Beats shippers <sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup>
/usr/bin/elastic-agent
Shell wrapper installed into PATH

APM Server binary ¶

APM Server uses the following default paths unless you explicitly change them.

Type Description Location
home Home of the APM Server installation. {extract.path}
bin The location for the binary files. {extract.path}
config The location for configuration files. {extract.path}
data The location for persistent data files. {extract.path}/data
logs The location for the logs created by APM Server. {extract.path}/logs

For the ZIP, tar.gz, or TGZ distributions, these paths are based on the location of the extracted binary file. This means that if you start APM Server with the following simple command, all paths are set correctly:

			./apm-server
Type Description Location
home Home of the APM Server installation. /usr/share/apm-server
bin The location for the binary files. /usr/share/apm-server
config The location for configuration files. /usr/share/apm-server
data The location for persistent data files. /usr/share/apm-server/data
logs The location for the logs created by APM Server. /usr/share/apm-server/logs
Type Description Location
home Home of the APM Server installation. /usr/share/apm-server
bin The location for the binary files. /usr/share/apm-server/bin
config The location for configuration files. /etc/apm-server
data The location for persistent data files. /var/lib/apm-server
logs The location for the logs created by APM Server. /var/log/apm-server

For the deb and rpm distributions, these paths are set in the init script or in the systemd unit file. Make sure that you start the APM Server service by using the preferred operating system method (init scripts or systemctl). Otherwise the paths might be set incorrectly.