---
title: Configure inputs for standalone Elastic Agents
description: The inputs section of the elastic-agent.yml file specifies how Elastic Agent locates and processes input data. Find the settings available for an input,...
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7734/reference/fleet/elastic-agent-input-configuration
products:
  - Elastic Agent
  - Fleet
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Configure inputs for standalone Elastic Agents
The `inputs` section of the `elastic-agent.yml` file specifies how Elastic Agent locates and processes input data.
- [Find the settings available for an input](#elastic-agent-input-configuration-available-settings)
- [Sample metrics input configuration](#elastic-agent-input-configuration-sample-metrics)
- [Sample log files input configuration](#elastic-agent-input-configuration-sample-logs)


## Find the settings available for an input

Elastic Agent does not define a separate set of settings for each input. Apart from a small number of fields that Elastic Agent handles itself, the settings you specify on an input or a stream are passed through unchanged to the underlying collector, such as Filebeat or Metricbeat.
This means you can use any setting documented for the corresponding Beats input or module, even if it doesn't appear in the examples on this page. To find the settings available for an input, look up its `type` in [Elastic Agent inputs](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7734/reference/fleet/elastic-agent-inputs-list), then follow the link to the Beats documentation for that input or module.
Elastic Agent handles the following input fields itself rather than passing them through:

| Setting           | Description                                                                                                                                                                                          |
|-------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `type`            | Required. The type of the input. Must match an input listed in [Elastic Agent inputs](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7734/reference/fleet/elastic-agent-inputs-list). |
| `id`              | A unique ID for the input, used in logging and event metadata. If omitted, it defaults to the input type.                                                                                            |
| `use_output`      | The name of the output to write to. Must match an output defined in the same policy. Defaults to `default`.                                                                                          |
| `log_level`       | The log level for this input. One of `error`, `warn`/`warning`, `info`, `debug`, or `trace`.                                                                                                         |
| `policy.revision` | If the overall policy has a `revision` field (inserted by Fleet to track policy changes), its value is copied into the input’s `policy.revision` field.                                              |

For example, the Metricbeat [System module](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/beats/tree/main/reference/metricbeat/metricbeat-module-system) documents a `cpu.metrics` setting, and `period` is a [standard Metricbeat module option](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/beats/tree/main/reference/metricbeat/configuration-metricbeat). Both can be set directly on a stream:
```yaml
- type: system/metrics
  id: unique-system-metrics-id
  data_stream.namespace: default
  use_output: default
  streams:
    - metricsets:
        - cpu
      data_stream.dataset: system.cpu
      period: 10s 
      cpu.metrics: [percentages, normalized_percentages] 
```


## Sample metrics input configuration

By default Elastic Agent collects system metrics, such as CPU, memory, network, and file system metrics, and sends them to the default output. For example, to define data streams for `cpu`, `memory`, `network` and `filesystem` metrics, this is the configuration:
```yaml
- type: system/metrics 
  id: unique-system-metrics-id 
  data_stream.namespace: default 
  use_output: default 
  streams:
    - metricsets: 
      - cpu
      data_stream.dataset: system.cpu 
    - metricsets:
      - memory
      data_stream.dataset: system.memory
    - metricsets:
      - network
      data_stream.dataset: system.network
    - metricsets:
      - filesystem
      data_stream.dataset: system.filesystem
```


## Sample log files input configuration

To enable Elastic Agent to collect log files, you can use a configuration like the following.
```yaml
- type: filestream 
  id: your-input-id 
  streams:
    - id: your-filestream-stream-id 
      data_stream: 
        dataset: generic
      paths:
        - /var/log/*.log
```

The input in this example harvests all files in the path `/var/log/*.log`, that is, all logs in the directory `/var/log/` that end with `.log`. All patterns supported by [Go Glob](https://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob) are also supported here.
To fetch all files from a predefined level of subdirectories, use this pattern: `/var/log/*/*.log`. This fetches all `.log` files from the subfolders of `/var/log`. It does not fetch log files from the `/var/log` folder itself. Currently it is not possible to recursively fetch all files in all subdirectories of a directory.