Docker

deb (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint)

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats//-oss-7.15.1-amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i -oss-7.15.1-amd64.deb

rpm (CentOS/RHEL/Fedora)

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats//-oss-7.15.1-x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -vi -oss-7.15.1-x86_64.rpm

macOS

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats//-oss-7.15.1-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf -oss-7.15.1-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz

Windows

• Download the Windows zip file from the official downloads page.
• Extract the contents of the zip file into C:\Program Files.
• Rename the -<version>-windows directory to ``.
• Open a PowerShell prompt as an Administrator (right-click the PowerShell icon and select Run As Administrator). If you are running Windows XP, you may need to download and install PowerShell.
• Run the following commands to install as a Windows service:

cd 'C:\Program Files\'
.\install-service-.ps1

deb/rpm

/etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml

Change the owner of the filebeat.yml file to root to allow access to the docker container logs.

sudo chown root:root filebeat.yml
ls -la

Skip this step if you are using windows.

deb/rpm

On Linux we want filebeat to read the container logs from /var/lib/docker/containers/*/*.log which is where docker's container logs are stored, this is handled by default.

Add to your filebeat.inputs section the docker type.

filebeat.inputs:
- type: docker
  containers.ids:
    - '*'

Windows

On Windows we want filebeat to read the container logs from C:\ProgramData\docker\containers\

filebeat.inputs:
- type: docker
  containers:
  ids: - '*'
  path: C:\ProgramData\docker\containers\

If you do not want to read all container logs then you can specify the continer ID to logs from specific containers.

We need to ensure that any inputs we are using are enabled

filebeat.inputs:

- type: log
  enabled: false

Enable the filebeat input, so it should look like the following

filebeat.inputs:

- type: log
  enabled: true

We'll be shipping to Logstash so that we have the option to run filters before the data is indexed.
Comment out the elasticsearch output block.

## Comment out elasticsearch output
#output.elasticsearch:
#  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]

Let's check the configuration file is syntactically correct by running directly inside the terminal. If the file is invalid, will print an error loading config file error message with details on how to correct the problem.

deb/rpm

sudo  -e -c /etc//.yml

macOS

cd <EXTRACTED_ARCHIVE>
./ -e -c .yml

Windows

cd <EXTRACTED_ARCHIVE>
.\.exe -e -c .yml

Ok, time to start ingesting data!

deb/rpm

sudo systemctl enable filebeat
sudo systemctl start filebeat

Windows

Start-Service filebeat

If you don't see data appearing in your Stack after following the steps, visit the Help Centre guide for steps to diagnose no data appearing in your Stack or Chat to support now.

Docker is a platform as a service (PaaS) tool created for building & deploying applications by using containers. Developers use these isolated containers to package an application with all of its required dependencies for streamlined deployment. Docker was first created in 2013 and offers both a free open source solution and paid offering. The platform has been instrumental in the development of cloud-native applications.

Thanks to Docker’s widespread adoption, the trend towards using microservices and containerization has become a must for developers launching applications in the cloud.

Despite this, effective log analysis using Docker’s container logs can easily spiral and run into many complications when trying to keep up with the scaling required for your growing infrastructure. Due to their isolated & distributed nature, centralising Docker log messages is often overly problematic when log data is required for further analysis.

The Logit.io platform provides a single source of truth for container monitoring and log management. We enable your teams to have complete observability across containers, enabling your Developers & IT leaders with the ability to investigate and fix issues faster.

Read more about container monitoring

If you need any more help with migrating your Docker log data to Filebeat our engineers are here to help. Feel free to get in contact with our support team by sending us a message via live chat & we'll be happy to assist.