Kafka

First we need to install Filebeat. The Apache Kafka input being used is only available in version 7.4 Filebeat onwards.

deb (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/oss-7.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-7.x.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install filebeat

rpm (Redhat/Centos)

sudo rpm --import https://packages.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch
echo "[elastic-6.x]
name=Elastic repository for 6.x packages
baseurl=https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/yum
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch
enabled=1
autorefresh=1
type=rpm-md" | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/elastic-beats.repo

sudo yum install filebeat

sudo chkconfig --add filebeat

Windows

• Download the filebeat Windows zip file from the official downloads page.

• Extract the contents of the zip file into C:\Program Files.

• Rename the filebeat-<version>-windows directory to filebeat.

• 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 filebeat as a Windows service:

  PS > cd 'C:\Program Files\filebeat'
  PS C:\Program Files\filebeat> .\install-service-filebeat.ps1
  
  Security warning
  Run only scripts that you trust. While scripts from the internet can be useful,
  this script can potentially harm your computer. If you trust this script, use
  the Unblock-File cmdlet to allow the script to run without this warning message.
  Do you want to run C:\Program Files\Winlogbeat\install-service-filebeat.ps1?
  [D] Do not run  [R] Run once  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "D"): R
  
  Status   Name               DisplayName
  ------   ----               -----------
  Stopped  filebeat           filebeat

deb/rpm /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml
win <EXTRACTED_ARCHIVE>/filebeat.yml

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"]

Uncomment and change the logstash output to match below.

output.logstash:
    hosts: ["your-logstash-host:your-ssl-port"]
    loadbalance: true
    ssl.enabled: true

We need to specify the Kafka input details. In the configuration file locate the filebeat.inputs section and edit your config to look similar to the below.

filebeat.inputs:
- type: kafka
  hosts:
    - name-of-your-broker:your-broker-port
  # - localhost:9092        (Example)
  topics: ["name-of-your-topic", "name-of-another-topic"]
  group_id: "filebeat"

Let's check the configuration file is syntactically correct.

deb/rpm

sudo filebeat -e -c /etc/filebeat/filebeat.yml

Windows

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

Ok, time to start ingesting data!

deb/rpm

sudo systemctl enable filebeat
sudo systemctl start filebeat

Windows

Start-Service filebeat

Apache Kafka is a distributed streaming platform written in Scala & Java, that is primarily used for generating low latency real-time data streaming pipelines for apps & data lake engines.

Kafka offers users the ability to publish & subscribe to record streams, decouple data & sort the aggregated data in chronological order for improved real-time processing. The platform is suited to processing many trillions of cross systems events per day making the tool ideal as a big data solution.

Kafka is one of the leading Apache projects and is used by enterprise level businesses globally; including Uber, LinkedIn, Netflix & Twitter. Much of this infrastructure also uses Logstash, which works side by side with the platform as Kafka acts as a buffer between the two for improved resilience.

The combined power of Elasticsearch, Logstash & Kibana form the Elastic Stack which can be used for efficient log analysis as platform & Kafka broker logs contain vital information on the performance & overall health of your systems.

Our hosted Elastic Stack solution can help monitor & visualise Kafka logs and alert you on performance issues & broker degradation in real time. Logit’s built in Kibana can easily generate dashboards for capturing various Kafka log messages along with their severity counts.

If you need any assistance with analysing your Kafka logs (no matter if their server, utils or state-change logs) we're here to help. Feel free to get in touch by contacting the Logit help team via chat & we'll be happy to help you start analysing your log data.