reload-configuration.asciidoc

Reload Configuration

experimental[]

Reload configuration allows to dynamically reload prospector configuration files. A glob can be defined which should be watched for prospector configuration changes. New prospectors will be started / stopped accordingly. This is especially useful in container environments where 1 container is used to tail logs from services in other containers on the same host.

The configuration in the main filebeat.yml config file looks as following:

filebeat.reload.prospectors:
  enabled: true
  path: configs/*.yml
  period: 10s

A path with a glob must be defined on which files should be checked for changes. A period is set on how often the files are checked for changes. Do not set period below 1s as the modification time of files is often stored in seconds. Setting it below 1s will cause an unnecessary overhead.

The configuration inside the files which are found by the glob look as following:

- input_type: log
  paths:
    - /var/log/mysql.log
  scan_frequency: 10s

- input_type: log
  paths:
    - /var/log/apache.log
  scan_frequency: 5s

Each file directly contains a list of prospectors. Each file can contain one or multiple prospector definitions.

Warning

It is critical that two running prospectors DO NOT have overlapping file paths defined. If more then one prospector harvests the same file at the same time, it can lead to unexpected behaviour.