Run the latest version of the Elastic stack with Docker and Docker Compose.
It gives you the ability to analyze any data set by using the searching/aggregation capabilities of Elasticsearch and the visualization power of Kibana.
This version has Search Guard support.
ℹ️ The Docker images backing this stack include Stack Features (formerly X-Pack) and have Search Guard Enterprise features enabled by default (see How to disable paid features to disable them). The trial license is valid for 30 days.
Based on the official Docker images from Elastic:
The Default Search Guard configuration in this repo is:
- Basic authentication required to access Elasticsearch/Kibana
- HTTPS disabled
- Hostname verification disabled
- Self-signed SSL certificate for transport protocol (do not use in production)
Check the Demo users and roles documentation page for a list and description of the built-in Search Guard users.
- Docker version 17.05+
- Docker Compose version 1.6.0+
- 1 GB of RAM
By default, the stack exposes the following ports:
- 5000: Logstash TCP input
- 9200: Elasticsearch HTTP
- 9300: Elasticsearch TCP transport
- 5601: Kibana
On distributions which have SELinux enabled out-of-the-box you will need to either re-context the files or set SELinux into Permissive mode in order for docker-elk to start properly. For example on Redhat and CentOS, the following will apply the proper context:
$ chcon -R system_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0 docker-elk/
Ensure the Shared Drives feature is enabled for the C:
drive.
The default Docker for Mac configuration allows mounting files from /Users/
, /Volumes/
, /private/
, and /tmp
exclusively. Make sure the repository is cloned in one of those locations or follow the instructions from the
documentation to add more locations.
Clone this repository, then start the stack using Docker Compose:
$ docker-compose up
You can also run all services in the background (detached mode) by adding the -d
flag to the above command.
ℹ️ You must run
docker-compose build
first whenever you switch branch or update a base image.
If you are starting the stack for the very first time, please read the section below attentively.
ℹ️ Refer to How to disable paid features to disable authentication.
Search Guard must be initialized after Elasticsearch is started:
$ docker-compose exec -T elasticsearch bin/init_sg.sh
This executes sgadmin and loads the configuration from elasticsearch/config/sg/sg\*.yml
.
Give Kibana about a minute to initialize, then access the Kibana web UI by hitting http:https://localhost:5601 with a web browser and use the following default credentials to log in:
- user: admin
- password: admin
Now that the stack is running, you can go ahead and inject some log entries. The shipped Logstash configuration allows you to send content via TCP:
$ nc localhost 5000 < /path/to/logfile.log
When Kibana launches for the first time, it is not configured with any index pattern.
ℹ️ You need to inject data into Logstash before being able to configure a Logstash index pattern via the Kibana web UI. Then all you have to do is hit the Create button.
Refer to Connect Kibana with Elasticsearch for detailed instructions about the index pattern configuration.
Create an index pattern via the Kibana API:
$ curl -XPOST -D- 'http:https://localhost:5601/api/saved_objects/index-pattern' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'kbn-version: 7.2.1' \
-u kibanaserver:kibanaserver \
-d '{"attributes":{"title":"logstash-*","timeFieldName":"@timestamp"}}'
The created pattern will automatically be marked as the default index pattern as soon as the Kibana UI is opened for the first time.
ℹ️ Configuration is not dynamically reloaded, you will need to restart individual components after any configuration change.
The Elasticsearch configuration is stored in elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml
.
You can also specify the options you want to override by setting environment variables inside the Compose file:
elasticsearch:
environment:
network.host: _non_loopback_
cluster.name: my-cluster
Please refer to the following documentation page for more details about how to configure Elasticsearch inside Docker containers: Install Elasticsearch with Docker.
The Kibana default configuration is stored in kibana/config/kibana.yml
.
It is also possible to map the entire config
directory instead of a single file.
Please refer to the following documentation page for more details about how to configure Kibana inside Docker containers: Running Kibana on Docker.
The Logstash configuration is stored in logstash/config/logstash.yml
.
It is also possible to map the entire config
directory instead of a single file, however you must be aware that
Logstash will be expecting a log4j2.properties
file for its own logging.
Please refer to the following documentation page for more details about how to configure Logstash inside Docker containers: Configuring Logstash for Docker.
Switch the value of Elasticsearch's searchguard.enterprise_modules_enabled
to false
(see License
settings).
Follow the instructions from the Wiki: Scaling out Elasticsearch
The data stored in Elasticsearch will be persisted after container reboot but not after container removal.
In order to persist Elasticsearch data even after removing the Elasticsearch container, you'll have to mount a volume on
your Docker host. Update the elasticsearch
service declaration to:
elasticsearch:
volumes:
- /path/to/storage:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
This will store Elasticsearch data inside /path/to/storage
.
ℹ️ (Linux users) Beware that the Elasticsearch process runs as the unprivileged
elasticsearch
user is used within the Elasticsearch image, therefore the mounted data directory must be writable by the uid1000
.
To add plugins to any ELK component you have to:
- Add a
RUN
statement to the correspondingDockerfile
(eg.RUN logstash-plugin install logstash-filter-json
) - Add the associated plugin code configuration to the service configuration (eg. Logstash input/output)
- Rebuild the images using the
docker-compose build
command
A few extensions are available inside the extensions
directory. These extensions provide features which
are not part of the standard Elastic stack, but can be used to enrich it with extra integrations.
The documentation for these extensions is provided inside each individual subdirectory, on a per-extension basis. Some of them require manual changes to the default ELK configuration.
By default, both Elasticsearch and Logstash start with 1/4 of the total host memory allocated to the JVM Heap Size.
The startup scripts for Elasticsearch and Logstash can append extra JVM options from the value of an environment variable, allowing the user to adjust the amount of memory that can be used by each component:
Service | Environment variable |
---|---|
Elasticsearch | ES_JAVA_OPTS |
Logstash | LS_JAVA_OPTS |
To accomodate environments where memory is scarce (Docker for Mac has only 2 GB available by default), the Heap Size
allocation is capped by default to 256MB per service in the docker-compose.yml
file. If you want to override the
default JVM configuration, edit the matching environment variable(s) in the docker-compose.yml
file.
For example, to increase the maximum JVM Heap Size for Logstash:
logstash:
environment:
LS_JAVA_OPTS: -Xmx1g -Xms1g
As for the Java Heap memory (see above), you can specify JVM options to enable JMX and map the JMX port on the Docker host.
Update the {ES,LS}_JAVA_OPTS
environment variable with the following content (I've mapped the JMX service on the port
18080, you can change that). Do not forget to update the -Djava.rmi.server.hostname
option with the IP address of your
Docker host (replace DOCKER_HOST_IP):
logstash:
environment:
LS_JAVA_OPTS: -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=18080 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.rmi.port=18080 -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=DOCKER_HOST_IP -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.local.only=false
To use a different Elastic Stack version than the one currently available in the repository, simply change the version
number inside the .env
file, and rebuild the stack with:
$ docker-compose build
$ docker-compose up
ℹ️ Always pay attention to the upgrade instructions for each individual component before performing a stack upgrade.
See the following Wiki pages:
Experimental support for Docker Swarm mode is provided in the form of a docker-stack.yml
file, which can
be deployed in an existing Swarm cluster using the following command:
$ docker stack deploy -c docker-stack.yml elk
If all components get deployed without any error, the following command will show 3 running services:
$ docker stack services elk
ℹ️ To scale Elasticsearch in Swarm mode, configure zen to use the DNS name
tasks.elasticsearch
instead ofelasticsearch
.