Where is the apache2 filebeat module configured?

Question

I am setting up the Elastic Filebeat beat for the first time. I have followed the guide here, and have got the Apache2 filebeat module up and running, it's connected to my Elastic and the dashboards have arrived in Kibana.

Currently it's using the default path to read the Apache log files, but I want to point it to a different directory.

There is a setting var.paths documented here for this purpose, but I can't see where this setting is applied in the configuration for Filebeat.

I've looked through the Yaml files in the installation and can see the Apache2 module default config, but it doesn't look like I should modify that.

I'm guessing I should add something to the filebeat.yml, but there doesn't seem to be a placeholder for "modules.apache" or similar.

I'm trialling on MacOSX, will be deploying on Ubuntu, but I don't believe this to be a platform-specific question.

Answer 1

After looking a bit further, I found it in the sample called filebeat.full.yml

• So I added this section to the filebeat.yml
• Restarted filebeat

After running at 100% CPU for minute, Kibana is now immediately showing the results. That was easier than I expected.

#==========================  Modules configuration ============================
filebeat.modules:

#------------------------------- Apache2 Module ------------------------------
- module: apache2
  # Access logs
  access:
    #enabled: true

    # Set custom paths for the log files. If left empty,
    # Filebeat will choose the paths depending on your OS.
    var.paths: ["MY-CUSTOM-PATH"]