This will give you a basic and fully operational virtual machine running the Elastic Stack (ELK):

• Debian 8 (Jessie).
• Elasticsearch 5.0.0.
• Logstash 5.0.0.
• Kibana 5.0.0.

Tested under Windows 7, with VirtualBox 5.1.6 and Vagrant 1.8.6.

• First, you need to install VirtualBox and Vagrant.
• Create a new directory under VirtualBox's Default Machine Folder, and put this repo's files inside.
• [Optional] Edit ./Vagrantfile according to your needs (more memory, proxy settings, etc.).
• Run $> vagrant up form inside the created directory using your command line tool (grab a coffee, that'll take a while).

The machine should now be up and running. You can access it via SSH ([email protected]:2222) using the private key located at ./.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key.

• In /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml, set the following properties:
  • network.host: localhost
  • http.port: 9200
• In /etc/kibana/kibana.yml, set the following properties:
  • server.port: 5601
  • server.host: "<GUEST_IP_ADDRESS>"
  • elasticsearch.url: "http://localhost:9200"
• Restart Elasticsearch and Kibana (something like $> sudo /etc/init.d/elasticsearch restart or $> sudo systemctl restart kibana).

Make sure the stack is running smoothly:

• Elasticsearch: $> curl http://localhost:9200

  {
      "name" : "cD69Sz0",
      "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
      "cluster_uuid" : "CBNeHXz4Q1C8SUNCnE5d6g",
      "version" : {
          "number" : "5.0.0",
          "build_hash" : "253032b",
          "build_date" : "2016-10-26T05:11:34.737Z",
          "build_snapshot" : false,
          "lucene_version" : "6.2.0"
      },
      "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
  }

• Kibana: http://localhost:5601

Logs are available in /var/log/.

At this point, you're set. The stack is installed, but not yet flowing (check out the example below for a complete workflow).

Logstash is capable of fetching events from a wide range of sources. Let's try a simple case: reading entries from a local logfile (formatted with Monolog).

He're our file: $> more ~/sample.log

[2016-11-10 12:00:01] sample.INFO: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. [] []
[2016-11-10 12:15:02] sample.WARNING: Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. [] []
[2016-11-10 12:30:03] sample.INFO: Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. [] []

In order for Logstash to parse this file and structure it (but also to listen to any change that may occur on it), we must describe the complete pipeline in /etc/logstash/conf.d/sample.conf.

Restart Logstash, and then, on Kibana, create a new pattern to load our Elasticsearch index (logstash-sample). Finally, check out the Discovery section to see everything in place.