Ansible role for MetricBeat

An Ansible Role that installs MetricBeat on Red Hat/CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu.

Special thanks to Emiliano Castagnari (https://github.com/torian) for his Filebeat role. This role is based on the code of https://github.com/torian/ansible-role-filebeat

Tested On

• EL / Centos (6 / 7)
• Debian (Wheezy / Jessie)
• Ubuntu (Trusty)

Role Variables

Available variables are listed below, along with their default values as definied in defaults/main.yml.

MetricBeat user and group. If you run MetricBeat with a user other than root make sure your logs are readable by the MetricBeat user. Add the MetricBeat user to a privileged group, with access to your logs.

On Ubuntu you would add the user to the adm group. On CentOS you can adjust the permissions with the setfacl command, e.g. sudo setfacl -m g:metricbeat:r <path>.

metricbeat_user: root
metricbeat_group: root

Create the metricbeat user and group.

metricbeat_create_user: true

MetricBeat version to use.

metricbeat_version: 5.0.0-alpha4

Make use of the MetricBeat repo (yum or apt).

You may use a URL to install a specific .deb or .rpm. To do so, change metricbeat_use_repo value to false, then (optionally) adjust the value of metricbeat_baseurl (which has a default value set for you).

metricbeat_use_repo: true

MetricBeat base URL for package download if metricbeat_use_repo: false

metricbeat_baseurl: "https://download.elastic.co/beats/metricbeat"

Start MetricBeat at boot time.

metricbeat_start_at_boot: true

MetricBeat version upgrade. This option allows package upgrades.

metricbeat_upgrade: false

MetricBeat configuration file.

metricbeat_config_file: /etc/metricbeat/metricbeat.yml

The MetricBeat configuration is built based on the variable metricbeat_config. For easier management of the contents, the metricbeat_config variable is made up of multiple other variables:

• metricbeat_config_modules
• metricbeat_config_general
• metricbeat_config_processors
• metricbeat_config_output
• metricbeat_config_logging

metricbeat_config_modules: |
  metricbeat.modules:
    - module: system
      metricsets:
        - cpu
        #- load
        #- core
        - diskio
        - filesystem
        #- fsstat
        - memory
        - network
        - process
      enabled: true
      period: 10s
      processes: ['.*']
      # if true, exports the CPU usage in ticks, together with the percentage values
      cpu_ticks: false
metricbeat_config_general: |
  name: {{ ansible_hostname }}
  # tags: ['tag1','tag2']
  env: {{ env | default('none') }}
  fields_under_root: false
  # ignore_outgoing: true
  # refresh_topology_freq: 10
  # topology_expire: 15
  # queue_size: 1000
  # max_procs:
metricbeat_config_processors: |
  processors:
metricbeat_config_output: |
  output.elasticsearch:
    hosts: [ 'localhost:9200' ]
metricbeat_config_logging: |
  logging:
    to_files: true
    files:
      path: /var/log/metricbeat
      name: metricbeat.log
      rotateeverybytes: 10485760 # = 10MB
      keepfiles: 7
metricbeat_config: |
  {{metricbeat_config_modules}}

  {{metricbeat_config_general}}

  {{metricbeat_config_processors}}

  {{metricbeat_config_output}}

  {{metricbeat_config_logging}}

MetricBeat templates (a list of templates to install). These templates will be copied to the /etc/metricbeat directory and can be used in the elasticsearch output for example.

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/metricbeat/current/elasticsearch-output.html#_template

metricbeat_templates: []

Install MetricBeat default Kibana dashboards will install the default dashboards shipped with the package.

metricbeat_install_default_kibana_dashboards: False
metricbeat_es_user: "metricbeat"
metricbeat_es_password: "secret"
metricbeat_kibana_index: ".kibana"
metricbeat_es_url: "{{ elasticsearch_proto | default('http') }}://{{ elasticsearch_host | default('localhost:9200') }}"

Usage

    - hosts: logging
      roles:
        - { role: sirkjohannsen.metricbeat }

License

GPLv3

Author Information

This role was created in 2016 by Sirk Johannsen. It is based on the FileBeat role by Emiliano Castagnari: https://github.com/torian/ansible-role-filebeat