Elasticsearch

Index observability events in Elasticsearch

status: stable delivery: at-least-once acknowledgements: yes egress: batch state: stateless
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Requirements

Elasticsearch’s Data streams feature requires Vector to be configured with the create bulk.action. This is not enabled by default.

Configuration

Example configurations 

{
  "sinks": {
    "my_sink_id": {
      "type": "elasticsearch",
      "inputs": [
        "my-source-or-transform-id"
      ]
    }
  }
}
[sinks.my_sink_id]
type = "elasticsearch"
inputs = [ "my-source-or-transform-id" ]

sinks:
  my_sink_id:
    type: elasticsearch
    inputs:
      - my-source-or-transform-id

{
  "sinks": {
    "my_sink_id": {
      "type": "elasticsearch",
      "inputs": [
        "my-source-or-transform-id"
      ],
      "api_version": "auto",
      "compression": "none",
      "doc_type": "_doc",
      "endpoints": [
        "http://10.24.32.122:9000"
      ],
      "id_key": "id",
      "mode": "bulk",
      "pipeline": "pipeline-name",
      "query": {
        "X-Powered-By": "Vector"
      }
    }
  }
}
[sinks.my_sink_id]
type = "elasticsearch"
inputs = [ "my-source-or-transform-id" ]
api_version = "auto"
compression = "none"
doc_type = "_doc"
endpoints = [ "http://10.24.32.122:9000" ]
id_key = "id"
mode = "bulk"
pipeline = "pipeline-name"

  [sinks.my_sink_id.query]
  X-Powered-By = "Vector"

sinks:
  my_sink_id:
    type: elasticsearch
    inputs:
      - my-source-or-transform-id
    api_version: auto
    compression: none
    doc_type: _doc
    endpoints:
      - http://10.24.32.122:9000
    id_key: id
    mode: bulk
    pipeline: pipeline-name
    query:
      X-Powered-By: Vector

acknowledgements

optional object

Controls how acknowledgements are handled for this sink.

See End-to-end Acknowledgements for more information on how event acknowledgement is handled.

acknowledgements.enabled

optional bool

Whether or not end-to-end acknowledgements are enabled.

When enabled for a sink, any source connected to that sink, where the source supports end-to-end acknowledgements as well, waits for events to be acknowledged by all connected sinks before acknowledging them at the source.

Enabling or disabling acknowledgements at the sink level takes precedence over any global acknowledgements configuration.

api_version

optional string literal enum
The API version of Elasticsearch.
Enum options string literal
OptionDescription
auto

Auto-detect the API version.

If the cluster state version endpoint isn’t reachable, a warning is logged to stdout, and the version is assumed to be V6 if the suppress_type_name option is set to true. Otherwise, the version is assumed to be V8. In the future, the sink instead returns an error during configuration parsing, since a wrongly assumed version could lead to incorrect API calls.

v6Use the Elasticsearch 6.x API.
v7Use the Elasticsearch 7.x API.
v8Use the Elasticsearch 8.x API.
default: auto

auth

optional object
Elasticsearch Authentication strategies.

auth.access_key_id

required string literal
The AWS access key ID.
Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE"

auth.assume_role

required string literal
The ARN of an IAM role to assume.
Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"arn:aws:iam::123456789098:role/my_role"

auth.credentials_file

required string literal
Path to the credentials file.
Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"/my/aws/credentials"

auth.external_id

optional string literal
The optional unique external ID in conjunction with role to assume.
Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"randomEXAMPLEidString"

auth.imds

optional object
Configuration for authenticating with AWS through IMDS.
Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
auth.imds.connect_timeout_seconds
optional uint
Connect timeout for IMDS.
default: 1 (seconds)
auth.imds.max_attempts
optional uint
Number of IMDS retries for fetching tokens and metadata.
default: 4
auth.imds.read_timeout_seconds
optional uint
Read timeout for IMDS.
default: 1 (seconds)

auth.load_timeout_secs

optional uint

Timeout for successfully loading any credentials, in seconds.

Relevant when the default credentials chain or assume_role is used.

Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
30

auth.password

required string literal
Basic authentication password.
Relevant when: strategy = "basic"
Examples 
"${ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWORD}"
"password"

auth.profile

optional string literal

The credentials profile to use.

Used to select AWS credentials from a provided credentials file.

Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"develop"
default: default

auth.region

optional string literal

The AWS region to send STS requests to.

If not set, this defaults to the configured region for the service itself.

Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"us-west-2"

auth.secret_access_key

required string literal
The AWS secret access key.
Relevant when: strategy = "aws"
Examples 
"wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY"

auth.strategy

required string literal enum
The authentication strategy to use.
Enum options
OptionDescription
awsAmazon OpenSearch Service-specific authentication.
basicHTTP Basic Authentication.
Examples 
"aws"
"basic"

auth.user

required string literal
Basic authentication username.
Relevant when: strategy = "basic"
Examples 
"${ELASTICSEARCH_USERNAME}"
"username"

aws

optional object
Configuration of the region/endpoint to use when interacting with an AWS service.

aws.endpoint

optional string literal
Custom endpoint for use with AWS-compatible services.
Examples 
"http://127.0.0.0:5000/path/to/service"

aws.region

optional string literal
The AWS region of the target service.
Examples 
"us-east-1"

batch

optional object
Event batching behavior.

batch.max_bytes

optional uint

The maximum size of a batch that is processed by a sink.

This is based on the uncompressed size of the batched events, before they are serialized/compressed.

default: 1e+07 (bytes)

batch.max_events

optional uint
The maximum size of a batch before it is flushed.

batch.timeout_secs

optional float
The maximum age of a batch before it is flushed.
default: 1 (seconds)

buffer

optional object

Configures the buffering behavior for this sink.

More information about the individual buffer types, and buffer behavior, can be found in the Buffering Model section.

buffer.max_events

optional uint
The maximum number of events allowed in the buffer.
Relevant when: type = "memory"
default: 500

buffer.max_size

required uint

The maximum size of the buffer on disk.

Must be at least ~256 megabytes (268435488 bytes).

Relevant when: type = "disk"

buffer.type

optional string literal enum
The type of buffer to use.
Enum options
OptionDescription
disk

Events are buffered on disk.

This is less performant, but more durable. Data that has been synchronized to disk will not be lost if Vector is restarted forcefully or crashes.

Data is synchronized to disk every 500ms.

memory

Events are buffered in memory.

This is more performant, but less durable. Data will be lost if Vector is restarted forcefully or crashes.

default: memory

buffer.when_full

optional string literal enum
Event handling behavior when a buffer is full.
Enum options
OptionDescription
block

Wait for free space in the buffer.

This applies backpressure up the topology, signalling that sources should slow down the acceptance/consumption of events. This means that while no data is lost, data will pile up at the edge.

drop_newest

Drops the event instead of waiting for free space in buffer.

The event will be intentionally dropped. This mode is typically used when performance is the highest priority, and it is preferable to temporarily lose events rather than cause a slowdown in the acceptance/consumption of events.

default: block

bulk

optional object
Elasticsearch bulk mode configuration.

bulk.action

optional string template

Action to use when making requests to the Elasticsearch Bulk API.

Only index and create actions are supported.

Note: This parameter supports Vector's template syntax, which enables you to use dynamic per-event values.
Examples 
"create"
"{{ action }}"
default: index

bulk.index

optional string template
The name of the index to write events to.
Note: This parameter supports Vector's template syntax, which enables you to use dynamic per-event values.
Examples 
"application-{{ application_id }}-%Y-%m-%d"
"{{ index }}"
default: vector-%Y.%m.%d

bulk.version

optional string template
Version field value.
Note: This parameter supports Vector's template syntax, which enables you to use dynamic per-event values.
Examples 
"{{ obj_version }}-%Y-%m-%d"
"123"

bulk.version_type

optional string literal enum

Version type.

Possible values are internal, external or external_gt and external_gte.

Enum options
OptionDescription
externalThe external or external_gt type.
external_gteThe external_gte type.
internalThe internal type.
Examples 
"internal"
"external"
default: internal

compression

optional string literal enum

Compression configuration.

All compression algorithms use the default compression level unless otherwise specified.

Enum options string literal
OptionDescription
gzipGzip compression.
noneNo compression.
snappySnappy compression.
zlibZlib compression.
zstdZstandard compression.
default: none

data_stream

optional object
Elasticsearch data stream mode configuration.

data_stream.auto_routing

optional bool

Automatically routes events by deriving the data stream name using specific event fields.

The format of the data stream name is <type>-<dataset>-<namespace>, where each value comes from the data_stream configuration field of the same name.

If enabled, the value of the data_stream.type, data_stream.dataset, and data_stream.namespace event fields are used if they are present. Otherwise, the values set in this configuration are used.

default: true

data_stream.dataset

optional string template
The data stream dataset used to construct the data stream at index time.
Note: This parameter supports Vector's template syntax, which enables you to use dynamic per-event values.
Examples 
"generic"
"nginx"
"{{ service }}"
default: generic

data_stream.namespace

optional string template
The data stream namespace used to construct the data stream at index time.
Note: This parameter supports Vector's template syntax, which enables you to use dynamic per-event values.
Examples 
"{{ environment }}"
default: default

data_stream.sync_fields

optional bool

Automatically adds and syncs the data_stream.* event fields if they are missing from the event.

This ensures that fields match the name of the data stream that is receiving events.

default: true

data_stream.type

optional string template
The data stream type used to construct the data stream at index time.
Note: This parameter supports Vector's template syntax, which enables you to use dynamic per-event values.
Examples 
"metrics"
"synthetics"
"{{ type }}"
default: logs

distribution

optional object
Options for determining the health of an endpoint.

distribution.retry_initial_backoff_secs

optional uint
Initial delay between attempts to reactivate endpoints once they become unhealthy.
default: 1 (seconds)

distribution.retry_max_duration_secs

optional uint
Maximum delay between attempts to reactivate endpoints once they become unhealthy.
default: 3600 (seconds)

doc_type

optional string literal

The doc_type for your index data.

This is only relevant for Elasticsearch <= 6.X. If you are using >= 7.0 you do not need to set this option since Elasticsearch has removed it.

default: _doc

encoding

optional object
Transformations to prepare an event for serialization.

encoding.except_fields

optional [string]
List of fields that are excluded from the encoded event.

encoding.only_fields

optional [string]
List of fields that are included in the encoded event.

encoding.timestamp_format

optional string literal enum
Format used for timestamp fields.
Enum options
OptionDescription
rfc3339Represent the timestamp as a RFC 3339 timestamp.
unixRepresent the timestamp as a Unix timestamp.
unix_floatRepresent the timestamp as a Unix timestamp in floating point.
unix_msRepresent the timestamp as a Unix timestamp in milliseconds.
unix_nsRepresent the timestamp as a Unix timestamp in nanoseconds.
unix_usRepresent the timestamp as a Unix timestamp in microseconds

endpoint

optional string literal

Deprecated

This option has been deprecated, the endpoints option should be used instead.

The Elasticsearch endpoint to send logs to.

The endpoint must contain an HTTP scheme, and may specify a hostname or IP address and port.

endpoints

optional [string]

A list of Elasticsearch endpoints to send logs to.

The endpoint must contain an HTTP scheme, and may specify a hostname or IP address and port.

Array string literal
Examples 
[
  "http://10.24.32.122:9000",
  "https://example.com",
  "https://user:password@example.com"
]

healthcheck

optional object
Healthcheck configuration.

healthcheck.enabled

optional bool
Whether or not to check the health of the sink when Vector starts up.
default: true

id_key

optional string literal

The name of the event key that should map to Elasticsearch’s _id field.

By default, the _id field is not set, which allows Elasticsearch to set this automatically. Setting your own Elasticsearch IDs can hinder performance.

Examples 
"id"
"_id"

inputs

required [string]

A list of upstream source or transform IDs.

Wildcards (*) are supported.

See configuration for more info.

Array string literal
Examples 
[
  "my-source-or-transform-id",
  "prefix-*"
]

metrics

optional object
Configuration for the metric_to_log transform.

metrics.host_tag

optional string literal

Name of the tag in the metric to use for the source host.

If present, the value of the tag is set on the generated log event in the host field, where the field key uses the global host_key option.

Examples 
"host"
"hostname"

metrics.metric_tag_values

optional string literal enum

Controls how metric tag values are encoded.

When set to single, only the last non-bare value of tags are displayed with the metric. When set to full, all metric tags are exposed as separate assignments as described by the native_json codec.

Enum options
OptionDescription
fullAll tags are exposed as arrays of either string or null values.
singleTag values are exposed as single strings, the same as they were before this config option. Tags with multiple values show the last assigned value, and null values are ignored.
default: single

metrics.timezone

optional string literal

The name of the time zone to apply to timestamp conversions that do not contain an explicit time zone.

This overrides the global timezone option. The time zone name may be any name in the TZ database or local to indicate system local time.

Examples 
"local"
"America/New_York"
"EST5EDT"

mode

optional string literal enum
Elasticsearch Indexing mode.
Enum options string literal
OptionDescription
bulkIngests documents in bulk, using the bulk API index action.
data_stream

Ingests documents in bulk, using the bulk API create action.

Elasticsearch Data Streams only support the create action.

default: bulk

pipeline

optional string literal
The name of the pipeline to apply.
Examples 
"pipeline-name"

proxy

optional object

Proxy configuration.

Configure to proxy traffic through an HTTP(S) proxy when making external requests.

Similar to common proxy configuration convention, you can set different proxies to use based on the type of traffic being proxied. You can also set specific hosts that should not be proxied.

proxy.enabled

optional bool
Enables proxying support.
default: true

proxy.http

optional string literal

Proxy endpoint to use when proxying HTTP traffic.

Must be a valid URI string.

Examples 
"http://foo.bar:3128"

proxy.https

optional string literal

Proxy endpoint to use when proxying HTTPS traffic.

Must be a valid URI string.

Examples 
"http://foo.bar:3128"

proxy.no_proxy

optional [string]

A list of hosts to avoid proxying.

Multiple patterns are allowed:

PatternExample match
Domain namesexample.com matches requests to example.com
Wildcard domains.example.com matches requests to example.com and its subdomains
IP addresses127.0.0.1 matches requests to 127.0.0.1
CIDR blocks192.168.0.0/16 matches requests to any IP addresses in this range
Splat* matches all hosts

query

optional object
Custom parameters to add to the query string for each HTTP request sent to Elasticsearch.

query.*

required string literal
A query string parameter.

request

optional object
Outbound HTTP request settings.

request.adaptive_concurrency

optional object

Configuration of adaptive concurrency parameters.

These parameters typically do not require changes from the default, and incorrect values can lead to meta-stable or unstable performance and sink behavior. Proceed with caution.

request.adaptive_concurrency.decrease_ratio
optional float

The fraction of the current value to set the new concurrency limit when decreasing the limit.

Valid values are greater than 0 and less than 1. Smaller values cause the algorithm to scale back rapidly when latency increases.

Note that the new limit is rounded down after applying this ratio.

default: 0.9
request.adaptive_concurrency.ewma_alpha
optional float

The weighting of new measurements compared to older measurements.

Valid values are greater than 0 and less than 1.

ARC uses an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) of past RTT measurements as a reference to compare with the current RTT. Smaller values cause this reference to adjust more slowly, which may be useful if a service has unusually high response variability.

default: 0.4
request.adaptive_concurrency.initial_concurrency
optional uint

The initial concurrency limit to use. If not specified, the initial limit will be 1 (no concurrency).

It is recommended to set this value to your service’s average limit if you’re seeing that it takes a long time to ramp up adaptive concurrency after a restart. You can find this value by looking at the adaptive_concurrency_limit metric.

default: 1
request.adaptive_concurrency.max_concurrency_limit
optional uint

The maximum concurrency limit.

The adaptive request concurrency limit will not go above this bound. This is put in place as a safeguard.

default: 200
request.adaptive_concurrency.rtt_deviation_scale
optional float

Scale of RTT deviations which are not considered anomalous.

Valid values are greater than or equal to 0, and we expect reasonable values to range from 1.0 to 3.0.

When calculating the past RTT average, we also compute a secondary “deviation” value that indicates how variable those values are. We use that deviation when comparing the past RTT average to the current measurements, so we can ignore increases in RTT that are within an expected range. This factor is used to scale up the deviation to an appropriate range. Larger values cause the algorithm to ignore larger increases in the RTT.

default: 2.5

request.concurrency

optional string literal enum uint

Configuration for outbound request concurrency.

This can be set either to one of the below enum values or to a positive integer, which denotes a fixed concurrency limit.

Enum options
OptionDescription
adaptiveConcurrency will be managed by Vector’s Adaptive Request Concurrency feature.
none

A fixed concurrency of 1.

Only one request can be outstanding at any given time.

default: adaptive

request.headers

optional object
Additional HTTP headers to add to every HTTP request.
request.headers.*
required string literal
An HTTP request header and it’s value.
Examples 
{
  "Accept": "text/plain",
  "X-My-Custom-Header": "A-Value"
}

request.rate_limit_duration_secs

optional uint
The time window used for the rate_limit_num option.
default: 1 (seconds)

request.rate_limit_num

optional uint
The maximum number of requests allowed within the rate_limit_duration_secs time window.
default: 9.223372036854776e+18 (requests)

request.retry_attempts

optional uint
The maximum number of retries to make for failed requests.
default: 9.223372036854776e+18 (retries)

request.retry_initial_backoff_secs

optional uint

The amount of time to wait before attempting the first retry for a failed request.

After the first retry has failed, the fibonacci sequence is used to select future backoffs.

default: 1 (seconds)

request.retry_jitter_mode

optional string literal enum
The jitter mode to use for retry backoff behavior.
Enum options
OptionDescription
Full

Full jitter.

The random delay is anywhere from 0 up to the maximum current delay calculated by the backoff strategy.

Incorporating full jitter into your backoff strategy can greatly reduce the likelihood of creating accidental denial of service (DoS) conditions against your own systems when many clients are recovering from a failure state.

NoneNo jitter.
default: Full

request.retry_max_duration_secs

optional uint
The maximum amount of time to wait between retries.
default: 30 (seconds)

request.timeout_secs

optional uint

The time a request can take before being aborted.

Datadog highly recommends that you do not lower this value below the service’s internal timeout, as this could create orphaned requests, pile on retries, and result in duplicate data downstream.

default: 60 (seconds)

request_retry_partial

optional bool

Whether or not to retry successful requests containing partial failures.

To avoid duplicates in Elasticsearch, please use option id_key.

default: false

suppress_type_name

optional bool

Deprecated

This option has been deprecated, the api_version option should be used instead.

Whether or not to send the type field to Elasticsearch.

The type field was deprecated in Elasticsearch 7.x and removed in Elasticsearch 8.x.

If enabled, the doc_type option is ignored.

default: false

tls

optional object
TLS configuration.

tls.alpn_protocols

optional [string]

Sets the list of supported ALPN protocols.

Declare the supported ALPN protocols, which are used during negotiation with peer. They are prioritized in the order that they are defined.

tls.ca_file

optional string literal

Absolute path to an additional CA certificate file.

The certificate must be in the DER or PEM (X.509) format. Additionally, the certificate can be provided as an inline string in PEM format.

Examples 
"/path/to/certificate_authority.crt"

tls.crt_file

optional string literal

Absolute path to a certificate file used to identify this server.

The certificate must be in DER, PEM (X.509), or PKCS#12 format. Additionally, the certificate can be provided as an inline string in PEM format.

If this is set, and is not a PKCS#12 archive, key_file must also be set.

Examples 
"/path/to/host_certificate.crt"

tls.key_file

optional string literal

Absolute path to a private key file used to identify this server.

The key must be in DER or PEM (PKCS#8) format. Additionally, the key can be provided as an inline string in PEM format.

Examples 
"/path/to/host_certificate.key"

tls.key_pass

optional string literal

Passphrase used to unlock the encrypted key file.

This has no effect unless key_file is set.

Examples 
"${KEY_PASS_ENV_VAR}"
"PassWord1"

tls.server_name

optional string literal

Server name to use when using Server Name Indication (SNI).

Only relevant for outgoing connections.

Examples 
"www.example.com"

tls.verify_certificate

optional bool

Enables certificate verification. For components that create a server, this requires that the client connections have a valid client certificate. For components that initiate requests, this validates that the upstream has a valid certificate.

If enabled, certificates must not be expired and must be issued by a trusted issuer. This verification operates in a hierarchical manner, checking that the leaf certificate (the certificate presented by the client/server) is not only valid, but that the issuer of that certificate is also valid, and so on until the verification process reaches a root certificate.

Do NOT set this to false unless you understand the risks of not verifying the validity of certificates.

tls.verify_hostname

optional bool

Enables hostname verification.

If enabled, the hostname used to connect to the remote host must be present in the TLS certificate presented by the remote host, either as the Common Name or as an entry in the Subject Alternative Name extension.

Only relevant for outgoing connections.

Do NOT set this to false unless you understand the risks of not verifying the remote hostname.

Telemetry

Metrics

link

buffer_byte_size

gauge
The number of bytes current in the buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

buffer_discarded_events_total

counter
The number of events dropped by this non-blocking buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

buffer_events

gauge
The number of events currently in the buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

buffer_received_event_bytes_total

counter
The number of bytes received by this buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

buffer_received_events_total

counter
The number of events received by this buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

buffer_sent_event_bytes_total

counter
The number of bytes sent by this buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

buffer_sent_events_total

counter
The number of events sent by this buffer.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

component_discarded_events_total

counter
The number of events dropped by this component.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
intentional
True if the events were discarded intentionally, like a filter transform, or false if due to an error.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

component_errors_total

counter
The total number of errors encountered by this component.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
error_type
The type of the error
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.
stage
The stage within the component at which the error occurred.

component_received_event_bytes_total

counter
The number of event bytes accepted by this component either from tagged origins like file and uri, or cumulatively from other origins.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
container_name optional
The name of the container from which the data originated.
file optional
The file from which the data originated.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
mode optional
The connection mode used by the component.
peer_addr optional
The IP from which the data originated.
peer_path optional
The pathname from which the data originated.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.
pod_name optional
The name of the pod from which the data originated.
uri optional
The sanitized URI from which the data originated.

component_received_events_count

histogram

A histogram of the number of events passed in each internal batch in Vector’s internal topology.

Note that this is separate than sink-level batching. It is mostly useful for low level debugging performance issues in Vector due to small internal batches.

component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
container_name optional
The name of the container from which the data originated.
file optional
The file from which the data originated.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
mode optional
The connection mode used by the component.
peer_addr optional
The IP from which the data originated.
peer_path optional
The pathname from which the data originated.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.
pod_name optional
The name of the pod from which the data originated.
uri optional
The sanitized URI from which the data originated.

component_received_events_total

counter
The number of events accepted by this component either from tagged origins like file and uri, or cumulatively from other origins.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
container_name optional
The name of the container from which the data originated.
file optional
The file from which the data originated.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
mode optional
The connection mode used by the component.
peer_addr optional
The IP from which the data originated.
peer_path optional
The pathname from which the data originated.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.
pod_name optional
The name of the pod from which the data originated.
uri optional
The sanitized URI from which the data originated.

component_sent_bytes_total

counter
The number of raw bytes sent by this component to destination sinks.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
endpoint optional
The endpoint to which the bytes were sent. For HTTP, this will be the host and path only, excluding the query string.
file optional
The absolute path of the destination file.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.
protocol
The protocol used to send the bytes.
region optional
The AWS region name to which the bytes were sent. In some configurations, this may be a literal hostname.

component_sent_event_bytes_total

counter
The total number of event bytes emitted by this component.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
output optional
The specific output of the component.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

component_sent_events_total

counter
The total number of events emitted by this component.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
output optional
The specific output of the component.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

utilization

gauge
A ratio from 0 to 1 of the load on a component. A value of 0 would indicate a completely idle component that is simply waiting for input. A value of 1 would indicate a that is never idle. This value is updated every 5 seconds.
component_id
The Vector component ID.
component_kind
The Vector component kind.
component_type
The Vector component type.
host optional
The hostname of the system Vector is running on.
pid optional
The process ID of the Vector instance.

How it works

AWS authentication

Vector checks for AWS credentials in the following order:

  1. The auth.access_key_id and auth.secret_access_key options.
  2. The AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables.
  3. In Web Identity Token credentials from the environment or container (including EKS). These credentials will automatically refresh when expired.
  4. ECS credentials (IAM roles for tasks). These credentials will automatically refresh when expired.
  5. As entries in the credentials file in the .aws directory in your home directory (~/.aws/credentials on Linux, OS X, and Unix; %userprofile%\.aws\credentials on Microsoft Windows).
  6. Using a named profile specified in the credentials file via the AWS_PROFILE environment variable.
  7. The IAM instance profile (only works if running on an EC2 instance with an instance profile/role). Requires IMDSv2 to be enabled. For EKS, you may need to increase the metadata token response hop limit to 2. These credentials will automatically refresh when expired.

If no credentials are found, Vector’s health check fails and an error is logged.

Obtaining an access key

In general, we recommend using instance profiles/roles whenever possible. In cases where this is not possible you can generate an AWS access key for any user within your AWS account. AWS provides a detailed guide on how to do this. Such created AWS access keys can be used via auth.access_key_id and auth.secret_access_key options.

Assuming roles

Vector can assume an AWS IAM role via the auth.assume_role option. This is an optional setting that is helpful for a variety of use cases, such as cross account access.

Buffers and batches

This component buffers & batches data as shown in the diagram above. You’ll notice that Vector treats these concepts differently, instead of treating them as global concepts, Vector treats them as sink specific concepts. This isolates sinks, ensuring services disruptions are contained and delivery guarantees are honored.

Batches are flushed when 1 of 2 conditions are met:

  1. The batch age meets or exceeds the configured timeout_secs.
  2. The batch size meets or exceeds the configured max_bytes or max_events.

Buffers are controlled via the buffer.* options.

Conflicts

Vector batches data and flushes it to Elasticsearch’s _bulk API endpoint. By default, all events are inserted via the index action, which replaces documents if an existing one has the same id. If bulk.action is configured with create, Elasticsearch does not replace an existing document and instead returns a conflict error.

Data streams

By default, Vector uses the index action with Elasticsearch’s Bulk API. To use Data streams, set the mode to data_stream. Use the combination of data_stream.type, data_stream.dataset and data_stream.namespace instead of index.

Distribution

If multiple endpoints are specified in endpoints option, events will be distributed among them according to their estimated load with failover.

Rate limit is applied to the sink as a whole, while concurrency settings manage each endpoint individually.

Health of endpoints is actively monitored and if an endpoint is deemed unhealthy, Vector will stop sending events to it until it is healthy again. This is managed by a circuit breaker that monitors responses and triggers after a sufficient streak of failures. Once triggered it will enter exponential backoff loop and pass a single request in each iteration to test the endpoint. Once a successful response is received, the circuit breaker will reset.

Health checks

Health checks ensure that the downstream service is accessible and ready to accept data. This check is performed upon sink initialization. If the health check fails an error will be logged and Vector will proceed to start.

Require health checks

If you’d like to exit immediately upon a health check failure, you can pass the --require-healthy flag:

vector --config /etc/vector/vector.yaml --require-healthy

Disable health checks

If you’d like to disable health checks for this sink you can set the healthcheck option to false.

Partial Failures

By default, Elasticsearch allows partial bulk ingestion failures. This is typically due to Elasticsearch index mapping errors, where data keys aren’t consistently typed. To change this behavior, refer to the Elasticsearch ignore_malformed setting.

By default, partial failures are not retried. To enable retries, set request_retry_partial. Once enabled it will retry whole partially failed requests. As such it is advised to use id_key to avoid duplicates.

Rate limits & adaptive concurrency

Adaptive Request Concurrency (ARC)

Adaptive Request Concurrency is a feature of Vector that does away with static concurrency limits and automatically optimizes HTTP concurrency based on downstream service responses. The underlying mechanism is a feedback loop inspired by TCP congestion control algorithms. Checkout the announcement blog post,

We highly recommend enabling this feature as it improves performance and reliability of Vector and the systems it communicates with. As such, we have made it the default, and no further configuration is required.

Static concurrency

If Adaptive Request Concurrency is not for you, you can manually set static concurrency limits by specifying an integer for request.concurrency:

sinks:
	my-sink:
		request:
			concurrency: 10

Rate limits

In addition to limiting request concurrency, you can also limit the overall request throughput via the request.rate_limit_duration_secs and request.rate_limit_num options.

sinks:
	my-sink:
		request:
			rate_limit_duration_secs: 1
			rate_limit_num: 10

These will apply to both adaptive and fixed request.concurrency values.

Retry policy

Vector will retry failed requests (status == 429, >= 500, and != 501). Other responses will not be retried. You can control the number of retry attempts and backoff rate with the request.retry_attempts and request.retry_backoff_secs options.

State

This component is stateless, meaning its behavior is consistent across each input.

Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Vector uses OpenSSL for TLS protocols due to OpenSSL’s maturity. You can enable and adjust TLS behavior via the tls.* options and/or via an OpenSSL configuration file. The file location defaults to /usr/local/ssl/openssl.cnf or can be specified with the OPENSSL_CONF environment variable.
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