[[new-dashboards]]
== Creating New Kibana Dashboards for a Beat or a Beat module

++++
<titleabbrev>Creating New Kibana Dashboards</titleabbrev>
++++


When contributing to Beats development, you may want to add new dashboards or
customize the existing ones. To get started, you can
<<import-dashboards,import the Kibana dashboards>> that come with the official
Beats and use them as a starting point for your own dashboards. When you're done
making changes to the dashboards in Kibana, you can use the `export_dashboards`
script to <<export-dashboards,export the dashboards>>, along with all
dependencies, to a local directory.

To make sure the dashboards are compatible with the latest version of Kibana and Elasticsearch, we
recommend that you use the virtual environment under
https://github.com/elastic/beats/tree/master/testing/environments[beats/testing/environments] to import, create, and
export the Kibana dashboards.

The following topics provide more detail about importing and working with Beats dashboards:

* <<import-dashboards>>
* <<build-dashboards>>
* <<generate-index-pattern>>
* <<export-dashboards>>
* <<archive-dashboards>>
* <<share-beat-dashboards>>

[[import-dashboards]]
=== Importing Existing Beat Dashboards

The official Beats come with Kibana dashboards, and starting with 6.0.0, they
are part of every Beat package. 

You can use the Beat executable to import all the dashboards and the index pattern for a Beat, including the dependencies such as visualizations and searches.

To import the dashboards, run the `setup` command.


[source,shell]
-------------------------
./metricbeat setup
-------------------------

The `setup` phase loads several dependencies, such as:

- Index mapping template in Elasticsearch
- Kibana dashboards
- Machine Learning (ML) jobs
- Ingest pipelines
- ILM policy

The dependencies vary depending on the Beat you're setting up.

For more details about the `setup` command, see the command-line help. For example:

[source,shell]
----
./metricbeat help setup

This command does initial setup of the environment:

 * Index mapping template in Elasticsearch to ensure fields are mapped.
 * Kibana dashboards (where available).
 * ML jobs (where available).
 * Ingest pipelines (where available).
 * ILM policy (for Elasticsearch 6.5 and newer).

Usage:
  metricbeat setup [flags]

Flags:
      --dashboards         Setup dashboards
  -h, --help               help for setup
      --index-management   Setup all components related to Elasticsearch index management, including template, ilm policy and rollover alias
      --machine-learning   Setup machine learning job configurations
      --pipelines          Setup Ingest pipelines
----

The flags are useful when you don't want to load everything. For example, to
import only the dashboards, use the `--dashboards` flag:

[source,shell]
----
./metricbeat setup --dashboards
----

Starting with Beats 6.0.0, the dashboards are no longer loaded directly into Elasticsearch. Instead, they are imported directly into Kibana.
Thus, if your Kibana instance is not listening on localhost, or you enabled
{xpack} for Kibana, you need to either configure the Kibana endpoint in
the config for the Beat, or pass the Kibana host and credentials as
arguments to the `setup` command. For example:

[source,shell]
----
./metricbeat setup -E setup.kibana.host=192.168.3.206:5601 -E setup.kibana.username=elastic -E setup.kibana.password=secret
----

By default, the `setup` command imports the dashboards from the `kibana`
directory, which is available in the Beat package.

NOTE: The format of the saved dashboards is not compatible between Kibana 5.x and 6.x. Thus, the Kibana 5.x dashboards are available in
the `5.x` directory, and the Kibana 6.0 dashboards, and older are in the `default` directory.

In case you are using customized dashboards, you can import them:

- from a local directory:
+
[source,shell]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
./metricbeat setup -E setup.dashboards.directory=kibana
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- from a local zip archive:
+
[source,shell]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
./metricbeat setup -E setup.dashboards.file=metricbeat-dashboards-6.0.zip
----------------------------------------------------------------------

- from a zip archive available online:
+
[source,shell]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
./metricbeat setup -E setup.dashboards.url=path/to/url
----------------------------------------------------------------------
+

See <<import-dashboard-options>> for a description of the `setup.dashboards` configuration options.


[[import-dashboards-for-development]]
==== Import Dashboards for Development

You can make use of the Makefile from the Beat GitHub repository to import the
dashboards. If Elasticsearch is running on localhost, then you can run the following command from the Beat repository:

[source,shell]
--------------------------------
make import-dashboards
--------------------------------

If Elasticsearch is running on a different host, then you can use the `ES_URL` variable:

[source,shell]
-------------------------------
ES_URL="http://192.168.3.206:9200" make import-dashboards
-------------------------------

[[import-dashboard-options]]
==== Kibana dashboards configuration

The configuration file (`*.reference.yml`) of each Beat contains the `setup.dashboards` section for configuring from where to get the Kibana dashboards, as well as the name of the index pattern.
Each of these configuration options can be overwritten with the command line options by using `-E` flag.


*`setup.dashboards.directory=<local_dir>`*::
Local directory that contains the saved dashboards and their dependencies.
The default value is the `kibana` directory available in the Beat package.

*`setup.dashboards.file=<local_archive>`*::
Local zip archive with the dashboards. The archive can contain Kibana dashboards for a single Beat or for multiple Beats. The dashboards of each Beat are placed under a separate directory with the name of the Beat.

*`setup.dashboards.url=<zip_url>`*::
Zip archive with the dashboards, available online. The archive can contain Kibana dashboards for a single Beat or for
multiple Beats. The dashboards for each Beat are placed under a separate directory with the name of the Beat.

*`setup.dashboards.index <elasticsearch_index>`*::
You should only use this option if you want to change the index pattern name that's used by default. For example, if the
default is `metricbeat-*`, you can change it to `custombeat-*`.


[[build-dashboards]]
=== Building Your Own Beat Dashboards

NOTE: If you want to modify a dashboard that comes with a Beat, it's better to modify a copy of the dashboard because the Beat overwrites the dashboards during the setup phase in order to have the latest version. For duplicating a dashboard, just use the `Clone` button from the top of the page.


Before building your own dashboards or customizing the existing ones, you need to load:

* the Beat index pattern, which specifies how Kibana should display the Beat fields
* the Beat dashboards that you want to customize

For the Elastic Beats, the index pattern is available in the Beat package under
`kibana/*/index-pattern`. The index-pattern is automatically generated from the `fields.yml` file, available in the Beat package. For more details
check the <<generate-index-pattern,generate index pattern>> section.

All Beats dashboards, visualizations and saved searches must follow common naming conventions:

* Dashboard names have prefix `[BeatName Module]`, e.g. `[Filebeat Nginx] Access logs`
* Visualizations and searches have suffix `[BeatName Module]`, e.g. `Top processes [Filebeat Nginx]`

NOTE: You can set a custom name (skip suffix) for visualization placed on a dashboard. The original visualization will
stay intact.

The naming convention rules can be verified with the the tool `mage check`. The command fails if it detects:

* empty description on a dashboard
* unexpected dashboard title format (missing prefix `[BeatName ModuleName]`)
* unexpected visualization title format (missing suffix `[BeatName Module]`)

After creating your own dashboards in Kibana, you can <<export-dashboards,export the Kibana dashboards>> to a local
directory, and then <<archive-dashboards,archive the dashboards>> in order to be able to share the dashboards with the community.

[[generate-index-pattern]]
=== Generating the Beat Index Pattern

The index-pattern defines the format of each field, and it's used by Kibana to know how to display the field.
If you change the fields exported by the Beat, you need to generate a new index pattern for your Beat. Otherwise, you can just use the index pattern available under the `kibana/*/index-pattern` directory.

The Beat index pattern is generated from the `fields.yml`, which contains all
the fields exported by the Beat. For each field, besides the `type`, you can configure the
`format` field. The format informs Kibana about how to display a certain field. A good example is `percentage` or `bytes`
to display fields as `50%` or `5MB`.

To generate the index pattern from the `fields.yml`, you need to run the following command in the Beat repository:

[source,shell]
---------------
make update
---------------

[[export-dashboards]]
=== Exporting New and Modified Beat Dashboards

To export all the dashboards for any Elastic Beat or any community Beat, including any new or modified dashboards and all dependencies such as
visualizations, searches, you can use the Go script `export_dashboards.go` from
https://github.com/elastic/beats/tree/master/dev-tools/cmd/dashboards[dev-tools] for exporting Kibana 6.0 dashboards or later, and the Python script `export_5x_dashboards.py`
for exporting Kibana 5.x dashboards. See the dev-tools
https://github.com/elastic/beats/tree/master/dev-tools/README.md[readme] for more info.

Alternatively, if the scripts above are not available, you can use your Beat binary to export Kibana 6.0 dashboards or later.

==== Exporting Kibana 6.0 dashboards and newer

The `dev-tools/cmd/export_dashboards.go` script helps you export your customized Kibana 6.0 dashboards and newer. You might need to export a single dashboard or all the dashboards available for a module or Beat.

It is also possible to use a Beat binary to export.

===== Export a single Kibana dashboard

To export a single dashboard for a module you can use the following command inside a Beat with modules:

[source,shell]
---------------
MODULE=redis ID=AV4REOpp5NkDleZmzKkE mage exportDashboard
---------------

[source,shell]
---------------
./filebeat export dashboard -id 7fea2930-478e-11e7-b1f0-cb29bac6bf8b >> Filebeat-redis.json
---------------

This generates a `AV4REOpp5NkDleZmzKkE.json` file inside dashboard directory in the redis module.
It contains all dependencies like visualizations and searches.

NOTE: The dashboard ID is available in the dashboard URL. For example, in case the dashboard URL is
`app/kibana#/dashboard/AV4REOpp5NkDleZmzKkE?_g=()&_a=(description:'Overview%2...`, the dashboard ID is `AV4REOpp5NkDleZmzKkE`.

===== Export all module/Beat dashboards

Each module should contain a `module.yml` file with a list of all the dashboards available for the module. For the Beats that don't have support for modules (e.g. Packetbeat),
there is a `dashboards.yml` file that defines all the Packetbeat dashboards.

Below, it's an example of the `module.yml` file for the system module in Metricbeat:

[source,shell]
---------------
dashboards:
- id: Metricbeat-system-overview
  file: Metricbeat-system-overview.json

- id: 79ffd6e0-faa0-11e6-947f-177f697178b8
  file: Metricbeat-host-overview.json

- id: CPU-slash-Memory-per-container
  file: Metricbeat-containers-overview.json
---------------


Each dashboard is defined by an `id` and the name of json `file` where the dashboard is saved locally.

By passing the yml file to the `export_dashboards.go` script or to the Beat, you can export all the dashboards defined:

[source,shell]
-------------------
go run dev-tools/cmd/dashboards/export_dashboards.go -yml filebeat/module/system/module.yml
-------------------

[source,shell]
-------------------
./filebeat export dashboard -yml filebeat/module/system/module.yml
-------------------


===== Export dashboards from a Kibana Space

If you are using the Kibana Spaces feature and want to export dashboards from a specific Space, pass the Space ID to the `export_dashboards.go` script:

[source,shell]
-------------------
go run dev-tools/cmd/dashboards/export_dashboards.go -space-id my-space [other-options]
-------------------

In case of running `export dashboard` of a Beat, you need to set the Space ID in `setup.kibana.space.id`.


==== Exporting Kibana 5.x dashboards

To export only some Kibana dashboards for an Elastic Beat or community Beat, you can simply pass a regular expression to
the `export_dashboards.py` script to match the selected Kibana dashboards.

Before running the `export_dashboards.py` script for the first time, you
need to create an environment that contains all the required Python packages.

[source,shell]
-------------------------
make python-env
-------------------------

For example, to export all Kibana dashboards that start with the **Packetbeat** name:

[source,shell]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
python ../dev-tools/cmd/dashboards/export_dashboards.py --regex Packetbeat*
----------------------------------------------------------------------

To see all the available options, read the descriptions below or run:

[source,shell]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
python ../dev-tools/cmd/dashboards/export_dashboards.py -h
----------------------------------------------------------------------

*`--url <elasticsearch_url>`*::
The Elasticsearch URL. The default value is http://localhost:9200.

*`--regex <regular_expression>`*::
Regular expression to match all the Kibana dashboards to be exported. This argument is required.

*`--kibana <kibana_index>`*::
The Elasticsearch index pattern where Kibana saves its configuration. The default value is `.kibana`.

*`--dir <output_dir>`*::
The output directory where the dashboards and all dependencies will be saved. The default value is `output`.

The output directory has the following structure:

[source,shell]
--------------
output/
    index-pattern/
    dashboard/
    visualization/
    search/
--------------

[[archive-dashboards]]
=== Archiving Your Beat Dashboards

The Kibana dashboards for the Elastic Beats are saved under the `kibana` directory. To create a zip archive with the
dashboards, including visualizations and searches and the index pattern, you can run the following command in the Beat
repository:

[source,shell]
--------------
make package-dashboards
--------------

The Makefile is part of libbeat, which means that community Beats contributors can use the commands shown here to
archive dashboards. The dashboards must be available under the `kibana` directory.

Another option would be to create a repository only with the dashboards, and use the GitHub release functionality to
create a zip archive.

Share the Kibana dashboards archive with the community, so other users can use your cool Kibana visualizations!



[[share-beat-dashboards]]
=== Sharing Your Beat Dashboards

When you're done with your own Beat dashboards, how about letting everyone know? You can create a topic on the https://discuss.elastic.co/c/beats[Beats
forum], and provide the link to the zip archive together with a short description.
