Exploring Filter Plugins
A filter plugin is used to perform transformations on the data. If your input fetches data based on what you want to process the data, then a filter plugin will help you to do so before sending the output. It acts as the intermediate section between input and output, which is required in the Logstash configuration file.
Let's have a look at few of the filter plugins.
grok
The grok
plugin is the most commonly used filter in Logstash and has powerful capabilities to transform your data from unstructured to structured data. Even if your data is structured, you can streamline the data using this pattern. Due to the powerful nature of the grok pattern, Logstash is referred to as a Swiss Army Knife. Grok is used to parse the data and structure the data in the way you want. It is used to parse any type of log that is in human-readable format. It combines the text patterns into a structure that helps you to match the logs and group them into fields. Logstash ships with more...