How-To: Upgrading from Non-OSS to OSS Beats Log Shippers

The Elastic Beats products are available in both an Open Source Software (OSS) and Commercial (Non-OSS) versions, but only the OSS versions are compatible. If you have mistakenly used the wrong version, you will need to download the corresponding OSS version.

Migrating Any Beats Product

You can download OSS versions of the Beats log shippers from the following links:

For all beats log shippers, the basic process for migrating is:

  1. Download the OSS version

  2. Copy the YAML configuration file from your existing installation to the new version, for example:

    shell
    $ cp filebeat-nonoss/filebeat.yml filebeat-oss/

  3. There is no need to copy the beats data directory that retains the information about what logs has already been shipped to LogScale, because the logs were not being copied correctly. There is no status information to copy.

Migrating Winglogbeat

The number one cause for trouble with Winlogbeat and LogScale is installing the wrong version of Winlogbeat (the non-open source version). If you suspect that you have installed the wrong version, you can uninstall Winlogbeat within PowerShell using the following instructions:

  1. Open a PowerShell prompt as an Administrator.

  2. Navigate to the Winlogbeat directory:

    powershell
    PS C:\Users\Administrator>cd 'c:\Program Files\Winlogbeat'

  3. Run the Winlogbeat uninstall script:

    powershell
    PS C:\Program Files\Winlogbeat> .\uninstall-service-winlogbeat.ps1

  4. Make a backup of your winlogbeat.yml file and then remove the contents of the C:\Program Files\Winlogbeat folder.

  5. Install the open source version of Winlogbeat using the instructions found above.