Shutting Down Logstash

If you’re running Logstash as a service, use one of the following commands to stop it:

  • On systemd, use:

    systemctl stop logstash
  • On upstart, use:

    initctl stop logstash
  • On sysv, use:

    /etc/init.d/logstash stop

If you’re running Logstash directly in the console on a POSIX system, you can stopit by sending SIGTERM to the Logstash process. For example:

kill -TERM {logstash_pid}

Alternatively, enter Ctrl-C in the console.

What Happens During a Controlled Shutdown?

When you attempt to shut down a running Logstash instance, Logstash performs several steps before it can safely shut down. It must:

  • Stop all input, filter and output plugins
  • Process all in-flight events
  • Terminate the Logstash process

The following conditions affect the shutdown process:

  • An input plugin receiving data at a slow pace.
  • A slow filter, like a Ruby filter executing sleep(10000) or an Elasticsearch filter that is executing a very heavyquery.
  • A disconnected output plugin that is waiting to reconnect to flush in-flight events.

These situations make the duration and success of the shutdown process unpredictable.

Logstash has a stall detection mechanism that analyzes the behavior of the pipeline and plugins during shutdown.This mechanism produces periodic information about the count of inflight events in internal queues and a list of busyworker threads.

To enable Logstash to forcibly terminate in the case of a stalled shutdown, use the --pipeline.unsafe_shutdown flag whenyou start Logstash.

Warning

Unsafe shutdowns, force-kills of the Logstash process, or crashes of the Logstash process for any other reason may result in data loss (unless you’veenabled Logstash to use persistent queues). Shut downLogstash safely whenever possible.

Stall Detection Example

In this example, slow filter execution prevents the pipeline from performing a clean shutdown. Because Logstash isstarted with the --pipeline.unsafe_shutdown flag, the shutdown results in the loss of 20 events.

bin/logstash -e 'input { generator { } } filter { ruby { code => "sleep 10000" } }  output { stdout { codec => dots } }' -w 1 --pipeline.unsafe_shutdownPipeline main started^CSIGINT received. Shutting down the agent. {:level=>:warn}stopping pipeline {:id=>"main", :level=>:warn}Received shutdown signal, but pipeline is still waiting for in-flight eventsto be processed. Sending another ^C will force quit Logstash, but this may causedata loss. {:level=>:warn}{"inflight_count"=>125, "stalling_thread_info"=>{["LogStash::Filters::Ruby",{"code"=>"sleep 10000"}]=>[{"thread_id"=>19, "name"=>"[main]>worker0","current_call"=>"(ruby filter code):1:in `sleep'"}]}} {:level=>:warn}The shutdown process appears to be stalled due to busy or blocked plugins.Check the logs for more information. {:level=>:error}{"inflight_count"=>125, "stalling_thread_info"=>{["LogStash::Filters::Ruby",{"code"=>"sleep 10000"}]=>[{"thread_id"=>19, "name"=>"[main]>worker0","current_call"=>"(ruby filter code):1:in `sleep'"}]}} {:level=>:warn}{"inflight_count"=>125, "stalling_thread_info"=>{["LogStash::Filters::Ruby",{"code"=>"sleep 10000"}]=>[{"thread_id"=>19, "name"=>"[main]>worker0","current_call"=>"(ruby filter code):1:in `sleep'"}]}} {:level=>:warn}Forcefully quitting logstash.. {:level=>:fatal}

When --pipeline.unsafe_shutdown isn’t enabled, Logstash continues to run and produce these reports periodically.