General configuration options

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This documentation refers to configuring the standalone (legacy) APM Server. This method of running APM Server will be deprecated and removed in a future release. Please consider upgrading to Fleet and the APM integration. If you’ve already upgraded, please see Input settings instead.

Example config file:

apm-server:
  host: "localhost:8200"
  rum:
    enabled: true

output:
  elasticsearch:
    hosts: ElasticsearchAddress:9200

queue.mem.events: 4096

max_procs: 4

If you are using an X-Pack secured version of Elastic Stack, you need to specify credentials in the config file before you run the commands that set up and start APM Server. For example:

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["ElasticsearchAddress:9200"]
  username: "elastic"
  password: "elastic"

Configuration options: apm-server.*

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host
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Defines the host and port the server is listening on. Use "unix:/path/to.sock" to listen on a unix domain socket. Defaults to localhost:8200.

max_header_size
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Maximum permitted size of a request’s header accepted by the server to be processed (in Bytes). Defaults to 1048576 Bytes (1 MB).

idle_timeout
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Maximum amount of time to wait for the next incoming request before underlying connection is closed. Defaults to 45 seconds.

read_timeout
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Maximum permitted duration for reading an entire request. Defaults to 30 seconds.

write_timeout
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Maximum permitted duration for writing a response. Defaults to 30 seconds.

shutdown_timeout
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Maximum duration in seconds before releasing resources when shutting down the server. Defaults to 5 seconds.

max_event_size
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Maximum permitted size of an event accepted by the server to be processed (in Bytes). Defaults to 307200 Bytes.

Configuration options: general

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max_connections
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Maximum number of TCP connections to accept simultaneously. Default value is 0, which means unlimited.

auth.secret_token
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Authorization token for sending data to the APM server. If a token is set, the agents must send it in the following format: Authorization: Bearer <secret-token>. The token is not used for RUM endpoints. By default, no authorization token is set.

It is recommended to use an authorization token in combination with SSL enabled. Read more about Securing APM Server and the secret token.

secret_token
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Deprecated in 7.14.0.

Replaced by auth.secret_token. See auth.secret_token

In versions prior to 7.14.0, secret token authorization was known as apm-server.secret_token. In 7.14.0 this was renamed apm-server.auth.secret_token. The old configuration will continue to work until 8.0.0, and the new configuration will take precedence.

capture_personal_data
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If true, APM Server captures the IP of the instrumented service and its User Agent if any. Enabled by default.

default_service_environment
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Sets the default service environment to associate with data and requests received from agents which have no service environment defined.

expvar.enabled
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When set to true APM Server exposes golang expvar. Disabled by default.

expvar.url
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Configure the url to expose expvar. Defaults to debug/vars.

instrumentation.enabled
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Enables self instrumentation of the APM Server itself. Disabled by default.

register.ingest.pipeline.enabled
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Loads the default pipeline definition to Elasticsearch on APM Server startup. Defaults to true.

register.ingest.pipeline.overwrite
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Overwrites the existing APM pipeline definition in Elasticsearch. Defaults to false.

Configuration options: queue.mem.*

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Data is buffered in a memory queue before it is published to the configured output. queue.mem.* settings modify the queue behavior.

events
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Maximum number of events the memory queue can buffer. Read more about how this setting can be used for tuning data ingestion. Default value is 4096.

flush.min_events
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Hints the minimum number of events stored in the queue, before providing a batch of events to the outputs. A value of 0 (the default) ensures events are immediately available to be sent to the outputs.

flush.timeout
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Maximum duration after which events are available to the outputs, if the number of events stored in the queue is < flush.min_events. Default value is 1 second.

Configuration options: max_procs

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max_procs
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Sets the maximum number of CPUs that can be executing simultaneously. The default is the number of logical CPUs available in the system.

Configuration options: data_streams

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enabled
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Write events to Elasticsearch data streams instead of indices. Events will be written to traces-*, logs-*, and metrics-* data streams. Enabling data streams disables the setup of index templates, ILM policies, and ingest pipelines. Defaults to false.

Other steps are required to switch to data streams. Please see Upgrade to data streams before changing this setting.

wait_for_integration
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Wait for the apm Fleet integration to be installed by Kibana. Requires either apm-server.kibana.enabled or for the Elasticsearch output to be configured. Defaults to true.