Metricbeat is the recommended method for collecting and shipping monitoring data to a monitoring cluster.

    If you have previously configured legacy collection methods, you should migrate to using Metricbeat collection methods. Use either Metricbeat collection or legacy collection methods; do not use both.

    For the recommended method, refer to .

    The following method involves sending the metrics to the production cluster, which ultimately routes them to the monitoring cluster.

    To learn about monitoring in general, see Monitor a cluster.

    1. Set the setting to true on each node in the production cluster. By default, it is is disabled (false).

      • To update the cluster settings in Kibana:

        1. Open Kibana in your web browser.

          By default, if you are running Kibana locally, go to .

          If security features are enabled, log in.

      • From the Console or command line, set xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled to true on the production cluster.

        For more information, see and Cluster update settings.

    1. Verify that monitoring.enabled and monitoring.kibana.collection.enabled are set to true in the file. These are the default values. For more information, see .

    2. Identify where to send monitoring data. Kibana automatically sends metrics to the Elasticsearch cluster specified in the elasticsearch.hosts setting in the kibana.yml file. This property has a default value of http://localhost:9200.

      In production environments, we strongly recommend using a separate cluster (referred to as the monitoring cluster) to store the data. Using a separate monitoring cluster prevents production cluster outages from impacting your ability to access your monitoring data. It also prevents monitoring activities from impacting the performance of your production cluster.

      If security features are enabled on the production cluster, use an HTTPS URL such as https://<your_production_cluster>:9200 in this setting.

    3. If security features are enabled on the production cluster:

      1. Configure encryption for traffic between Kibana and Elasticsearch.

    4. .

    5. View the monitoring data in Kibana.