Logstash pattern for log4j

Question

I'm setting up Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana. I encountered an error when I am configuring "logstash.conf". Here's the error I got.

{:timestamp=>"2015-05-25T21:56:59.907000-0400", :message=>"Error: Expected one of #, {, ,, ] at line 12, column 49 (byte 265) after filter {\n  grok {\n     match => [\"message\", \"<log4j:event logger=\""}
{:timestamp=>"2015-05-25T21:56:59.915000-0400", :message=>"You may be interested in the '--configtest' flag which you can\nuse to validate logstash's configuration before you choose\nto restart a running system."}

This is my logstash.conf

grok {
   match => ["message", "<log4j:event logger="%{DATA:emitter}" timestamp="%{BASE10NUM:timestamp}" level="%{LOGLEVEL:level}" thread="%{DATA:thread}">, <log4j:message><%{GREEDYDATA:message}></log4j:message>" ]
}

I am new to ELK.

Answer 1

Since your grok pattern contains double quotes you have to either

1. escape the double quotes inside the expression by preceding them with a backslash, or
2. use single quotes as the pattern string delimiter.

Example 1:

grok {
   match => ["message", "<log4j:event logger=\"%{DATA:emitter}\" ..." ]
}

Example 2:

grok {
   match => ["message", '<log4j:event logger="%{DATA:emitter}" ...' ]
}