Default value for registry is wrong

[joshuaspence]

The default value for $filebeat::registry_file is set to .filebeat. This is inconsistent with the Filebeat documentation which states that the default registry should be /var/lib/filebeat/registry. When I install Filebeat locally with dpkg, the configuration file does indeed point to /var/lib/filebeat/registry:

################### Filebeat Configuration Example #########################

############################# Filebeat ######################################
filebeat:
  # List of prospectors to fetch data.
  prospectors:
    # Each - is a prospector. Below are the prospector specific configurations
    -
      # Paths that should be crawled and fetched. Glob based paths.
      # To fetch all ".log" files from a specific level of subdirectories
      # /var/log/*/*.log can be used.
      # For each file found under this path, a harvester is started.
      # Make sure not file is defined twice as this can lead to unexpected behaviour.
      paths:
        - /var/log/*.log
        #- c:\programdata\elasticsearch\logs\*

      # Configure the file encoding for reading files with international characters
      # following the W3C recommendation for HTML5 (http://www.w3.org/TR/encoding).
      # Some sample encodings:
      #   plain, utf-8, utf-16be-bom, utf-16be, utf-16le, big5, gb18030, gbk,
      #    hz-gb-2312, euc-kr, euc-jp, iso-2022-jp, shift-jis, ...
      #encoding: plain

      # Type of the files. Based on this the way the file is read is decided.
      # The different types cannot be mixed in one prospector
      #
      # Possible options are:
      # * log: Reads every line of the log file (default)
      # * stdin: Reads the standard in
      input_type: log

      # Exclude lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It drops the lines that are
      # matching any regular expression from the list. The include_lines is called before
      # exclude_lines. By default, no lines are dropped.
      # exclude_lines: ["^DBG"]

      # Include lines. A list of regular expressions to match. It exports the lines that are
      # matching any regular expression from the list. The include_lines is called before
      # exclude_lines. By default, all the lines are exported.
      # include_lines: ["^ERR", "^WARN"]

      # Exclude files. A list of regular expressions to match. Filebeat drops the files that
      # are matching any regular expression from the list. By default, no files are dropped.
      # exclude_files: [".gz$"]

      # Optional additional fields. These field can be freely picked
      # to add additional information to the crawled log files for filtering
      #fields:
      #  level: debug
      #  review: 1

      # Set to true to store the additional fields as top level fields instead
      # of under the "fields" sub-dictionary. In case of name conflicts with the
      # fields added by Filebeat itself, the custom fields overwrite the default
      # fields.
      #fields_under_root: false

      # Ignore files which were modified more then the defined timespan in the past.
      # In case all files on your system must be read you can set this value very large.
      # Time strings like 2h (2 hours), 5m (5 minutes) can be used.
      #ignore_older: 0

      # Close older closes the file handler for which were not modified
      # for longer then close_older
      # Time strings like 2h (2 hours), 5m (5 minutes) can be used.
      #close_older: 1h

      # Type to be published in the 'type' field. For Elasticsearch output,
      # the type defines the document type these entries should be stored
      # in. Default: log
      #document_type: log

      # Scan frequency in seconds.
      # How often these files should be checked for changes. In case it is set
      # to 0s, it is done as often as possible. Default: 10s
      #scan_frequency: 10s

      # Defines the buffer size every harvester uses when fetching the file
      #harvester_buffer_size: 16384

      # Maximum number of bytes a single log event can have
      # All bytes after max_bytes are discarded and not sent. The default is 10MB.
      # This is especially useful for multiline log messages which can get large.
      #max_bytes: 10485760

      # Mutiline can be used for log messages spanning multiple lines. This is common
      # for Java Stack Traces or C-Line Continuation
      #multiline:

        # The regexp Pattern that has to be matched. The example pattern matches all lines starting with [
        #pattern: ^\[

        # Defines if the pattern set under pattern should be negated or not. Default is false.
        #negate: false

        # Match can be set to "after" or "before". It is used to define if lines should be append to a pattern
        # that was (not) matched before or after or as long as a pattern is not matched based on negate.
        # Note: After is the equivalent to previous and before is the equivalent to to next in Logstash
        #match: after

        # The maximum number of lines that are combined to one event.
        # In case there are more the max_lines the additional lines are discarded.
        # Default is 500
        #max_lines: 500

        # After the defined timeout, an multiline event is sent even if no new pattern was found to start a new event
        # Default is 5s.
        #timeout: 5s

      # Setting tail_files to true means filebeat starts readding new files at the end
      # instead of the beginning. If this is used in combination with log rotation
      # this can mean that the first entries of a new file are skipped.
      #tail_files: false

      # Backoff values define how agressively filebeat crawls new files for updates
      # The default values can be used in most cases. Backoff defines how long it is waited
      # to check a file again after EOF is reached. Default is 1s which means the file
      # is checked every second if new lines were added. This leads to a near real time crawling.
      # Every time a new line appears, backoff is reset to the initial value.
      #backoff: 1s

      # Max backoff defines what the maximum backoff time is. After having backed off multiple times
      # from checking the files, the waiting time will never exceed max_backoff idenependent of the
      # backoff factor. Having it set to 10s means in the worst case a new line can be added to a log
      # file after having backed off multiple times, it takes a maximum of 10s to read the new line
      #max_backoff: 10s

      # The backoff factor defines how fast the algorithm backs off. The bigger the backoff factor,
      # the faster the max_backoff value is reached. If this value is set to 1, no backoff will happen.
      # The backoff value will be multiplied each time with the backoff_factor until max_backoff is reached
      #backoff_factor: 2

      # This option closes a file, as soon as the file name changes.
      # This config option is recommended on windows only. Filebeat keeps the files it's reading open. This can cause
      # issues when the file is removed, as the file will not be fully removed until also Filebeat closes
      # the reading. Filebeat closes the file handler after ignore_older. During this time no new file with the
      # same name can be created. Turning this feature on the other hand can lead to loss of data
      # on rotate files. It can happen that after file rotation the beginning of the new
      # file is skipped, as the reading starts at the end. We recommend to leave this option on false
      # but lower the ignore_older value to release files faster.
      #force_close_files: false

    # Additional prospector
    #-
      # Configuration to use stdin input
      #input_type: stdin

  # General filebeat configuration options
  #
  # Event count spool threshold - forces network flush if exceeded
  #spool_size: 2048

  # Enable async publisher pipeline in filebeat (Experimental!)
  #publish_async: false

  # Defines how often the spooler is flushed. After idle_timeout the spooler is
  # Flush even though spool_size is not reached.
  #idle_timeout: 5s

  # Name of the registry file. Per default it is put in the current working
  # directory. In case the working directory is changed after when running
  # filebeat again, indexing starts from the beginning again.
  registry_file: /var/lib/filebeat/registry

  # Full Path to directory with additional prospector configuration files. Each file must end with .yml
  # These config files must have the full filebeat config part inside, but only
  # the prospector part is processed. All global options like spool_size are ignored.
  # The config_dir MUST point to a different directory then where the main filebeat config file is in.
  #config_dir:

###############################################################################
############################# Libbeat Config ##################################
# Base config file used by all other beats for using libbeat features

############################# Output ##########################################

# Configure what outputs to use when sending the data collected by the beat.
# Multiple outputs may be used.
output:

  ### Elasticsearch as output
  elasticsearch:
    # Array of hosts to connect to.
    # Scheme and port can be left out and will be set to the default (http and 9200)
    # In case you specify and additional path, the scheme is required: http://localhost:9200/path
    # IPv6 addresses should always be defined as: https://[2001:db8::1]:9200
    hosts: ["localhost:9200"]

    # Optional protocol and basic auth credentials.
    #protocol: "https"
    #username: "admin"
    #password: "s3cr3t"

    # Number of workers per Elasticsearch host.
    #worker: 1

    # Optional index name. The default is "filebeat" and generates
    # [filebeat-]YYYY.MM.DD keys.
    #index: "filebeat"

    # A template is used to set the mapping in Elasticsearch
    # By default template loading is disabled and no template is loaded.
    # These settings can be adjusted to load your own template or overwrite existing ones
    #template:

      # Template name. By default the template name is filebeat.
      #name: "filebeat"

      # Path to template file
      #path: "filebeat.template.json"

      # Overwrite existing template
      #overwrite: false

    # Optional HTTP Path
    #path: "/elasticsearch"

    # Proxy server url
    #proxy_url: http://proxy:3128

    # The number of times a particular Elasticsearch index operation is attempted. If
    # the indexing operation doesn't succeed after this many retries, the events are
    # dropped. The default is 3.
    #max_retries: 3

    # The maximum number of events to bulk in a single Elasticsearch bulk API index request.
    # The default is 50.
    #bulk_max_size: 50

    # Configure http request timeout before failing an request to Elasticsearch.
    #timeout: 90

    # The number of seconds to wait for new events between two bulk API index requests.
    # If `bulk_max_size` is reached before this interval expires, addition bulk index
    # requests are made.
    #flush_interval: 1

    # Boolean that sets if the topology is kept in Elasticsearch. The default is
    # false. This option makes sense only for Packetbeat.
    #save_topology: false

    # The time to live in seconds for the topology information that is stored in
    # Elasticsearch. The default is 15 seconds.
    #topology_expire: 15

    # tls configuration. By default is off.
    #tls:
      # List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications
      #certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]

      # Certificate for TLS client authentication
      #certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"

      # Client Certificate Key
      #certificate_key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

      # Controls whether the client verifies server certificates and host name.
      # If insecure is set to true, all server host names and certificates will be
      # accepted. In this mode TLS based connections are susceptible to
      # man-in-the-middle attacks. Use only for testing.
      #insecure: true

      # Configure cipher suites to be used for TLS connections
      #cipher_suites: []

      # Configure curve types for ECDHE based cipher suites
      #curve_types: []

      # Configure minimum TLS version allowed for connection to logstash
      #min_version: 1.0

      # Configure maximum TLS version allowed for connection to logstash
      #max_version: 1.2


  ### Logstash as output
  #logstash:
    # The Logstash hosts
    #hosts: ["localhost:5044"]

    # Number of workers per Logstash host.
    #worker: 1

    # The maximum number of events to bulk into a single batch window. The
    # default is 2048.
    #bulk_max_size: 2048

    # Set gzip compression level.
    #compression_level: 3

    # Optional load balance the events between the Logstash hosts
    #loadbalance: true

    # Optional index name. The default index name depends on the each beat.
    # For Packetbeat, the default is set to packetbeat, for Topbeat
    # top topbeat and for Filebeat to filebeat.
    #index: filebeat

    # Optional TLS. By default is off.
    #tls:
      # List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications
      #certificate_authorities: ["/etc/pki/root/ca.pem"]

      # Certificate for TLS client authentication
      #certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem"

      # Client Certificate Key
      #certificate_key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

      # Controls whether the client verifies server certificates and host name.
      # If insecure is set to true, all server host names and certificates will be
      # accepted. In this mode TLS based connections are susceptible to
      # man-in-the-middle attacks. Use only for testing.
      #insecure: true

      # Configure cipher suites to be used for TLS connections
      #cipher_suites: []

      # Configure curve types for ECDHE based cipher suites
      #curve_types: []


  ### File as output
  #file:
    # Path to the directory where to save the generated files. The option is mandatory.
    #path: "/tmp/filebeat"

    # Name of the generated files. The default is `filebeat` and it generates files: `filebeat`, `filebeat.1`, `filebeat.2`, etc.
    #filename: filebeat

    # Maximum size in kilobytes of each file. When this size is reached, the files are
    # rotated. The default value is 10 MB.
    #rotate_every_kb: 10000

    # Maximum number of files under path. When this number of files is reached, the
    # oldest file is deleted and the rest are shifted from last to first. The default
    # is 7 files.
    #number_of_files: 7


  ### Console output
  # console:
    # Pretty print json event
    #pretty: false


############################# Shipper #########################################

shipper:
  # The name of the shipper that publishes the network data. It can be used to group
  # all the transactions sent by a single shipper in the web interface.
  # If this options is not defined, the hostname is used.
  #name:

  # The tags of the shipper are included in their own field with each
  # transaction published. Tags make it easy to group servers by different
  # logical properties.
  #tags: ["service-X", "web-tier"]

  # Uncomment the following if you want to ignore transactions created
  # by the server on which the shipper is installed. This option is useful
  # to remove duplicates if shippers are installed on multiple servers.
  #ignore_outgoing: true

  # How often (in seconds) shippers are publishing their IPs to the topology map.
  # The default is 10 seconds.
  #refresh_topology_freq: 10

  # Expiration time (in seconds) of the IPs published by a shipper to the topology map.
  # All the IPs will be deleted afterwards. Note, that the value must be higher than
  # refresh_topology_freq. The default is 15 seconds.
  #topology_expire: 15

  # Internal queue size for single events in processing pipeline
  #queue_size: 1000

  # Configure local GeoIP database support.
  # If no paths are not configured geoip is disabled.
  #geoip:
    #paths:
    #  - "/usr/share/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat"
    #  - "/usr/local/var/GeoIP/GeoLiteCity.dat"


############################# Logging #########################################

# There are three options for the log ouput: syslog, file, stderr.
# Under Windos systems, the log files are per default sent to the file output,
# under all other system per default to syslog.
logging:

  # Send all logging output to syslog. On Windows default is false, otherwise
  # default is true.
  #to_syslog: true

  # Write all logging output to files. Beats automatically rotate files if rotateeverybytes
  # limit is reached.
  #to_files: false

  # To enable logging to files, to_files option has to be set to true
  files:
    # The directory where the log files will written to.
    #path: /var/log/mybeat

    # The name of the files where the logs are written to.
    #name: mybeat

    # Configure log file size limit. If limit is reached, log file will be
    # automatically rotated
    rotateeverybytes: 10485760 # = 10MB

    # Number of rotated log files to keep. Oldest files will be deleted first.
    #keepfiles: 7

  # Enable debug output for selected components. To enable all selectors use ["*"]
  # Other available selectors are beat, publish, service
  # Multiple selectors can be chained.
  #selectors: [ ]

  # Sets log level. The default log level is error.
  # Available log levels are: critical, error, warning, info, debug
  #level: error

[pcfens]

I think the easiest way to keep moving on this will be to add something to the README.md file about a future change to this, and that it may be breaking. In a future release (after the v5 stuff stabilizes) we'll send a deprecation warning, then follow up a few days later with an actual change in the default.

[pcfens]

I'm going to go ahead and close this as a duplicate of #46 since the actual work is getting handled over there.