# Welcome to filebeat 6.3.1

Filebeat sends log files to Logstash or directly to Elasticsearch.

## Getting Started

To get started with filebeat, you need to set up Elasticsearch on your localhost first. After that, start filebeat with:

     ./filebeat -c filebeat.yml -e

This will start the beat and send the data to your Elasticsearch instance. To load the dashboards for filebeat into Kibana, run:

    ./filebeat setup -e

For further steps visit the [Getting started](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/6.3/filebeat-getting-started.html) guide.

## Documentation

Visit [Elastic.co Docs](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/6.3/index.html) for the full filebeat documentation.

## Release notes

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/libbeat/6.3/release-notes-6.3.1.html
