Cause io.netty.handler.codec.DecoderException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unknown beats protocol version: 69)

Hi,

Hopefully i’m Posting this in correct category. I have followed the instructions to try to setup a graylog environment. I’m now at the point that i have setup a sidecar agent on a windows host with a winlogbeat.

If server log i only get two errors

2025-04-10T08:47:07.559Z ERROR [AbstractTcpTransport] Error in Input [Beats/Beats/67f7776d73c08606cfa16144] (channel [id: 0x0f6e1e76, L:/10.246.11.50:5044 ! R:/10.246.11.40:47310]) (cause io.netty.handler.codec.DecoderException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unknown beats protocol version: 71)
2025-04-10T08:47:07.560Z ERROR [AbstractTcpTransport] Error in Input [Beats/Beats/67f7776d73c08606cfa16144] (channel [id: 0x0f6e1e76, L:/10.246.11.50:5044 ! R:/10.246.11.40:47310]) (cause io.netty.handler.codec.DecoderException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unknown beats protocol version: 69)

OS= Ubuntu 24.04.2
sidecar = 1.5.1-1
winlogbeat = 8.17.4

Can someone please hint me in correct direction

Regards Andre

Can you post a screenshot of the config of your beats input? Are you sure you are running the standsrd beats input and not a legacy one or something?

Hi,

sure

I have 3 options

Beats
Beats ( depricated)
Beats Kafka

And i choose Beats

Regards Andre

This is GRaylog version

Graylog 6.1.10+a308be3 on bugraylog (Eclipse Adoptium 17.0.14 on Linux 6.8.0-57-generic)

Hm, thats the right input, could you also post the config you are using for winlogbeat?

sorry for the messy reply, i have just paste the enabled sections from the yaml file

winlogbeat.event_logs:

  • name: Application
    ignore_older: 72h

  • name: System

  • name: Security

  • name: Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational

  • name: Windows PowerShell
    event_id: 400, 403, 600, 800

  • name: Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational
    event_id: 4103, 4104, 4105, 4106

  • name: ForwardedEvents
    tags: [forwarded]

====================== Elasticsearch template settings =======================

setup.template.settings:
index.number_of_shards: 1

output.elasticsearch:

Array of hosts to connect to.

hosts: [“10.246.11.50:5044”]

Protocol - either http (default) or https.

#protocol: “https”

Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.

#api_key: “id:api_key”
#username: “elastic”
#password: “changeme”

Pipeline to route events to security, sysmon, or powershell pipelines.

pipeline: “winlogbeat-%{[agent.version]}-routing”

------------------------------ Logstash Output -------------------------------

#output.logstash:

The Logstash hosts

hosts: [“10.246.11.50:5044”]

Optional SSL. By default is off.

List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications

#ssl.certificate_authorities: [“/etc/pki/root/ca.pem”]

Certificate for SSL client authentication

#ssl.certificate: “/etc/pki/client/cert.pem”

Client Certificate Key

#ssl.key: “/etc/pki/client/cert.key”

================================= Processors =================================

processors:

  • add_host_metadata:
    when.not.contains.tags: forwarded
  • add_cloud_metadata: ~

think perhaps you mean this one ( from graylog server )

But think i ruined the sidecar, status is now failing

###################### Winlogbeat Configuration Example ########################

This file is an example configuration file highlighting only the most common

options. The winlogbeat.reference.yml file from the same directory contains

all the supported options with more comments. You can use it as a reference.

You can find the full configuration reference here:

Winlogbeat Reference | Elastic

======================== Winlogbeat specific options =========================

event_logs specifies a list of event logs to monitor as well as any

accompanying options. The YAML data type of event_logs is a list of

dictionaries.

The supported keys are name, id, xml_query, tags, fields, fields_under_root,

forwarded, ignore_older, level, event_id, provider, and include_xml.

The xml_query key requires an id and must not be used with the name,

ignore_older, level, event_id, or provider keys. Please visit the

documentation for the complete details of each option.

Configure Winlogbeat | Winlogbeat Reference [8.17] | Elastic

winlogbeat.event_logs:

  • name: Application
    ignore_older: 72h

  • name: System

  • name: Security

  • name: Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational

  • name: Windows PowerShell
    event_id: 400, 403, 600, 800

  • name: Microsoft-Windows-PowerShell/Operational
    event_id: 4103, 4104, 4105, 4106

  • name: ForwardedEvents
    tags: [forwarded]

====================== Elasticsearch template settings =======================

setup.template.settings:
index.number_of_shards: 1
#index.codec: best_compression
#_source.enabled: false

================================== General ===================================

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.

#name:

The tags of the shipper are included in their field with each

transaction published.

#tags: [“service-X”, “web-tier”]

Optional fields that you can specify to add additional information to the

output.

#fields:

env: staging

================================= Dashboards =================================

These settings control loading the sample dashboards to the Kibana index. Loading

the dashboards is disabled by default and can be enabled either by setting the

options here or by using the setup command.

#setup.dashboards.enabled: false

The URL from where to download the dashboard archive. By default, this URL

has a value that is computed based on the Beat name and version. For released

versions, this URL points to the dashboard archive on the artifacts.elastic.co

website.

#setup.dashboards.url:

=================================== Kibana ===================================

Starting with Beats version 6.0.0, the dashboards are loaded via the Kibana API.

This requires a Kibana endpoint configuration.

setup.kibana:

Kibana Host

Scheme and port can be left out and will be set to the default (http and 5601)

In case you specify and additional path, the scheme is required: http://localhost:5601/path

IPv6 addresses should always be defined as: https://[2001:db8::1]:5601

#host: “localhost:5601”

Kibana Space ID

ID of the Kibana Space into which the dashboards should be loaded. By default,

the Default Space will be used.

#space.id:

=============================== Elastic Cloud ================================

These settings simplify using Winlogbeat with the Elastic Cloud (https://cloud.elastic.co/).

The cloud.id setting overwrites the output.elasticsearch.hosts and

setup.kibana.host options.

You can find the cloud.id in the Elastic Cloud web UI.

#cloud.id:

The cloud.auth setting overwrites the output.elasticsearch.username and

output.elasticsearch.password settings. The format is <user>:<pass>.

#cloud.auth:

================================== Outputs ===================================

Configure what output to use when sending the data collected by the beat.

---------------------------- Elasticsearch Output ----------------------------

output.elasticsearch:

Array of hosts to connect to.

hosts: [“10.246.11.50:5044”]

Protocol - either http (default) or https.

#protocol: “https”

Authentication credentials - either API key or username/password.

#api_key: “id:api_key”
#username: “elastic”
#password: “changeme”

Pipeline to route events to security, sysmon, or powershell pipelines.

pipeline: “winlogbeat-%{[agent.version]}-routing”

------------------------------ Logstash Output -------------------------------

output.logstash:

The Logstash hosts

hosts: [“10.246.11.50:5044”]

Optional SSL. By default is off.

List of root certificates for HTTPS server verifications

#ssl.certificate_authorities: [“/etc/pki/root/ca.pem”]

Certificate for SSL client authentication

#ssl.certificate: “/etc/pki/client/cert.pem”

Client Certificate Key

#ssl.key: “/etc/pki/client/cert.key”

================================= Processors =================================

processors:

  • add_host_metadata:
    when.not.contains.tags: forwarded
  • add_cloud_metadata: ~

================================== Logging ===================================

Sets log level. The default log level is info.

Available log levels are: error, warning, info, debug

#logging.level: debug

At debug level, you can selectively enable logging only for some components.

To enable all selectors, use [“*”]. Examples of other selectors are “beat”,

“publisher”, “service”.

#logging.selectors: [“*”]

============================= X-Pack Monitoring ==============================

Winlogbeat can export internal metrics to a central Elasticsearch monitoring

cluster. This requires xpack monitoring to be enabled in Elasticsearch. The

reporting is disabled by default.

Set to true to enable the monitoring reporter.

#monitoring.enabled: false

Sets the UUID of the Elasticsearch cluster under which monitoring data for this

Winlogbeat instance will appear in the Stack Monitoring UI. If output.elasticsearch

is enabled, the UUID is derived from the Elasticsearch cluster referenced by output.elasticsearch.

#monitoring.cluster_uuid:

Uncomment to send the metrics to Elasticsearch. Most settings from the

Elasticsearch outputs are accepted here as well.

Note that the settings should point to your Elasticsearch monitoring cluster.

Any setting that is not set is automatically inherited from the Elasticsearch

output configuration, so if you have the Elasticsearch output configured such

that it is pointing to your Elasticsearch monitoring cluster, you can simply

uncomment the following line.

#monitoring.elasticsearch:

============================== Instrumentation ===============================

Instrumentation support for the winlogbeat.

#instrumentation:
# Set to true to enable instrumentation of winlogbeat.
#enabled: false

# Environment in which winlogbeat is running on (eg: staging, production, etc.)
#environment: ""

# APM Server hosts to report instrumentation results to.
#hosts:
#  - http://localhost:8200

# API Key for the APM Server(s).
# If api_key is set then secret_token will be ignored.
#api_key:

# Secret token for the APM Server(s).
#secret_token:

================================= Migration ==================================

This allows to enable 6.7 migration aliases

#migration.6_to_7.enabled: true

Its a little hard to read those, but it looks like they may be using the elasticsearch output type, you need to make sure its using the logstash output as that is the only one supported by the beats input.

The easiest place to see a working example is the default configs for beats in the sidecar section of graylog. There contain a very basic config that will work without all the extra fluff that is in the examples that come with beats.

Hi,

Thx for he feedback

The default config for beats is indeed working

So I will use this as a base to filter out the events that I want to have

For the moment only successful / failed logon events for windows servers

I go the events for this

Regards Andre