Install auditbeat with Homebrew, chocolatey, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• auditbeat

Project history

Auditbeat lives in the Elastic Beats monorepo, which GitHub reports as created in 2014 for lightweight shippers for Elasticsearch and Logstash. The official docs describe Auditbeat as an Elastic Beat based on the libbeat framework.

The Beats repository history shows Auditbeat was initially added on 2017-06-26 in commit 4ad2066, described as migrating the audit module from Metricbeat into its own Beat. Beats 6.0.0 was published later in 2017, putting Auditbeat into the 6.x era of the Beats family.

Adoption history

Auditbeat's adoption path followed the Beats model: install a small agent on servers, configure modules and outputs, and centralize events in Elasticsearch or related Elastic deployments. The supplied package-manager facts show Homebrew, Chocolatey, and Nix packaging, while Elastic's own directory-layout docs cover deb, rpm, Docker, and archive installations.

How it is used

The official docs describe Auditbeat as a shipper that audits user and process activity, collects Linux Audit Framework events, and detects changes to critical files such as binaries and configuration files. Operators edit auditbeat.yml, set paths and outputs, optionally store secrets in an Auditbeat keystore, and run the service as part of an Elastic ingestion pipeline.

Why package nerds care

Auditbeat matters to package people because it is not just a command but a service with config, data, log, module, keystore, and platform-specific installation layout expectations. Correct packaging decides whether auditbeat.yml, path.data, systemd units, Docker defaults, and secure settings land where Elastic's docs say they should.

Timeline

• 2014: Elastic Beats repository was created.
• 2017: Auditbeat was initially added by migrating the audit module from Metricbeat into its own Beat.
• 2017: Beats 6.0.0 was published.
• 2026: Elastic's current docs list Auditbeat reference material for Elastic Stack and Elastic Cloud Serverless.

Related projects

• Auditbeat is related to libbeat and the wider Beats family, especially Metricbeat because its initial audit module was migrated from Metricbeat. It is also part of Elastic's ingestion tooling alongside newer Elastic Agent workflows.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/elastic/beats
• https://api.github.com/repositories/16554739/commits?path=auditbeat
• https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/auditbeat
• https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/auditbeat/configuring-howto-auditbeat
• https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/auditbeat/directory-layout
• https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/auditbeat/keystore