install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install packetbeat

local Homebrew formula metadata

Linux

Nixverified · 92%

nix profile install nixpkgs#packetbeat

nixpkgs package indexes · packetbeat · source: raw.githubusercontent.com

Windows

Chocolateyverified · 92%

choco install packetbeat

Chocolatey community package catalog · packetbeat · source: community.chocolatey.org

overview

Package summary

Lightweight Shipper for Network Data

Project links

Commands and aliases

packetbeat

history

Project history and usage

Packetbeat is Elastic's lightweight real-time network packet analyzer and data shipper. It captures traffic, decodes supported application protocols, correlates requests with responses, and sends structured transactions to Elasticsearch or Logstash.

Project history

Monica Sarbu and Tudor Golubenco created Packetbeat after working in network packet analytics and encountering the complexity of extracting useful application information from wire data. The project correlated requests and responses from captured application protocols and emitted structured events for Elasticsearch.

Elastic acquired Packetbeat on May 27, 2015. Packetbeat then became the foundation for the Beats framework, a shared Go-based platform for small operational-data shippers.

Beats 1.0.0 was released on November 24, 2015 with Packetbeat, Filebeat, and Topbeat as the first officially supported Beats. Packetbeat has since been maintained in Elastic's shared Beats repository.

Adoption history

Elastic acquired Packetbeat in May 2015 and used it as the starting point for the broader Beats family of lightweight data shippers. Packetbeat became one of the first officially supported Beats when the production-ready Beats platform was announced in November 2015.

Packetbeat is deployed on application hosts, containers, dedicated monitoring servers, switch mirror ports, and network taps. Its integration with Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana made application-layer network observations part of the same operational-data workflow as logs and metrics.

How it is used

Operators configure capture interfaces and protocols in packetbeat.yml, then run Packetbeat on application hosts or against mirrored or tapped traffic. It extracts fields such as latency, status, addresses, and protocol-specific transaction data.

Packetbeat can publish directly to Elasticsearch or through Logstash. Elastic provides setup commands for index templates and Kibana dashboards, while sensitive configuration values can be placed in the Packetbeat keystore under path.data.

Why package nerds care

Packetbeat helped establish the lightweight-agent pattern in the Elastic ecosystem: capture data close to its source, normalize it into structured events, and ship it to a central analysis system.

For package maintainers and operators it combines several traditionally separate concerns—privileged packet capture, protocol decoding, service configuration, secret storage, and observability-stack integration—in one deployable agent.

Timeline

2015-05-27: Elastic acquires Packetbeat and announces the Beats framework.
2015-11-24: Beats 1.0.0 makes Packetbeat one of the first officially supported Beats.

Related projects

Packetbeat is built on the libbeat framework and maintained in the Elastic Beats monorepo.
Elasticsearch stores and searches Packetbeat events, Logstash can process them in transit, and Kibana provides visualization and analysis.
Other official Beats apply the same shipper model to logs, metrics, availability, audit data, and Windows events.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: orange

formula declares a Homebrew service.

Risk classifier

orange risk · medium confidence · infrastructure

Why

formula declares a Homebrew service

Signals

metadata:service

Install behavior

No Homebrew post-install hook is recorded in formula metadata.
Formula metadata declares a service or daemon block.
Homebrew bottle metadata is available for 5 platform targets.
Build metadata lists 2 build dependencies.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

local files

Configuration and credential file locations

These source-backed paths show where this package keeps local settings or durable credentials. Automic Vault can use them as review targets for secret scanning, migration, and command approval.

Configuration files

Config paths the tool may read or write during local use.

Linux: /etc/packetbeat/packetbeat.yml
macOS: packetbeat.yml in the Packetbeat installation directory
Windows: C:\Program Files\Packetbeat\packetbeat.yml

Credential files

Credential-bearing paths to review before unattended agent runs.

Linux: Packetbeat keystore in the directory defined by path.data
macOS: Packetbeat keystore in the directory defined by path.data
Windows: Packetbeat keystore in the directory defined by path.data

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`packetbeat`	cli	global executable

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-11-04

manager version9.5.6

manager updated2026-11-02

local dataok

upstreamnot checked

latest detectednot detected

https://github.com/elastic/beats

infoNo cached GitHub release or tag data was available.https://github.com/elastic/beatsnone confidence

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:packetbeat
Version	9.5.6
Package manager	Homebrew
Package manager page	https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/packetbeat
Homepage	https://www.elastic.co/products/beats/packetbeat
Repository	https://github.com/elastic/beats
Upstream docs	https://www.elastic.co/products/beats/packetbeat
License	Apache-2.0
Source archive	https://github.com/elastic/beats.git
Last updated	2026-11-02T16:50:57Z
Pulse	updated
Build dependencies	go, mage
Uses from macOS	libpcap
Bottle	available (on arm64_golden_gate, arm64_linux, arm64_sequoia, arm64_tahoe, x86_64_linux)
Homebrew post-install	not defined
Service	declared

registry facts

Source database details

Source Database	Homebrew formula API
Tap	homebrew/core
Full Name	packetbeat
Version Scheme	0
Revision	0
Head Version	HEAD
Bottle Stable Root URL	https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core
Deprecated	no
Disabled	no
Keg Only	no
URL Keys	head stable

source database matches

Other package-manager records

Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.

Nix95%

packetbeat

nix profile install nixpkgs#packetbeat

normalized package name match
Matched by: Packetbeat

nixpkgs package indexes · raw.githubusercontent.com · nixpkgs package indexes: packetbeat from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/master/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix

Chocolatey95%

packetbeat

choco install packetbeat

normalized package name match
Matched by: Packetbeat

Chocolatey community package catalog · community.chocolatey.org · Chocolatey community package catalog: packetbeat from https://community.chocolatey.org/api/v2/Packages?$filter=IsLatestVersion&$select=Id&$top=1000&$skiptoken='11','origin'

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub.

combined/packetbeat.yml

Used sources

Geiger risk classifier
cross-ecosystem install command graph
curated configuration and credential file locations
curated package history
external package-manager database matches
package relationship graph
package version freshness
package-page enrichment
pkg.so package database
pkgdb category and tag curation

Install packetbeat with Homebrew, chocolatey, Nix