Install Kibana as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp

How to Install Kibana as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp

Automatically start Kibana whenever your computer reboots and keep it running 24x7 in the background. No logon necessary.

Kibana is an open source data visualization plugin for Elasticsearch. It is the "K" in the popular ELK stack.

Elasticsearch already runs as a Windows Service, and we have already documented how to setup Logstash to run 24x7. This tutorial focuses on Kibana — to ensure that your entire Elastic Stack easily survives reboots and other outages.

To setup Kibana as a Windows Service:

  1. If necessary, download, install and configure Kibana.

    • Grab the Kibana zip file from the Elastic website and expand its contents to a location of your choice. We have unzipped Kibana to C:\kibana and we'll use that folder throughout this tutorial.

    • Configure Kibana as you desire (basic instructions are on the download page). Ensure that Kibana starts properly when you run the "kibana.bat" file from the "bin" folder. You should be able to access the dashboard from your browser:

      Kibana Start Page

    • AlwaysUp will not be able to run Kibana as a Windows Service if you can't start Kibana from the batch file!

  2. Download and install AlwaysUp, if necessary.

  3. Start AlwaysUp.

  4. Select Application > Advisor to launch the Application Advisor:

    Start Application Advisor

  5. Click Next to get started:

    Application Advisor: Introduction

  6. Choose Kibana from the list of applications and click Next:

    Application Advisor: Select Kibana

  7. The Advisor will gather information about your Kibana installation. Afterwards, enter the full path to your Kibana batch file (kibana.bat) and click Next to move on:

    Kibana Windows Service: Enter the full path to Kibana.bat

  8. For best results, Kibana should run in the account where you installed it. Enter the user name and password of your Windows account and click Next to continue:

    Kibana Windows Service: Enter your password

  9. You will not be able to see Kibana's console window when it's operating in the background as a Windows Service. If you wish to redirect the text from Kibana's console window to a file, enter the full path here. Click Next to move on:

    Kibana Windows Service: Capture console output

  10. We're almost done! Click Next to continue:

    Application Advisor: Ready to add Kibana

  11. The Add Application window contains all the recommended settings for running Kibana 24x7 after your PC boots. If you are curious, you can cycle through the tabs and review the options that have been chosen.

    Click Save to record your new Kibana service:

    Save your Kibana service

  12. In a couple of seconds, a new entry for Kibana will show up in the AlwaysUp window. The state will be "Stopped" because the service is not yet running:

    Kibana Windows Service: Created

  13. To start Kibana as a service, choose Application > Start "Kibana". The entry's state should change to "Running" after a few seconds and Kibana will be working away in the background:

    Kibana Windows Service: Started

    Browse to your Kibana URL (usually http://localhost:5601/) and check the console output file to confirm that all is well.

  14. That's it! Next time your computer boots, Kibana will start immediately, before anyone logs on.

    We encourage you to edit the Kibana service in AlwaysUp and check out the full complement of settings that may be appropriate for your environment. For example, send an email if Kibana fails, periodically check that Kibana is accepting connections, configure a weekly report, and much more.



Kibana not working properly as a Windows Service?

  • Visit the AlwaysUp Troubleshooter — our online tool that can help you resolve the most common problems encountered when running an application as a windows service.

  • From AlwaysUp, select Application > Report Activity > Today... to bring up a HTML report detailing the interaction between AlwaysUp and Kibana. The AlwaysUp Event Log Messages page explains the more obscure messages.

  • Consult the AlwaysUp FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions and troubleshooting tips.

  • Contact us and we will be happy to help!

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