RFC: Remove ability to run multiple subcommands from bin/logstash

[jordansissel]

Today, users can do:

bin/logstash agent -f something.conf -- web

And they'll get a single process with an agent and a web thingy.

I don't think anyone uses this, and it mostly confuses users.

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For clarity, I am proposing removing the ability to run multiple 'subcommands' simultaneously. "bin/logstash web" is staying because it is really useful for first-time users, demos, and proof-of-concepts work.

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I'd like to remove this function (multiple subprocesses) and in doing so clean up a whole bunch of nasty code in lib/logstash/runner.rb.

If you depend on this feature, please let me know.

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[electrical]

i would love to have this removed. doubt many people actually use it in prod environments.

[jordansissel]

For a data point on mostly confuses users - many folks in the past have attempted to use --web as a flag, which doesn't work and results in the confusion. It's also that almost no other tools behave this way in that you get prog subcommand1 options subcommand2 options ... is pretty foreign to users, it seems.

[torrancew]

👍 I attempted to use it long ago, but the flakiness had some trouble. In the end, I'm much happier serving Kibana directly from Nginx, and haven't used the web subcommand at all in ages, let alone in a one liner.

[jordansissel]

Updated to note that the web subcommand is staying, only that "multiple subcommands being run in the same command line" is proposed for removal

[torrancew]

Yep! Sorry if my wording was ambiguous.

[jordansissel]

@torrancew I thought you were clear, but wanted to make sure any onlookers were worried. @colin and @jsvd spent some time this morning trolling me about logstash web :P

[jordansissel]

Fixed by @jsvd.

[nehaljwani]

Someone should update this thread: https://logstash.jira.com/browse/LOGSTASH-2267
I was really hoping to use this feature. Seems I am late.

[untergeek]

@nehaljwani We are no longer using JIRA as a ticketing system. If you look at the 3 GitHub issues linked in the last comment you'll see some of what we're planning for the future.

Future versions of Logstash will be API driven, rather than command-line. This will allow us to have the same kind of functionality you are requesting. Please see our roadmap for more information.