Handling exceptions in the ruby{} filter

If you need to drop into ruby for your processing, be sure to handle any exceptions.  If you don’t, the filter worker will exit, possibly halting your processing.

The following code will allow the worker to continue, and will add a field to the event so you can track them down later:

    ruby {
        code => "
          begin
            # your great code goes here
          rescue Exception => e
            event['ruby_exception'] = 'YOUR_FILTER_NAME: ' + e.message
          end
       "
    }

I add a panel for this field to my cluster health dashboard in kibana.