[[processor-decode-cef]]
[role="xpack"]
=== Decode CEF

++++
<titleabbrev>decode_cef</titleabbrev>
++++

The `decode_cef` processor decodes Common Event Format (CEF) messages. This
processor is available in Filebeat.

Below is an example configuration that decodes the `message` field as CEF after
renaming it to `event.original`. It is best to rename `message` to
`event.original` because the decoded CEF data contains its own `message` field.

[source,yaml]
----
processors:
  - rename:
      fields:
        - {from: "message", to: "event.original"}
  - decode_cef:
      field: event.original
----

The `decode_cef` processor has the following configuration settings.

.Decode CEF options
[options="header"]
|======
| Name             | Required | Default | Description |
| `field`          | no       | message | Source field containing the CEF message to be parsed.                        |
| `target_field`   | no       | cef     | Target field where the parsed CEF object will be written.                    |
| `ecs`            | no       | true    | Generate Elastic Common Schema (ECS) fields from the CEF data.
                                          Certain CEF header and extension values will be used to populate ECS fields. |
| `ignore_missing` | no       | false   | Ignore errors when the source field is missing.                              |
| `ignore_failure` | no       | false   | Ignore failures when the source field does not contain a CEF message.        |
| `id`             | no       |         | An identifier for this processor instance. Useful for debugging.             |
|======
