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Albert Wesker
Albert Wesker

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I Couldn't Find a Spring Boot 4 ELK Tutorial, So I Wrote One

#springboot #microservices #java #devops

Most ELK + Spring Boot tutorials I found had one of these problems:

  • Built for older Spring Boot versions
  • Missing Elasticsearch security setup
  • Ignored Logstash authentication
  • Didn't cover Zipkin integration
  • Broke the moment TLS certificates entered the picture

I wasn't looking for a fancy setup.

I just wanted this:

Request
   ↓
Spring Boot Microservice
   ↓
Structured Logs
   ↓
Logstash
   ↓
Elasticsearch
   ↓
Kibana

And...

Request
   ↓
Trace ID
   ↓
Zipkin
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Simple.

Reality was... not simple.

The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

While building my E-Commerce Microservices Project, I ran into:

  • Elasticsearch security configuration
  • Enrollment tokens
  • Logstash authentication failures
  • SSL/TLS certificate headaches
  • Spring Boot 4 compatibility issues
  • Missing trace correlation between logs and traces
  • Reactive Gateway logging challenges

I spent hours debugging issues that most tutorials completely skipped.

Instead of keeping scattered notes, I decided to document the entire process from start to finish.

What You'll Learn

✅ ELK Stack Setup with Docker

✅ Elasticsearch 9.x Security Configuration

✅ Kibana Integration

✅ Logstash Pipelines

✅ Structured JSON Logging with Logback

✅ Zipkin Distributed Tracing

✅ TraceId Correlation Between Kibana and Zipkin

✅ Troubleshooting Real Errors

✅ Spring Boot 4.1.1 + Spring Cloud Gateway Setup

Why I Wrote This

I wanted a guide that explained what actually goes wrong and how to fix it, not just a happy-path tutorial.

So this article contains:

  • Real screenshots
  • Real configuration files
  • Real Docker setup
  • Real errors
  • Real fixes

Everything comes from a working implementation, not a toy project.

Architecture 

Client
  ↓
API Gateway
  ↓
Microservices
  ↓
JSON Logs
  ↓
Logstash
  ↓
Elasticsearch
  ↓
Kibana

Trace IDs
  ↓
Zipkin
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The result is a complete observability workflow where you can:

  1. Find an error in Kibana
  2. Copy the Trace ID
  3. Open Zipkin
  4. View the full distributed request journey

The Full Guide

👉 Read the complete walkthrough on Medium:

🔗 https://medium.com/@ashaw8176/elk-stack-with-zipkin-in-a-spring-boot-4-microservices-project-a-docker-setup-guide-for-2026-4cc94ecc5993

If you're learning:

  • Spring Boot
  • Microservices
  • Docker
  • ELK Stack
  • Observability
  • Distributed Tracing

I'd love to hear your feedback and experiences.

Happy debugging! 🚀

Built while working on my E-Commerce Microservices project and learning production-style observability one bug at a time.

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