The nice folks at elasticsearch package up logstash for debian and ubuntu. It is very easy to use.
$ curl -s http://packages.elasticsearch.org/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add - $ echo "deb http://packages.elasticsearch.org/logstash/1.4/debian stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/logstash.list $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install logstash
Now you have logstash.
Write a config file and fire it up.
/opt/logstash/bin/logstash -f logstash.conf