1. Create a 4gb droplet on digital ocean
2. run the following (this installs openjdk through :

apt-get update && sudo apt-get install default-jre && wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https && echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/5.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-5.x.list && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install logstash

3. run the following (starts logstash, it will take a minute to start and then will take any input from stdin and print it on the screen
/usr/share/logstash/bin/logstash -e 'input { stdin { } } output { stdout {} }'

4. press CTRL+C to kill logstash

5. run the same command gain, this time logstash will simply hand and never start.