Clusters in Security Mode

Security mode is supported for Elasticsearch 7.1.1 and later versions. After you enable security mode, identity verification, authorization, and encryption are required.

This section describes the security mode using Kibana as an example.

You can enable security mode only during cluster creation and not after the cluster is created.

Key Terms

Table 1 Key terms of security mode

Term

Description

Permission

Single action, for example, creating an index (for example, indices:admin/create)

Action group

A group of permissions. For example, the predefined SEARCH action group grants roles permissions to use _search and _msearchAPI.

Role

A role is a combination of permissions and action groups, including operation permissions on clusters, indices, documents, or fields.

Backend role

(Optional) Other external roles from the backend such as LDAP/Active Directory

User

A user can send operation requests to the Elasticsearch cluster. The user has credentials such as username and password, zero or more backend roles, and zero or more custom attributes.

Role mapping

A user will be assigned a role after successful authentication. Role mapping is to map a role to a user (or a backend role). For example, the mapping from kibana_user (role) to jdoe (user) means that John Doe obtains all permissions of kibana_user after being authenticated by kibana_user. Similarly, the mapping from all_access (role) to admin (backend role) means that any user with the backend role admin (from the LDAP/Active Directory server) has all the permissions of role all_access after being authenticated. You can map each role to multiple users or backend roles.

Identity Verification

After enabling the security mode, you need to log in to the cluster with the username and password that you set when you create the cluster. You can perform other operations after you log in successfully.

Figure 1 Login for identity verification

Authorization

On the Kibana console, click Security to control user permissions in Elasticsearch clusters. You can configure hierarchical user permissions by cluster, index, document, and field.

You can add or delete users, and map users to different roles for permissions control.

Figure 2 Configuring users

You can use role mapping to configure roles and map a user's username, backend role, and host name to a role.

Figure 3 Role mapping

You can set permissions for each role to access clusters, indices and documents and assign Kibana tenants different roles.

Figure 4 Configuring role permissions

You can set action groups, assign the groups to roles, and configure the roles' permission for accessing indices and documents.

Figure 5 Configuring action groups

You can view the parameters of authentication and authorization for the current cluster. You can also run the securityadmin command to modify the configuration.

Figure 6 Viewing cluster parameters

You can also clear the security cache.

Figure 7 Clearing the security cache

Encryption

When key data is transferred between nodes or over HTTP, SSL/TLS encryption is used to ensure data security.

You can perform the preceding functions on Kibana, using .yml files (not recommended), or by calling RESTful APIs. For more information about the security mode, see Security.

Resetting Passwords

If you want to change the login password of a cluster with the security mode enabled or you have forgotten the password, reset the cluster password.

  1. On the Clusters page, locate the target cluster whose password you want to reset and click the cluster name. The Basic Information page is displayed.
  2. On the Basic Information page, click Reset next to Reset Password to reset the password.
    • The password can contain 8 to 32 characters.
    • It must include letters, digits, and special characters. No spaces and backslashes (\) are allowed.
    • It cannot be the username or the username spelled backwards.
    • It is good practice to change the password periodically.
Parent topic: Overview