After connecting remote clusters, you create a user role on both the local and remote clusters and assign necessary privileges. These roles are required to use cross-cluster replication and cross-cluster search.
You must use the same role names on both the local
and remote clusters. For example, the following configuration for cross-cluster replication uses the
remote-replication role name on both the local and remote clusters. However,
you can specify different role definitions on each cluster.
You can manage users and roles from Stack Management in Kibana by selecting
Security > Roles from the side navigation. You can also use the
role management APIs to add, update, remove, and
retrieve roles dynamically. When you use the APIs to manage roles in the
native realm, the roles are stored in an internal Elasticsearch index.
The following requests use the
create or update roles API. You must have at least the
manage_security cluster privilege to use this API.
The cross-cluster replication user requires different cluster and index privileges on the remote cluster and local cluster. Use the following requests to create separate roles on the local and remote clusters, and then create a user with the required roles.
Remote cluster
On the remote cluster that contains the leader index, the cross-cluster replication role requires
the read_ccr cluster privilege, and monitor and read privileges on the
leader index.
If requests will be issued on behalf of other users,
then the the authenticating user must have the run_as privilege on the remote
cluster.
The following request creates a remote-replication role on the remote cluster:
POST /_security/role/remote-replication
{
"cluster": [
"read_ccr"
],
"indices": [
{
"names": [
"leader-index-name"
],
"privileges": [
"monitor",
"read"
]
}
]
}
Local cluster
On the local cluster that contains the follower index, the remote-replication
role requires the manage_ccr cluster privilege, and monitor, read, write,
and manage_follow_index privileges on the follower index.
The following request creates a remote-replication role on the local cluster:
POST /_security/role/remote-replication
{
"cluster": [
"manage_ccr"
],
"indices": [
{
"names": [
"follower-index-name"
],
"privileges": [
"monitor",
"read",
"write",
"manage_follow_index"
]
}
]
}
After creating the remote-replication role on each cluster, use the
create or update users API to create a user on
the local cluster cluster and assign the remote-replication role. For
example, the following request assigns the remote-replication role to a user
named cross-cluster-user:
POST /_security/user/cross-cluster-user
{
"password" : "l0ng-r4nd0m-p@ssw0rd",
"roles" : [ "remote-replication" ]
}
You only need to create this user on the local cluster.
You can then configure cross-cluster replication to replicate your data across datacenters.
The cross-cluster search user requires different cluster and index privileges on the remote cluster and local cluster. The following requests create separate roles on the local and remote clusters, and then create a user with the required roles.
Remote cluster
On the remote cluster, the cross-cluster search role requires the read and
read_cross_cluster privileges for the target indices.
If requests will be issued on behalf of other users,
then the the authenticating user must have the run_as privilege on the remote
cluster.
The following request creates a remote-search role on the remote cluster:
POST /_security/role/remote-search
{
"indices": [
{
"names": [
"target-indices"
],
"privileges": [
"read",
"read_cross_cluster"
]
}
]
}
Local cluster
On the local cluster, which is the cluster used to initiate cross cluster
search, a user only needs the remote-search role. The role privileges can be
empty.
The following request creates a remote-search role on the local cluster:
POST /_security/role/remote-search
{}
After creating the remote-search role on each cluster, use the
create or update users API to create a user on the
local cluster and assign the remote-search role. For example, the following
request assigns the remote-search role to a user named cross-search-user:
POST /_security/user/cross-search-user
{
"password" : "l0ng-r4nd0m-p@ssw0rd",
"roles" : [ "remote-search" ]
}
You only need to create this user on the local cluster.
Users with the remote-search role can then
search across clusters.
When using Kibana to search across multiple clusters, a two-step authorization process determines whether or not the user can access data streams and indices on a remote cluster:
- First, the local cluster determines if the user is authorized to access remote clusters. The local cluster is the cluster that Kibana is connected to.
- If the user is authorized, the remote cluster then determines if the user has access to the specified data streams and indices.
To grant Kibana users access to remote clusters, assign them a local role
with read privileges to indices on the remote clusters. You specify data streams
and indices in a remote cluster as <remote_cluster_name>:<target>.
To grant users read access on the remote data streams and indices, you must
create a matching role on the remote clusters that grants the
read_cross_cluster privilege with access to the appropriate data streams and
indices.
For example, you might be actively indexing Logstash data on a local cluster and and periodically offload older time-based indices to an archive on your remote cluster. You want to search across both clusters, so you must enable Kibana users on both clusters.
Local cluster
On the local cluster, create a logstash-reader role that grants
read and view_index_metadata privileges on the local logstash-* indices.
If you configure the local cluster as another remote in Elasticsearch, the
logstash-reader role on your local cluster also needs to grant the
read_cross_cluster privilege.
POST /_security/role/logstash-reader
{
"indices": [
{
"names": [
"logstash-*"
],
"privileges": [
"read",
"view_index_metadata"
]
}
]
}
Assign your Kibana users a role that grants
access to Kibana, as well as your
logstash_reader role. For example, the following request creates the
cross-cluster-kibana user and assigns the kibana-access and
logstash-reader roles.
PUT /_security/user/cross-cluster-kibana
{
"password" : "l0ng-r4nd0m-p@ssw0rd",
"roles" : [
"logstash-reader",
"kibana-access"
]
}
Remote cluster
On the remote cluster, create a logstash-reader role that grants the
read_cross_cluster privilege and read and view_index_metadata privileges
for the logstash-* indices.
POST /_security/role/logstash-reader
{
"indices": [
{
"names": [
"logstash-*"
],
"privileges": [
"read_cross_cluster",
"read",
"view_index_metadata"
]
}
]
}