As businesses and organizations handle increasing volumes of sensitive and valuable data, securing that data becomes more important than ever. Elasticsearch, a popular search and analytics engine, offers several features to help users manage and secure their data. One of the key tools for ensuring data security in Elasticsearch is Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), which enables organizations to define fine-grained permissions for users, protecting data and preventing unauthorized access.
In this blog post, we will explore how to implement security features and role-based access control in Elasticsearch 8.17 to ensure that your data remains secure while providing the right level of access to users.
Why Security in Elasticsearch Matters
Elasticsearch is often used to store and search through large volumes of critical data such as log files, application performance metrics, and customer data. Without proper security measures in place, this data could be vulnerable to unauthorized access or misuse.
The built-in security features in Elasticsearch, such as authentication, authorization, role-based access control, and data encryption, ensure that only authorized users can access, modify, or query sensitive data.
Key security considerations for Elasticsearch:
In Elasticsearch 8.17, security is enabled by default with the Elastic Stack Security features, making it easier than ever to set up and manage security.
1. Enabling Security in Elasticsearch 8.17
Before implementing role-based access control, you need to enable security features in Elasticsearch. In version 8.17, security is enabled by default, but there are a few configurations you can adjust depending on your needs.
Configuring TLS/SSL Encryption
One of the foundational security features in Elasticsearch is TLS encryption (Transport Layer Security), which encrypts communication between clients and servers, as well as between nodes in the cluster.
Steps to enable TLS encryption:
Example configuration for enabling SSL:
xpack.security.enabled: true
xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled: true
xpack.security.transport.ssl.verification_mode: full
xpack.security.transport.ssl.key: /path/to/your/server.key
xpack.security.transport.ssl.certificate: /path/to/your/server.crt
xpack.security.transport.ssl.certificate_authorities: [“/path/to/your/ca.crt”]
This will secure communications between Elasticsearch nodes.
Configuring HTTP SSL/TLS for Kibana (Optional)
If you’re using Kibana, you can also enable HTTP SSL to ensure secure access to the Kibana interface:
server.ssl.enabled: true
server.ssl.certificate: /path/to/kibana.crt
server.ssl.key: /path/to/kibana.key
Once encryption is set up, your Elasticsearch cluster will communicate securely over HTTPS and ensure that no sensitive data is transmitted in an unencrypted manner.
2. Configuring Authentication
Authentication ensures that only authorized users can access your Elasticsearch cluster. Elasticsearch 8.17 offers multiple authentication mechanisms to suit various organizational needs.
Built-in Users and Authentication
By default, Elasticsearch comes with built-in users like elastic, kibana, and logstash_system. These users have specific roles that grant access to different parts of the system. You can use these users or create custom users for your organization’s needs.
To configure authentication, you need to define users and roles within Elasticsearch. This can be done using the Elasticsearch REST API, Kibana, or the Elastic Stack management interface.
Example: Creating a User with Basic Authentication
You can create a user with specific credentials using the REST API:
curl -X POST “https://localhost:9200/_security/user/john_doe” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -u elastic:your_password -d’
{
“password” : “user_password”,
“roles” : [ “read_only_user” ],
“full_name” : “John Doe”,
“email” : “john.doe@example.com”
}’
This example creates a user named john_doe with the read_only_user role, which will limit the user’s permissions to read-only access.
External Authentication Providers
For organizations using Single Sign-On (SSO) or other enterprise-level authentication mechanisms, Elasticsearch supports external providers like LDAP or Active Directory.
To enable LDAP authentication:
xpack.security.authc.realms.ldap.ldap1:
type: ldap
order: 0
url: “ldap://localhost:389”
bind_dn: “cn=admin,dc=example,dc=com”
user_dn: “ou=users,dc=example,dc=com”
group_dn: “ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com”
user_name_attribute: “uid”
group_name_attribute: “cn”
files.role_mapping: “role_mapping.yml”
3. Implementing Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) allows you to define fine-grained access policies for users based on their roles. In Elasticsearch 8.17, roles control access to indices, clusters, and specific actions, such as reading, indexing, or deleting documents.
Creating Roles
Roles define the actions that users can perform. In Elasticsearch, you can create custom roles to suit your organization’s security requirements.
Example: Creating a Role for Read-Only Access
You can define a read-only role that grants users access to search and view documents, but prevents them from making any changes.
curl -X POST “https://localhost:9200/_security/role/read_only_user” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -u elastic:your_password -d’
{
“cluster”: [“all”],
“index”: [
{
“names”: [“*”],
“privileges”: [“read”]
}
]
}’
This role allows users to read documents across all indices but does not grant permissions to create, delete, or modify documents.
Assigning Roles to Users
Once a role is created, you can assign it to users either at the time of user creation or later by modifying the user’s permissions.
Assigning the read_only_user role to john_doe:
curl -X PUT “https://localhost:9200/_security/user/john_doe” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -u elastic:your_password -d’
{
“roles” : [ “read_only_user” ]
}’
This configuration ensures that john_doe will have read-only access to all indices.
4. Fine-Grained Access Control (FGAC)
In addition to role-based access control, Elasticsearch also supports Fine-Grained Access Control (FGAC) for more specific permission settings. With FGAC, you can define permissions based on documents, fields, and index patterns.
Field-Level Security
Field-level security allows you to control which fields a user can access in documents. This is useful if you want to restrict access to sensitive fields, such as credit card numbers or personally identifiable information (PII).
Example: Field-Level Security
curl -X POST “https://localhost:9200/_security/role/limited_access” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -u elastic:your_password -d’
{
“index”: [
{
“names”: [“*”],
“privileges”: [“read”],
“field_security”: {
“grant”: [“title”, “author”]
}
}
]
}’
In this case, users assigned the limited_access role can only access the title and author fields of documents, not the entire document.
Document-Level Security
Document-level security allows you to control access to specific documents in an index. For example, you may only want users to access documents related to their region or department.
Example: Document-Level Security
curl -X POST “https://localhost:9200/_security/role/region_manager” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -u elastic:your_password -d’
{
“index”: [
{
“names”: [“sales_data*”],
“privileges”: [“read”],
“query”: {
“term”: {
“region”: “west”
}
}
}
]
}’
In this case, users with the region_manager role will only be able to access documents in indices starting with sales_data where the region field matches west.
5. Monitoring and Auditing
It’s important to keep track of who is accessing your Elasticsearch cluster and what actions they are performing. Elasticsearch 8.17 provides audit logging features to help you monitor and track security events, ensuring compliance and improving troubleshooting.
Enabling Audit Logging
To enable audit logging in Elasticsearch:
xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
xpack.security.audit.outputs: [ “index”, “logfile” ]
Audit logs will record information about authentication events, access control violations, and other critical security actions.
Conclusion
Securing your Elasticsearch 8.17 cluster and implementing role-based access control (RBAC) is essential for maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of your data. By enabling security features like authentication, encryption, RBAC, and fine-grained access control, you can ensure that only authorized users have access to specific data and actions within your Elasticsearch cluster.
By following the best practices outlined in this blog post, you can protect your Elasticsearch environment, streamline user management, and ensure that your data remains secure at all times.