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Security configuration

The Security plugin includes demo certificates so that you can get up and running quickly. To use OpenSearch with the Security plugin in a production environment, you must make changes to the demo certificates and other configuration options manually.

Replace the demo certificates

OpenSearch ships with demo certificates intended for quick setup and demonstration purposes. For a production environment, it’s critical to replace these with your own trusted certificates, using the following steps, to ensure secure communication:

  1. Generate your own certificates: Use tools like OpenSSL or a certificate authority (CA) to generate your own certificates. For more information about generating certificates with OpenSSL, see Generating self-signed certificates.
  2. Store the generated certificates and private key in the appropriate directory: Generated certificates are typically stored in <OPENSEARCH_HOME>/config/. For more information, see Add certificate files to opensearch.yml.
  3. Set the following file permissions:
    • Private key (.key files): Set the file mode to 600. This restricts access so that only the file owner (the OpenSearch user) can read and write to the file, ensuring that the private key remains secure and inaccessible to unauthorized users.
    • Public certificates (.crt, .pem files): Set the file mode to 644. This allows the file owner to read and write to the file, while other users can only read it.

For additional guidance on file modes, see the following table.

    | Item        | Sample              | Numeric | Bitwise      |
    |-------------|---------------------|---------|--------------|
    | Public key  | `~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` | `644`   | `-rw-r--r--` |
    | Private key | `~/.ssh/id_rsa`     | `600`   | `-rw-------` |
    | SSH folder  | `~/.ssh`            | `700`   | `drwx------` |

For more information, see Configuring basic security settings.

Reconfigure opensearch.yml to use your certificates

The opensearch.yml file is the main configuration file for OpenSearch; you can find the file at <OPENSEARCH_HOME>/config/opensearch.yml. Use the following steps to update this file to point to your custom certificates:

In opensearch.yml, set the correct paths for your certificates and keys, as shown in the following example:

   plugins.security.ssl.transport.pemcert_filepath: /path/to/your/cert.pem
   plugins.security.ssl.transport.pemkey_filepath: /path/to/your/key.pem
   plugins.security.ssl.transport.pemtrustedcas_filepath: /path/to/your/ca.pem
   plugins.security.ssl.http.enabled: true
   plugins.security.ssl.http.pemcert_filepath: /path/to/your/cert.pem
   plugins.security.ssl.http.pemkey_filepath: /path/to/your/key.pem
   plugins.security.ssl.http.pemtrustedcas_filepath: /path/to/your/ca.pem

For more information, see Configuring TLS certificates.

Reconfigure config.yml to use your authentication backend

The config.yml file allows you to configure the authentication and authorization mechanisms for OpenSearch. Update the authentication backend settings in <OPENSEARCH_HOME>/config/opensearch-security/config.yml according to your requirements.

For example, to use LDAP as your authentication backend, add the following settings:

    authc:
      basic_internal_auth:
        http_enabled: true
        transport_enabled: true
        order: 1
        http_authenticator:
          type: basic
          challenge: true
        authentication_backend:
          type: internal

For more information, see Configuring the Security backend.

Modify the configuration YAML files

Determine whether any additional YAML files need modification, for example, the roles.yml, roles_mapping.yml, or internal_users.yml files. Update the files with any additional configuration information. For more information, see Modifying the YAML files.

Set a password policy

When using the internal user database, we recommend enforcing a password policy to ensure that strong passwords are used. For information about strong password policies, see Password settings.

Apply changes using the securityadmin script

The following steps do not apply to first-time users because the security index is automatically initialized from the YAML configuration files when OpenSearch starts.

After initial setup, if you make changes to your security configuration or disable automatic initialization by setting plugins.security.allow_default_init_securityindex to false (which prevents security index initialization from yaml files), you need to manually apply changes using the securityadmin script:

  1. Find the securityadmin script. The script is typically stored in the OpenSearch plugins directory, plugins/opensearch-security/tools/securityadmin.[sh|bat].
    • Note: If you’re using OpenSearch 1.x, the securityadmin script is located in the plugins/opendistro_security/tools/ directory.
    • For more information, see Basic usage.
  2. Run the script by using the following command: 
     ./plugins/opensearch-security/tools/securityadmin.[sh|bat]
  3. Check the OpenSearch logs and configuration to ensure that the changes have been successfully applied.

For more information about using the securityadmin script, see Applying changes to configuration files.

Add users, roles, role mappings, and tenants

If you don’t want to use the Security plugin, you can disable it by adding the following setting to the opensearch.yml file:

plugins.security.disabled: true

You can then enable the plugin by removing the plugins.security.disabled setting.

For more information about disabling the Security plugin, see Disable security.

The Security plugin has several default users, roles, action groups, permissions, and settings for OpenSearch Dashboards that contain “Kibana” in their names. We will change these names in a future version.

For a full list of opensearch.yml Security plugin settings, see Security settings.

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