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IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
« Configure Metricbeat to use X-Pack security Configure authentication credentials »
Elastic Docs ›Metricbeat Reference [7.1] ›Securing Metricbeat ›Configure Metricbeat to use X-Pack security

Grant users access to secured resources

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Grant users access to secured resources

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You can use role-based access control to grant users access to secured resources. The roles that you set up depend on your organization’s security requirements and the minimum privileges required to use specific features.

Metricbeat users typically perform these main roles: they do the initial setup, publish monitoring information, and publish events. If they’re using Kibana, they view and sometimes create visualizations that access Metricbeat indices.

X-Pack security provides pre-built roles that grant some of the privileges needed by Metricbeat users. When possible, use the built-in roles to minimize the affect of future changes on your security strategy.

For privileges not granted by existing roles, create new roles. At a minimum, create a role for setting up Metricbeat, a role for publishing events, and a role for reading Metricbeat indices. Assign these new roles, along with the pre-built roles, to grant the full set of privileges required by Metricbeat users.

The following sections describe the privileges and roles required to perform specific job roles.

Privileges needed for initial setup

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Users who set up Metricbeat typically need to load mappings, dashboards, and other objects used to index data into Elasticsearch and visualize it in Kibana. The privileges required depend on the setup tasks users need to perform.

These instructions assume that you are using the default name for Metricbeat indices. If you are using a custom name, modify the privileges to match your index naming pattern.

Task Required privileges and roles

Set up index templates

manage_index_templates and monitor on cluster

manage_ilm on cluster (if cluster supports index lifecycle management)

manage on metricbeat-* indices (if cluster supports index lifecycle management)

Set up example dashboards

kibana_user role

Set up index lifecycle policies

manage_ilm, manage_index_templates, and monitor on cluster

manage on metricbeat-* indices

Enroll and manage configurations in Beats central management

beats_admin and kibana_user roles

Privileges needed to publish and view monitoring information

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X-Pack security provides the metricbeat_system built-in user and metricbeat_system built-in role for sending monitoring information. You can use the built-in user, or create a user who has the privileges needed to send monitoring information. If you use the metricbeat_system user, make sure you set the password.

Task Required privileges and roles

Send monitoring info

monitor on cluster

Use Stack Monitoring in Kibana to monitor Metricbeat

monitoring_user and kibana_user roles

Privileges needed to publish events

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Users who publish events to Elasticsearch need to create and read from Metricbeat indices. The privileges required for this role depend on the tasks users need to perform:

Task Required privileges and roles

Send data to a secured cluster without index lifecycle management

monitor on cluster

create_index and index on metricbeat-* indices

also requires privileges to set up index templates unless you’ve disabled automatic template loading

Send data to a secured cluster that supports index lifecycle management

manage_index_templates,manage_ilm [1], and monitor on cluster

index and manage on metricbeat-* indices

Read configurations from Beats central management

monitor on cluster

beats_admin role

Privileges needed by Kibana users

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Kibana users typically need to view dashboards and visualizations that contain Metricbeat data. These users might also need to create and edit dashboards and visualizations. If you’re using Beats central management, they need to create and manage configurations.

The privileges required for Kibana users depend on the tasks they need to perform:

Task Required privileges and roles

View Metricbeat dashboards

read on metricbeat-* indices

kibana_dashboard_only_user role

View and edit Metricbeat dashboards

read on metricbeat-* indices

kibana_user role

Create and manage configurations in Beats central management

beats_admin role

kibana_user role

Learn more about users and roles

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Want to learn more about creating users and roles? See Securing the Elastic Stack. Also see:

[1] Use read_ilm instead of manage_ilm if you pre-loaded the lifecycle policy
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