Defining roles

A role is defined by the following JSON structure:

{
  "run_as": [ ... ], 
  "cluster": [ ... ], 
  "indices": [ ... ] 
}

The following describes the structure of an indices permissions entry:

{
  "names": [ ... ], 
  "privileges": [ ... ], 
  "field_security" : { ... }, 
  "query": "..." 
}

"foo-bar":               # match the literal `foo-bar`
"foo-*":                 # match anything beginning with "foo-"
"logstash-201?-*":       # ? matches any one character
"/.*-201[0-9]-.*/":      # use a regex to match anything containing 2010-2019
"/foo":                  # syntax error - missing final /

The following snippet shows an example definition of a clicks_admin role:

POST /_xpack/security/role/clicks_admin
{
  "run_as": [ "clicks_watcher_1" ],
  "cluster": [ "monitor" ],
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [ "events-*" ],
      "privileges": [ "read" ],
      "field_security" : {
        "grant" : [ "category", "@timestamp", "message" ]
      },
      "query": "{\"match\": {\"category\": \"click\"}}"
    }
  ]
}

Based on the above definition, users owning the clicks_admin role can:

There are two available mechanisms to define roles: using the Role Management APIs or in local files on the Elasticsearch nodes. X-Pack security also supports implementing custom roles providers. If you need to integrate with another system to retrieve user roles, you can build a custom roles provider plugin. For more information, see Custom Roles Provider Extension.

X-Pack security enables you to easily manage users and roles from within Kibana. To manage roles, log in to Kibana and go to Management / Elasticsearch / Roles.

The Role Management APIs enable you 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. For more information and examples, see role management APIs.

Apart from the Role Management APIs, roles can also be defined in local roles.yml file located in ES_PATH_CONF. This is a YAML file where each role definition is keyed by its name.

While the Role Management APIs is the preferred mechanism to define roles, using the roles.yml file becomes useful if you want to define fixed roles that no one (beside an administrator having physical access to the Elasticsearch nodes) would be able to change.

The following snippet shows an example of the roles.yml file configuration:

click_admins:
  run_as: [ 'clicks_watcher_1' ]
  cluster: [ 'monitor' ]
  indices:
    - names: [ 'events-*' ]
      privileges: [ 'read' ]
      field_security:
        grant: ['category', '@timestamp', 'message' ]
      query: '{"match": {"category": "click"}}'

X-Pack security continuously monitors the roles.yml file and automatically picks up and applies any changes to it.