File-based user authentication
editFile-based user authentication
editYou can manage and authenticate users with the built-in file realm.
With the file realm, users are defined in local files on each node in the cluster.
As the administrator of the cluster, it is your responsibility to ensure the same users are defined on every node in the cluster. The Elastic Stack security features do not deliver any mechanism to guarantee this.
The file realm is primarily supported to serve as a fallback/recovery realm. It
is mostly useful in situations where all users locked themselves out of the system
(no one remembers their username/password). In this type of scenarios, the file
realm is your only way out - you can define a new admin user in the file realm
and use it to log in and reset the credentials of all other users.
When you configure realms in elasticsearch.yml, only the realms you
specify are used for authentication. To use the file realm as a fallback, you
must include it in the realm chain.
To define users, the security features provide the users command-line tool. This tool enables you to add and remove users, assign user roles, and manage user passwords.
For more information, see Configuring a file realm.