Security

Elasticsearch SQL integrates with security, if this is enabled on your cluster. In such a scenario, Elasticsearch SQL supports both security at the transport layer (by encrypting the communication between the consumer and the server) and authentication (for the access layer).

In case of an encrypted transport, the SSL/TLS support needs to be enabled in Elasticsearch SQL to properly establish communication with Elasticsearch. This is done by setting the ssl property to true or by using the https prefix in the URL.
Depending on your SSL configuration (whether the certificates are signed by a CA or not, whether they are global at JVM level or just local to one application), might require setting up the keystore and/or truststore, that is where the credentials are stored (keystore - which typically stores private keys and certificates) and how to verify them (truststore - which typically stores certificates from third party also known as CA - certificate authorities).
Typically (and again, do note that your environment might differ significantly), if the SSL setup for Elasticsearch SQL is not already done at the JVM level, one needs to setup the keystore if the Elasticsearch SQL security requires client authentication (PKI - Public Key Infrastructure), and setup truststore if SSL is enabled.

The authentication support in Elasticsearch SQL is of two types:

On the server, one needs to add a few permissions to users so they can run SQL. To run SQL, a user needs read and indices:admin/get permissions at minimum while some parts of the API require cluster:monitor/main.

You can add permissions by creating a role, and assigning that role to the user. Roles can be created using Kibana, an API call or the roles.yml configuration file. Using Kibana or the role management APIs is the preferred method for defining roles. File-based role management is useful if you want to define a role that doesn’t need to change. You cannot use the role management APIs to view or edit a role defined in roles.yml.

This example configures a role that can run SQL in JDBC querying the test index:

POST /_security/role/cli_or_drivers_minimal
{
  "cluster": ["cluster:monitor/main"],
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": ["test"],
      "privileges": ["read", "indices:admin/get"]
    }
  ]
}

This example configures a role that can run SQL in JDBC querying the test and bort indices. Add the following to roles.yml:

cli_or_drivers_minimal:
  cluster:
    - "cluster:monitor/main"
  indices:
    - names: test
      privileges: [read, "indices:admin/get"]
    - names: bort
      privileges: [read, "indices:admin/get"]