Configure roles and users for remote clusters

The cross-cluster replication user requires different cluster and index privileges on the remote cluster and local cluster. Use the following requests to create separate roles on the local and remote clusters, and then create a user with the required roles.

On the remote cluster that contains the leader index, the cross-cluster replication role requires the read_ccr cluster privilege, and monitor and read privileges on the leader index.

The following request creates a remote-replication role on the remote cluster:

POST /_security/role/remote-replication
{
  "cluster": [
    "read_ccr"
  ],
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [
        "leader-index-name"
      ],
      "privileges": [
        "monitor",
        "read"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

On the local cluster that contains the follower index, the remote-replication role requires the manage_ccr cluster privilege, and monitor, read, write, and manage_follow_index privileges on the follower index.

The following request creates a remote-replication role on the local cluster:

POST /_security/role/remote-replication
{
  "cluster": [
    "manage_ccr"
  ],
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [
        "follower-index-name"
      ],
      "privileges": [
        "monitor",
        "read",
        "write",
        "manage_follow_index"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

After creating the remote-replication role on each cluster, use the create or update users API to create a user on the local cluster cluster and assign the remote-replication role. For example, the following request assigns the remote-replication role to a user named cross-cluster-user:

POST /_security/user/cross-cluster-user
{
  "password" : "l0ng-r4nd0m-p@ssw0rd",
  "roles" : [ "remote-replication" ]
}

You can then configure cross-cluster replication to replicate your data across datacenters.

The cross-cluster search user requires different cluster and index privileges on the remote cluster and local cluster. The following requests create separate roles on the local and remote clusters, and then create a user with the required roles.

On the remote cluster, the cross-cluster search role requires the read and read_cross_cluster privileges for the target indices.

The following request creates a remote-search role on the remote cluster:

POST /_security/role/remote-search
{
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [
        "target-indices"
      ],
      "privileges": [
        "read",
        "read_cross_cluster"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

On the local cluster, which is the cluster used to initiate cross cluster search, a user only needs the remote-search role. The role privileges can be empty.

The following request creates a remote-search role on the local cluster:

POST /_security/role/remote-search
{}

After creating the remote-search role on each cluster, use the create or update users API to create a user on the local cluster and assign the remote-search role. For example, the following request assigns the remote-search role to a user named cross-search-user:

POST /_security/user/cross-search-user
{
  "password" : "l0ng-r4nd0m-p@ssw0rd",
  "roles" : [ "remote-search" ]
}

Users with the remote-search role can then search across clusters.

When using Kibana to search across multiple clusters, a two-step authorization process determines whether or not the user can access data streams and indices on a remote cluster:

To grant Kibana users access to remote clusters, assign them a local role with read privileges to indices on the remote clusters. You specify data streams and indices in a remote cluster as <remote_cluster_name>:<target>.

To grant users read access on the remote data streams and indices, you must create a matching role on the remote clusters that grants the read_cross_cluster privilege with access to the appropriate data streams and indices.

For example, you might be actively indexing Logstash data on a local cluster and and periodically offload older time-based indices to an archive on your remote cluster. You want to search across both clusters, so you must enable Kibana users on both clusters.

On the local cluster, create a logstash-reader role that grants read and view_index_metadata privileges on the local logstash-* indices.

POST /_security/role/logstash-reader
{
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [
        "logstash-*"
        ],
        "privileges": [
          "read",
          "view_index_metadata"
          ]
    }
  ]
}

Assign your Kibana users a role that grants access to Kibana, as well as your logstash_reader role. For example, the following request creates the cross-cluster-kibana user and assigns the kibana-access and logstash-reader roles.

PUT /_security/user/cross-cluster-kibana
{
  "password" : "l0ng-r4nd0m-p@ssw0rd",
  "roles" : [
    "logstash-reader",
    "kibana-access"
    ]
}

On the remote cluster, create a logstash-reader role that grants the read_cross_cluster privilege and read and view_index_metadata privileges for the logstash-* indices.

POST /_security/role/logstash-reader
{
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [
        "logstash-*"
        ],
        "privileges": [
          "read_cross_cluster",
          "read",
          "view_index_metadata"
          ]
    }
  ]
}