Kibana Plugins

Add-on functionality for Kibana is implemented with plug-in modules. You can use the bin/kibana plugin command to manage these modules. You can also install a plugin manually by moving the plugin file to the installedPlugins directory and unpacking the plugin files into a new directory.

Use the following command to install a plugin:

bin/kibana plugin --install <org>/<package>/<version>

You can also use -i instead of --install, as in the following example:

bin/kibana plugin -i elasticsearch/marvel/latest

Because the organization given is elasticsearch, the plugin management tool automatically downloads the plugin from download.elastic.co.

You can specify a URL to a plugin with the -u or --url options after the -i or --install option, as in the following example:

bin/kibana plugin -i sample-plugin -u https://some.sample.url/directory
Installing sample-plugin
Attempting to extract from https://some.sample.url/directory
Downloading <some number> bytes....................
Extraction complete
Optimizing and caching browser bundles...
Plugin installation complete

You can specify URLs that use the HTTP, HTTPS, or file protocols.

Use the -d or --plugin-dir option to specify a directory for plugins, as in the following example:

bin/kibana plugin -i elasticsearch/sample-plugin/latest -d <path/to/directory>
Installing sample-plugin
Attempting to extract from https://download.elastic.co/elasticsearch/sample-plugin/sample-plugin-latest.tar.gz
Downloading <some number> bytes....................
Extraction complete
Optimizing and caching browser bundles...
Plugin installation complete

Use the --remove or -r option to remove a plugin, including any configuration information, as in the following example:

bin/kibana plugin --remove marvel

You can also remove a plugin manually by deleting the plugin’s subdirectory under the installedPlugins directory.

To update a plugin, remove the current version and reinstall the plugin.

By default, the plugin manager provides you with feedback on the status of the activity you’ve asked the plugin manager to perform. You can control the level of feedback with the --quiet and --silent options. Use the --quiet option to suppress all non-error output. Use the --silent option to suppress all output.

By default, plugin manager requests do not time out. Use the --timeout option, followed by a time, to change this behavior, as in the following examples:

Waits for 30 seconds before failing.

bin/kibana plugin --install username/sample-plugin --timeout 30s

Waits for 1 minute before failing.

bin/kibana plugin --install username/sample-plugin --timeout 1m

Use the -c or --config options to specify the path to the configuration file used to start Kibana. By default, Kibana uses the configuration file config/kibana.yml. After you have changed the configuration file, you have to restart the Kibana server for changes to take effect (e.g. if Kibana is installed on an Ubuntu machine, you can restart it using service kibana stop followed by service kibana start). When you are using a customized configuration file, you must specify the path to that configuration file each time you use the bin/kibana plugin command.

The Kibana UI serves as a framework that can contain several different plugins. You can switch between these plugins by clicking the Plugin chooser button to display icons for the installed plugins:

Click a plugin’s icon to switch to that plugin’s functionality.