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Security

Kibana has generally been able to implement security transparently to core and plugin developers, and this largely remains the case. Kibana on two methods that the Elasticsearch Cluster provides: callWithRequest and callWithInternalUser.

callWithRequest executes requests against Elasticsearch using the authentication credentials of the Kibana end-user. So, if you log into Kibana with the user of foo when callWithRequest is used, Kibana execute the request against Elasticsearch as the user foo. Historically, callWithRequest has been used extensively to perform actions that are initiated at the request of Kibana end-users.

callWithInternalUser executes requests against Elasticsearch using the internal Kibana server user, and has historically been used for performing actions that aren’t initiated by Kibana end users; for example, creating the initial .kibana index or performing health checks against Elasticsearch.

However, with the changes that role-based access control (RBAC) introduces, this is no longer cut and dry. Kibana now requires all access to the .kibana index goes through the SavedObjectsClient. This used to be a best practice, as the SavedObjectsClient was responsible for translating the documents stored in Elasticsearch to and from Saved Objects, but RBAC is now taking advantage of this abstraction to implement access control and determine when to use callWithRequest versus callWithInternalUser.

Role-based access control

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Role-based access control (RBAC) in Kibana relies upon the application privileges that Elasticsearch exposes. This allows Kibana to define the privileges that Kibana wishes to grant to users, assign them to the relevant users using roles, and then authorize the user to perform a specific action. This is handled within a secured instance of the SavedObjectsClient and available transparently to consumers when using request.getSavedObjectsClient() or savedObjects.getScopedSavedObjectsClient().

Kibana Privileges

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When Kibana first starts up, it executes the following POST request against Elasticsearch. This synchronizes the definition of the privileges with various actions which are later used to authorize a user:

POST /_security/privilege
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic {kib} changeme

{
   "kibana-.kibana":{
       "all":{
           "application":"kibana-.kibana",
           "name":"all",
           "actions":[
               "version:7.0.0-alpha1-SNAPSHOT",
               "action:login",
               "action:*"
           ],
           "metadata":{}
       },
       "read":{
           "application":"kibana-.kibana",
           "name":"read",
           "actions":[
               "version:7.0.0-alpha1-SNAPSHOT",
               "action:login",
               "saved_object:dashboard/get",
               "saved_object:dashboard/bulk_get",
               "saved_object:dashboard/find",
               ...
           ],"metadata":{}}
   }
}

The application is created by concatenating the prefix of kibana- with the value of kibana.index from the kibana.yml, so different Kibana tenants are isolated from one another.

Assigning Kibana Privileges

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Kibana privileges are assigned to specific roles using the applications element. For example, the following role assigns the all privilege at * resources (which will in the future be used to secure spaces) to the default Kibana application:

"new_kibana_user": {
   "applications": [
     {
       "application": "kibana-.kibana",
       "privileges": [
         "all"
       ],
       "resources": [
         "*"
       ]
     }
   ]
 }

Roles that grant Kibana privileges should be managed using the Kibana role management APIs or the Management → Security → Roles page, not directly using the Elasticsearch role management API. This role can then be assigned to users using the Elasticsearch user management APIs.

Authorization

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The Elasticsearch has privileges API determines whether the user is authorized to perform a specific action:

POST /_security/user/_has_privileges
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic foo_read_only_user password

{
   "applications":[
       {
           "application":"kibana-.kibana",
           "resources":["*"],
           "privileges":[
             "saved_object:dashboard/save",
           ]
       }
   ]
}

Elasticsearch checks if the user is granted a specific action. If the user is assigned a role that grants a privilege, Elasticsearch uses the Kibana privileges definition to associate this with the actions, which makes authorizing users more intuitive and flexible programmatically.

Once we have authorized the user to perform a specific action, we can execute the request using callWithInternalUser.

Plugin feature registration

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If your plugin will be used with Kibana’s default distribution, then you have the ability to register the features that your plugin provides. Features are typically apps in Kibana; once registered, you can toggle them via Spaces, and secure them via Roles when security is enabled.

UI Capabilities

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Registering features also gives your plugin access to “UI Capabilities”. These capabilities are boolean flags that you can use to conditionally render your interface, based on the current user’s permissions. For example, you can hide or disable a Save button if the current user is not authorized.

Registering a feature

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Feature registration is controlled via the built-in features plugin. To register a feature, call features's registerKibanaFeature function from your plugin’s setup lifecycle function, and provide the appropriate details:

setup(core, { features }) {
  features.registerKibanaFeature({
    // feature details here.
  });
}

Feature details

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Registering a feature consists of the following fields. For more information, consult the feature registry interface.

Field name	Data type	Example	Description
`id` (required)	`string`	`"sample_feature"`	A unique identifier for your feature. Usually, the ID of your plugin is sufficient.
`name` (required)	`string`	`"Sample Feature"`	A human readable name for your feature.
`category` (required)	`AppCategory`	`DEFAULT_APP_CATEGORIES.kibana`	The `AppCategory` which best represents your feature. Used to organize the display of features within the management screens.
`app` (required)	`string[]`	`["sample_app", "kibana"]`	An array of applications this feature enables. Typically, all of your plugin’s apps (from `uiExports`) will be included here.
`privileges` (required)	`KibanaFeatureConfig`.	See Example 1 and Example 2	The set of privileges this feature requires to function.
`subFeatures` (optional)	`KibanaFeatureConfig`.	See Example 3	The set of subfeatures that enables finer access control than the `all` and `read` feature privileges. These options are only available in the Gold subscription level and higher.

Privilege definition

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The privileges section of feature registration allows plugins to implement read/write and read-only modes for their applications.

For a full explanation of fields and options, consult the feature registry interface.

Using UI Capabilities

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UI Capabilities are available to your public (client) plugin code. These capabilities are read-only, and are used to inform the UI. This object is namespaced by feature id. For example, if your feature id is “foo”, then your UI Capabilities are stored at uiCapabilities.foo. Capabilities can be accessed from your plugin’s start lifecycle from the core.application service:

public start(core) {
  const { capabilities } = core.application;

  const canUserSave = capabilities.foo.save;
  if (canUserSave) {
    // show save button
  }
}

Example 1: Canvas Application

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public setup(core, { features }) {
  features.registerKibanaFeature({
    id: 'canvas',
    name: 'Canvas',
    category: DEFAULT_APP_CATEGORIES.kibana,
    app: ['canvas', 'kibana'],
    catalogue: ['canvas'],
    privileges: {
      all: {
        savedObject: {
          all: ['canvas-workpad'],
          read: ['index-pattern'],
        },
        ui: ['save'],
      },
      read: {
        savedObject: {
          all: [],
          read: ['index-pattern', 'canvas-workpad'],
        },
        ui: [],
      },
    },
  });
}

This shows how the Canvas application might register itself as a Kibana feature. Note that it specifies different savedObject access levels for each privilege:

Users with read/write access (all privilege) need to be able to read/write canvas-workpad saved objects, and they need read-only access to index-pattern saved objects.
Users with read-only access (read privilege) do not need to have read/write access to any saved objects, but instead get read-only access to index-pattern and canvas-workpad saved objects.

Additionally, Canvas registers the canvas UI app and canvas catalogue entry. This tells Kibana that these entities are available for users with either the read or all privilege.

The all privilege defines a single “save” UI Capability. To access this in the UI, Canvas could:

public start(core) {
  const { capabilities } = core.application;

  const canUserSave = capabilities.canvas.save;
  if (canUserSave) {
    // show save button
  }
}

Because the read privilege does not define the save capability, users with read-only access will have their uiCapabilities.canvas.save flag set to false.

Example 2: Dev Tools

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public setup(core, { features }) {
  features.registerKibanaFeature({
    id: 'dev_tools',
    name: i18n.translate('xpack.features.devToolsFeatureName', {
      defaultMessage: 'Dev Tools',
    }),
    category: DEFAULT_APP_CATEGORIES.management,
    app: ['kibana'],
    catalogue: ['console', 'searchprofiler', 'grokdebugger'],
    privileges: {
      all: {
        api: ['console'],
        savedObject: {
          all: [],
          read: [],
        },
        ui: ['show'],
      },
      read: {
        api: ['console'],
        savedObject: {
          all: [],
          read: [],
        },
        ui: ['show'],
      },
    },
    privilegesTooltip: i18n.translate('xpack.features.devToolsPrivilegesTooltip', {
     defaultMessage:
       'User should also be granted the appropriate {es} cluster and index privileges',
   }),
  });
}

Unlike the Canvas example, Dev Tools does not require access to any saved objects to function. Dev Tools does specify an API endpoint, however. When this is configured, the Security plugin will automatically authorize access to any server API route that is tagged with access:console, similar to the following:

server.route({
 path: '/api/console/proxy',
 method: 'POST',
 config: {
   tags: ['access:console'],
   handler: async (req, h) => {
     // ...
   }
 }
});

Example 3: Discover

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Discover takes advantage of subfeature privileges to allow fine-grained access control. In this example, two subfeature privileges are defined: "Create Short URLs", and "Generate PDF Reports". These allow users to grant access to this feature without having to grant the all privilege to Discover. In other words, you can grant read access to Discover, and also grant the ability to create short URLs or generate PDF reports.

Notice the "Generate PDF Reports" subfeature privilege has an additional minimumPrivilege option. Kibana will only offer this subfeature privilege if the license requirement is satisfied.

public setup(core, { features }) {
  features.registerKibanaFeature({
    {
      id: 'discover',
      name: i18n.translate('xpack.features.discoverFeatureName', {
        defaultMessage: 'Discover',
      }),
      order: 100,
      category: DEFAULT_APP_CATEGORIES.kibana,
      app: ['kibana'],
      catalogue: ['discover'],
      privileges: {
        all: {
          app: ['kibana'],
          catalogue: ['discover'],
          savedObject: {
            all: ['search', 'query'],
            read: ['index-pattern'],
          },
          ui: ['show', 'save', 'saveQuery'],
        },
        read: {
          app: ['kibana'],
          catalogue: ['discover'],
          savedObject: {
            all: [],
            read: ['index-pattern', 'search', 'query'],
          },
          ui: ['show'],
        },
      },
      subFeatures: [
        {
          name: i18n.translate('xpack.features.ossFeatures.discoverShortUrlSubFeatureName', {
            defaultMessage: 'Short URLs',
          }),
          privilegeGroups: [
            {
              groupType: 'independent',
              privileges: [
                {
                  id: 'url_create',
                  name: i18n.translate(
                    'xpack.features.ossFeatures.discoverCreateShortUrlPrivilegeName',
                    {
                      defaultMessage: 'Create Short URLs',
                    }
                  ),
                  includeIn: 'all',
                  savedObject: {
                    all: ['url'],
                    read: [],
                  },
                  ui: ['createShortUrl'],
                },
              ],
            },
            {
              groupType: 'independent',
              privileges: [
                {
                  id: 'pdf_generate',
                  name: i18n.translate(
                    'xpack.features.ossFeatures.discoverGeneratePDFReportsPrivilegeName',
                    {
                      defaultMessage: 'Generate PDF Reports',
                    }
                  ),
                  minimumLicense: 'platinum',
                  includeIn: 'all',
                  savedObject: {
                    all: [],
                    read: [],
                  },
                  api: ['generatePDFReports'],
                  ui: ['generatePDFReports'],
                },
              ],
            },
          ],
        },
      ],
    }
  });
}

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