APM UI API

Some APM UI features are provided via a REST API:

Using the APIs

Interact with APM APIs using cURL or another API tool. All APM APIs are Kibana APIs, not Elasticsearch APIs; because of this, the Kibana dev tools console cannot be used to interact with APM APIs.

For all APM APIs, you must use a request header. Supported headers are Authorization, kbn-xsrf, and Content-Type.

Authorization: ApiKey {credentials}

Kibana supports token-based authentication with the Elasticsearch API key service. The API key returned by the Elasticsearch create API key API can be used by sending a request with an Authorization header that has a value of ApiKey followed by the {credentials}, where {credentials} is the base64 encoding of id and api_key joined by a colon.

Alternatively, you can create a user and use their username and password to authenticate API access: -u $USER:$PASSWORD.

Whether using Authorization: ApiKey {credentials}, or -u $USER:$PASSWORD, users interacting with APM APIs must have sufficient privileges.

kbn-xsrf: true

By default, you must use kbn-xsrf for all API calls, except in the following scenarios:

The API endpoint uses the GET or HEAD operations
The path is allowed using the server.xsrf.allowlist setting
XSRF protections are disabled using the server.xsrf.disableProtection setting

Content-Type: application/json

Applicable only when you send a payload in the API request. Kibana API requests and responses use JSON. Typically, if you include the kbn-xsrf header, you must also include the Content-Type header.

Here’s an example CURL request that adds an annotation to the APM UI:

curl -X POST \
  http://localhost:5601/api/apm/services/opbeans-java/annotation \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'kbn-xsrf: true' \
-H 'Authorization: Basic YhUlubWZhM0FDbnlQeE6WRtaW49FQmSGZ4RUWXdX' \
-d '{
      "@timestamp": "2020-05-11T10:31:30.452Z",
      "service": {
        "version": "1.2"
      },
      "message": "Revert upgrade",
      "tags": [
        "elastic.co", "customer"
      ]
    }'

Kibana API

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In addition to the APM specific API endpoints, Kibana provides its own REST API which you can use to automate certain aspects of configuring and deploying Kibana.

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