Disable security

You might want to temporarily disable the security plugin to make testing or internal usage more straightforward. To disable the plugin, add the following line in elasticsearch.yml:

opendistro_security.disabled: true

A more permanent option is to remove the security plugin entirely. Delete the plugins/opendistro_security folder on all nodes, and delete the opendistro_security configuration entries from elasticsearch.yml.

To perform these steps on the Docker image, see Customize the Docker image.

Disabling or removing the plugin exposes the configuration index for the security plugin. If the index contains sensitive information, be sure to protect it through some other means. If you no longer need the index, delete it.

Remove Kibana plugin

The security plugin is actually two plugins: one for Elasticsearch and one for Kibana. You can use the Elasticsearch plugin independently, but the Kibana plugin depends on a secured Elasticsearch cluster.

If you disable the security plugin in elasticsearch.yml (or delete the plugin entirely) and still want to use Kibana, you must remove the corresponding Kibana plugin. For more information, see Standalone Kibana plugin install.

RPM or DEB

1. Remove all opendistro_security lines from kibana.yml.
2. Change elasticsearch.url in kibana.yml to http:// rather than https://.
3. Enter sudo /usr/share/kibana/bin/kibana-plugin remove opendistro_security.
4. Enter sudo systemctl restart kibana.service.

Docker

1. Create a new Dockerfile:

   FROM amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch-kibana:1.11.0
   RUN /usr/share/kibana/bin/kibana-plugin remove opendistro_security
   COPY --chown=kibana:kibana kibana.yml /usr/share/kibana/config/
   

   In this case, kibana.yml is a “vanilla” version of the file with no Open Distro for Elasticsearch entries. It might look like this:

   ---
   server.name: kibana
   server.host: "0"
   elasticsearch.hosts: http://localhost:9200
   

2. To build the new Docker image, run the following command:

   docker build --tag=kibana-no-security .
   

3. In docker-compose.yml, change amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch-kibana:1.11.0 to kibana-no-security.
4. Change ELASTICSEARCH_URL (docker-compose.yml) or elasticsearch.url (your custom kibana.yml) to http:// rather than https://.
5. Change ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTS or elasticsearch.hosts to http:// rather than https://.
6. Enter docker-compose up.