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Configure authentication credentials

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Configure authentication credentials

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When sending data to a secured cluster through the elasticsearch output, Filebeat must either provide basic authentication credentials or present a client certificate.

To configure authentication credentials for Filebeat:

Create a writer role that has the following privileges:

Cluster: manage_index_templates, monitor, and manage_ingest_pipelines
Index: write and create_index on the Filebeat indices

You can create roles from the Management / Roles UI in Kibana or through the role API. For example, the following request creates a role named filebeat_writer:

POST _xpack/security/role/filebeat_writer
{
  "cluster": ["manage_index_templates","monitor","manage_ingest_pipelines"], 
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [ "filebeat-*" ], 
      "privileges": ["write","create_index"]
    }
  ]
}

	The `manage_ingest_pipelines` cluster privilege is required to run Filebeat modules.
	If you use a custom Filebeat index pattern, specify that pattern instead of the default `filebeat-*` pattern.

Assign the writer role to the user that Filebeat will use to connect to Elasticsearch. If you plan to load the pre-built Kibana dashboards, also assign the kibana_user role. If you plan to load machine learning jobs, assign the machine_learning_admin role.
1. To authenticate as a native user, create a user for Filebeat to use internally and assign it the writer role, plus any other roles that are needed.
  
  You can create users from the Management / Users UI in Kibana or through the user API. For example, following request creates a user named filebeat_internal that has the filebeat_writer and kibana_user roles:
```
POST /_xpack/security/user/filebeat_internal
{
  "password" : "YOUR_PASSWORD",
  "roles" : [ "filebeat_writer","kibana_user"],
  "full_name" : "Internal Filebeat User"
}
```
2. To use PKI authentication, assign the writer role, plus any other roles that are needed, in the role_mapping.yml configuration file. Specify the user by the distinguished name that appears in its certificate:
```
filebeat_writer:
  - "cn=Internal Filebeat User,ou=example,o=com"
kibana_user:
  - "cn=Internal Filebeat User,ou=example,o=com"
```
  For more information, see Using Role Mapping Files.

In the Filebeat configuration file, specify authentication credentials for the elasticsearch output:

To use basic authentication, configure the username and password settings. For example, the following Filebeat output configuration uses the native filebeat_internal user to connect to Elasticsearch:
```
output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]
  username: "filebeat_internal" 
  password: "YOUR_PASSWORD" 
```
You created this user earlier.

The example shows a hard-coded password, but you should store sensitive values in the secrets keystore.

To use PKI authentication, configure the certificate and key settings:

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]
  ssl.certificate: "/etc/pki/client/cert.pem" 
  ssl.key: "/etc/pki/client/cert.key"

The distinguished name (DN) in the certificate must be mapped to the filebeat_writer and kibana_user roles in the role_mapping.yml configuration file on each node in the Elasticsearch cluster.

« Configure Filebeat to use X-Pack security Grant users access to Filebeat indices »

	You created this user earlier.
	The example shows a hard-coded password, but you should store sensitive values in the secrets keystore.