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Elastic Docs ›Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes [master] ›Orchestrating Elastic Stack applications ›Run Elasticsearch on ECK

Remote clusters

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Remote clusters

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The remote clusters module in Elasticsearch enables you to establish uni-directional connections to a remote cluster. This functionality is used in cross-cluster replication and cross-cluster search.

When using remote cluster connections with ECK, the setup process depends on where the remote cluster is deployed.

Connect from an Elasticsearch cluster running in the same Kubernetes cluster

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The remote clusters feature requires a valid Enterprise license or Enterprise trial license. Check the license documentation for more details about managing licenses.

To create a remote cluster connection to another Elasticsearch cluster deployed within the same Kubernetes cluster, specify the remoteClusters attribute in your Elasticsearch spec.

Security Models

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ECK supports two different security models: the API key based security model, and the certificate security model. These two security models are described in the Remote clusters section of the Elasticsearch documentation.

Using the API key security model

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To enable the API key security model you must first enable the remote cluster server on the remote Elasticsearch cluster:

apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  name: cluster-two
  namespace: ns-two
spec:
  version: 8.16.1
  remoteClusterServer:
    enabled: true
  nodeSets:
    - name: default
      count: 3

Enabling the remote cluster server triggers a restart of the Elasticsearch cluster.

Once the remote cluster server is enabled and started on the remote cluster you can configure the Elasticsearch reference on the local cluster to include the desired permissions for cross-cluster search, and cross-cluster replication.

Permissions have to be included under the apiKey field. The API model of the Elasticsearch resource is compatible with the Elasticsearch Cross-Cluster API key API model. Fine-grained permissions can therefore be configured in both the search and replication fields:

apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  name: cluster-one
  namespace: ns-one
spec:
  nodeSets:
  - count: 3
    name: default
  remoteClusters:
  - name: cluster-two
    elasticsearchRef:
      name: cluster-two
      namespace: ns-two
      apiKey:
        access:
          search:
            names:
              - kibana_sample_data_ecommerce  
          replication:
            names:
              - kibana_sample_data_ecommerce  
  version: 8.16.1

This requires the sample data: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/get-started.html#gs-get-data-into-kibana

You can find a complete example in the recipes directory.

Using the certificate security model

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The following example describes how to configure cluster-two as a remote cluster in cluster-one using the certificate security model:

apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  name: cluster-one
  namespace: ns-one
spec:
  nodeSets:
  - count: 3
    name: default
  remoteClusters:
  - name: cluster-two
    elasticsearchRef:
      name: cluster-two
      namespace: ns-two 
  version: 8.16.1

The namespace declaration can be omitted if both clusters reside in the same namespace.

Connect from an Elasticsearch cluster running outside the Kubernetes cluster

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While it is technically possible to configure remote cluster connections using older versions of Elasticsearch, this guide only covers the setup for Elasticsearch 7.6 and later. The setup process is significantly simplified in Elasticsearch 7.6 due to improved support for the indirection of Kubernetes services.

You can configure a remote cluster connection to an ECK-managed Elasticsearch cluster from another cluster running outside the Kubernetes cluster as follows:

  1. Make sure that both clusters trust each other’s certificate authority.
  2. Configure the remote cluster connection through the Elasticsearch REST API.

Consider the following example:

  • cluster-one resides inside Kubernetes and is managed by ECK
  • cluster-two is not hosted inside the same Kubernetes cluster as cluster-one and may not even be managed by ECK

To configure cluster-one as a remote cluster in cluster-two:

Make sure both clusters trust each other’s certificate authority

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The certificate authority (CA) used by ECK to issue certificates for the Elasticsearch transport layer is stored in a secret named <cluster_name>-es-transport-certs-public. Extract the certificate for cluster-one as follows:

kubectl get secret cluster-one-es-transport-certs-public \
-o go-template='{{index .data "ca.crt" | base64decode}}' > remote.ca.crt

You then need to configure the CA as one of the trusted CAs in cluster-two. If that cluster is hosted outside of Kubernetes, take the CA certificate that you have just extracted and add it to the list of CAs in xpack.security.transport.ssl.certificate_authorities.

Beware of copying the source Secret as-is into a different namespace. Check Common Problems: Owner References for more information.

CA certificates are automatically rotated after one year by default. You can configure this period. Make sure to keep the copy of the certificates Secret up-to-date.

If cluster-two is also managed by an ECK instance, proceed as follows:

  1. Create a config map with the CA certificate you just extracted:

    kubectl create configmap remote-certs --from-file=ca.crt=remote.ca.crt

  2. Use this config map to configure cluster-one's CA as a trusted CA in cluster-two:

    apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  name: cluster-two
spec:
  transport:
    tls:
      certificateAuthorities:
        configMapName: remote-certs
  nodeSets:
  - count: 3
    name: default
  version: 8.16.1
  3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to add the CA of cluster-two to cluster-one as well.

Configure the remote cluster connection through the Elasticsearch REST API

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Expose the transport layer of cluster-one.

apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  name: cluster-one
spec:
  transport:
    service:
      spec:
        type: LoadBalancer

On cloud providers which support external load balancers, setting the type field to LoadBalancer provisions a load balancer for your Service. Alternatively, expose the service through one of the Kubernetes Ingress controllers that support TCP services.

Finally, configure cluster-one as a remote cluster in cluster-two using the Elasticsearch REST API:

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "cluster": {
      "remote": {
        "cluster-one": {
          "mode": "proxy", 
          "proxy_address": "${LOADBALANCER_IP}:9300" 
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Use "proxy" mode as cluster-two will be connecting to cluster-one through the Kubernetes service abstraction.

Replace ${LOADBALANCER_IP} with the IP address assigned to the LoadBalancer configured in the previous code sample. If you have configured a DNS entry for the service, you can use the DNS name instead of the IP address as well.
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