Breaking changes in 7.8

Details The GET /_license endpoint displays Enterprise licenses as Platinum by default so that old clients (including Beats, Kibana and Logstash) know to interpret this new license type as if it were a Platinum license.

This compatibility layer was not applied to the GET /_xpack/ endpoint, which also displays a license type and mode. #58217

Details The privilege named indices:admin/create will no longer allow the auto creation of indices. Use create_index instead. #55858

Details Scripts used in value_count will now receive a number if they are counting a numeric field and a GeoPoint if they are counting a geo_point fields. They used to always receive the String representation of those values. #54854

Details
Mapping requests that attempt to change the enabled mapping parameter for a root mapping will fail and return an error.

Previously, Elasticsearch accepted mapping requests that attempted to change the enabled parameter of the root mapping. Theses changes were not applied, but such requests didn’t return an error.

Impact
To avoid errors, do not submit mapping requests that change the enabled mapping parameter.

Details
Mapping requests that attempt to change the include_in_parent or include_in_root mapping parameter for a nested field will fail and return an error.

Previously, Elasticsearch accepted mapping requests that attempted to change the include_in_parent or include_in_root parameter. Theses changes were not applied, but such requests didn’t return an error.

Impact
To avoid errors, do not submit mapping requests that change the include_in_parent or include_in_root mapping parameter.

Details
The get field mapping API's local query parameter is deprecated and will be removed in Elasticsearch 8.0.0.

The local parameter is a no-op. The API always retrieves field mappings locally.

Impact
To avoid deprecation warnings, discontinue use of the local parameter.

Details
Configuring any SSL settings for xpack.security.transport.ssl without also configuring xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled generates warnings in the deprecation log. In 8.0, this configuration will result in errors.

Impact
To avoid deprecation warnings, either:

If you want to enable SSL, follow the instructions to encrypt communications between nodes. As part of this configuration, explicitly set xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled as true.

For example:

xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled: true 
xpack.security.transport.ssl.keystore.path: elastic-certificates.p12
xpack.security.transport.ssl.truststore.path: elastic-certificates.p12

Details
Configuring any SSL settings for xpack.security.http.ssl without also configuring xpack.security.http.ssl.enabled generates warnings in the deprecation log. In 8.0, this configuration will result in errors.

Impact
To avoid deprecation warnings, either:

If you want to enable SSL, follow the instructions to encrypt HTTP client communications for Elasticsearch. As part of this configuration, explicitly set xpack.security.http.ssl.enabled as true.

For example:

xpack.security.http.ssl.enabled: true 
xpack.security.http.ssl.certificate: elasticsearch.crt
xpack.security.http.ssl.key: elasticsearch.key
xpack.security.http.ssl.certificate_authorities: [ "corporate-ca.crt" ]

Details
Enabling SSL for the transport interface without also configuring a certificate and key through use of the xpack.security.transport.ssl.keystore.path setting or the xpack.security.transport.ssl.certificate and xpack.security.transport.ssl.key settings generates warnings in the deprecation log. In 8.0, this configuration will result in errors.

Impact
If xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled is set to true, provide a certificate and key using the xpack.security.transport.ssl.keystore.path setting or the xpack.security.transport.ssl.certificate and xpack.security.transport.ssl.key settings. If a certificate and key is not provided, Elasticsearch will generate warnings in the deprecation log.

Details
Enabling SSL for the HTTP layer without also configuring a certificate and key through use of the xpack.security.http.ssl.keystore.path setting or the xpack.security.http.ssl.certificate and xpack.security.http.ssl.key settings generates warnings in the deprecation log. In 8.0, this configuration will result in errors.

Impact
If xpack.security.http.ssl.enabled is set to true, provide a certificate and key using the xpack.security.http.ssl.keystore.path setting or the xpack.security.http.ssl.certificate and xpack.security.http.ssl.key settings. If a certificate and key is not provided, Elasticsearch will generate warnings in the deprecation log.

Details
The node.local_storage setting is deprecated. In Elasticsearch 8.0.0, all nodes require local storage.

Impact
To avoid deprecation warnings, discontinue use of the node.local_storage setting.

Details
Basic X-Pack license features are always enabled for the default distribution and the following settings no longer have any effect:

Previously, they could be set to false to disable the feature’s APIs in a cluster.

Impact
To avoid deprecation warnings, discontinue use of these settings. If you have disabled ILM so that you can use another tool to manage Watcher indices, the newly introduced xpack.watcher.use_ilm_index_management setting may be set to false.

Details
The kibana user was historically used to authenticate Kibana to Elasticsearch. The name of this user was confusing, and was often mistakenly used to login to Kibana. We’ve replaced the kibana user with the kibana_system user to reduce confusion and to better align with other built-in system accounts.

Impact
If your kibana.yml used to contain:

elasticsearch.username: kibana

then you should update to use the new kibana_system user instead:

elasticsearch.username: kibana_system

Details
Users who were previously assigned the kibana_user role should instead be assigned the kibana_admin role. This role grants the same set of privileges as kibana_user, but has been renamed to better reflect its intended use.

Impact
Assign users with the kibana_user role to the kibana_admin role. Discontinue use of the kibana_user role.

Details
The voting configuration exclusions API’s POST _cluster/voting_config_exclusions/<node_name> request path is now deprecated. To add a voting configuration exclusion, specify node names or node IDs using a query parameter instead:

Impact
To avoid deprecation warnings, discontinue use of the POST _cluster/voting_config_exclusions/<node_name> request path.

Details
The max_page_search_size property within pivot is deprecated in the create transform and preview transform APIs.

Impact
Use the max_page_search_size property within settings instead.