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Elastic Docs ›Kibana Guide [7.14] ›Set up ›Configure security in Kibana

Session management

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Session management

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When you log in, Kibana creates a session that is used to authenticate subsequent requests to Kibana. A session consists of two components: an encrypted cookie that is stored in your browser, and an encrypted document in a dedicated Elasticsearch hidden index. By default, the name of that index is .kibana_security_session_1, where the prefix is derived from the primary .kibana index. If either of these components are missing, the session is no longer valid.

When your session expires, or you log out, Kibana will invalidate your cookie and remove session information from the index. Kibana also periodically invalidates and removes any expired sessions that weren’t explicitly invalidated.

To manage user sessions programmatically, Kibana exposes session management APIs.

Session idle timeout

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You can use xpack.security.session.idleTimeout to expire sessions after a period of inactivity. This and xpack.security.session.lifespan are both highly recommended. By default, sessions don’t expire because of inactivity. To define a sliding session expiration, set the property in the kibana.yml configuration file. The idle timeout is formatted as a duration of <count>[ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|Y] (e.g. 20m, 24h, 7d, 1w). For example, set the idle timeout to expire sessions after 1 hour of inactivity:

xpack.security.session.idleTimeout: "1h"

Session lifespan

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You can use xpack.security.session.lifespan to configure the maximum session duration or "lifespan" — also known as the "absolute timeout". This and xpack.security.session.idleTimeout are both highly recommended. By default, sessions don’t have a fixed lifespan, and if an idle timeout is defined, a session can still be extended indefinitely. To define a maximum session lifespan, set the property in the kibana.yml configuration file. The lifespan is formatted as a duration of <count>[ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|Y] (e.g. 20m, 24h, 7d, 1w). For example, set the lifespan to expire sessions after 30 days:

xpack.security.session.lifespan: "30d"

Session cleanup interval

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If you specify neither session idle timeout nor lifespan, then Kibana will not automatically remove session information from the index unless you explicitly log out. This might lead to an infinitely growing session index. Configure the idle timeout and lifespan settings for the Kibana sessions so that they can be cleaned up even if you don’t explicitly log out.

You can configure the interval at which Kibana tries to remove expired and invalid sessions from the session index. By default, this value is 1 hour and cannot be less than 10 seconds. To define another interval, set the xpack.security.session.cleanupInterval property in the kibana.yml configuration file. The interval is formatted as a duration of <count>[ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|Y] (e.g. 20m, 24h, 7d, 1w). For example, schedule the session index cleanup to perform once a day:

xpack.security.session.cleanupInterval: "1d"
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