From version 5.0 onward, Shield is part of X-Pack. For more information, see Securing the Elastic Stack.

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File-based User Authentication

You can manage and authenticate users with the built-in file realm. A file realm is created by default when you install Shield. You use the esusers command line tool to add and remove users, assign user roles, and manage user passwords.

As of 2.3.0 the REST APIs and the native realm are the preferred way to manage users. For more information, see Native User Authentication. The file realm (formerly called esusers) is still supported and now functions as a fallback/recovery realm. For example, if all users lock themselves out of the system (no one remembers their username and password), you can define an admin user in the file realm and use those credentials to restore access.

When you configure realms in elasticsearch.yml, only the realms you specify are used for authentication. To use the file realm as a fallback, you must include it in the realm chain.

Configuring a File-based Realm

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The file realm is added to the realm chain by default. You don’t need to explicitly configure a file realm to manage users with the esusers tool.

Like other realms, you can configure options for a file realm in the shield.authc.realms namespace in elasticsearch.yml.

To configure an esusers realm:

Add a realm configuration of type file to elasticsearch.yml in the shield.authc.realms namespace. At a minimum, you must set the realm type to file. If you are configuring multiple realms, you should also explicitly set the order attribute. See File Realm Settings for all of the options you can set for a file realm.

For example, the following snippet shows an file realm configuration that sets the order to zero so the realm is checked first:
```
shield:
  authc:
    realms:
      file1:
        type: file
        order: 0
```
Restart Elasticsearch.

File Realm Settings

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Setting	Required	Description
`type`	yes	Indicates the realm type. Must be set to `file`.
`order`	no	Indicates the priority of this realm within the realm chain. Realms with a lower order are consulted first. Although not required, we recommend explicitly setting this value when you configure multiple realms. Defaults to `Integer.MAX_VALUE`.
`enabled`	no	Indicates whether this realm is enabled or disabled. Enables you to disable a realm without removing its configuration. Defaults to `true`.
`files.users`	no	Points to the location of the `users` file where the users and their passwords are stored. By default, it is `CONFIG_DIR/shield/users`.
`files.users_roles`	no	Points to the location of the `users_roles` file where the users and their roles are stored. Defaults to `CONFIG_DIR/shield/users_roles`.
`cache.ttl`	no	Specifies the time-to-live for cached user entries. A user’s credentials are cached for this period of time. Specify the time period using the standard Elasticsearch time units. Defaults to `20m`.
`cache.max_users`	no	Specifies the maximum number of user entries that can be stored in the cache at one time. Defaults to 100,000.
`cache.hash_algo`	no	Specifies the hashing algorithm that is used for the cached user credentials. See Cache hash algorithms for the possible values. (Expert Setting)

Managing Users in a File-based Realm

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The esusers command line tool is located in ES_HOME/bin/shield and enables several administrative tasks for managing users:

Adding Users

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The esusers useradd command adds a user to your cluster.

To ensure that Elasticsearch can read the user and role information at startup, run esusers useradd as the same user you use to run Elasticsearch. Running the command as root or some other user will update the permissions for the users and users_roles files and prevent Elasticsearch from accessing them.

esusers useradd <username>

A username must be at least 1 character and no longer than 30 characters. The first character must be a letter (a-z or A-Z) or an underscore (_). Subsequent characters can be letters, underscores (_), digits (0-9), or any of the following symbols @, -, . or $

You can specify the user’s password at the command line with the -p option. When this option is absent, the esusers command prompts you for the password. Omit the -p option to keep plaintext passwords out of the terminal session’s command history.

esusers useradd <username> -p <secret>

Passwords must be at least 6 characters long.

You can define a user’s roles with the -r parameter. This parameter accepts a comma-separated list of role names to associate with the user.

esusers useradd <username> -r <comma-separated list of role names>

The following example adds a new user named jacknich to the file realm. The password for this user is theshining, and this user is associated with the logstash and marvel roles.

esusers useradd jacknich -p theshining -r logstash,marvel

For valid role names please see Role Definitions.

Listing Users

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The esusers list command lists the users registered in the file realm, as in the following example:

esusers list
rdeniro        : admin
alpacino       : power_user
jacknich       : marvel,logstash

Users are in the left-hand column and their corresponding roles are listed in the right-hand column.

The esusers list <username> command lists a specific user. Use this command to verify that a user has been successfully added to the cluster.

esusers list jacknich
jacknich       : marvel,logstash

Managing User Passwords

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The esusers passwd command enables you to reset a user’s password. You can specify the new password directly with the -p option. When -p option is omitted, the tool will prompt you to enter and confirm a password in interactive mode.

esusers passwd <username>

esusers passwd <username> -p <password>

Assigning Users to Roles

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The esusers roles command manages the roles associated to a particular user. The -a option adds a comma-separated list of roles to a user. The -r option removes a comma-separated list of roles from a user. You can combine adding and removing roles within the same command to change a user’s roles.

esusers roles <username> -a <commma-separate list of roles> -r <commma-separate list of roles>

The following command removes the logstash and marvel roles from user jacknich, as well as adding the user role:

esusers roles jacknich -r logstash,marvel -a user

Listing the user displays the new role assignment:

esusers list jacknich
jacknich       : user

Deleting Users

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The esusers userdel command deletes a user.

userdel <username>

About `esusers`

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The esusers tool manipulates two files, users and users_roles, in CONFIG_DIR/shield/. These two files store all user data for the file realm and are read on startup.

By default, Security checks these files for changes every 5 seconds. You can change this default behavior by changing the value of the watcher.interval.high setting in the elasticsearch.yml file.

These files are managed locally by the node and are not managed globally by the cluster. This means that with a typical multi-node cluster, the exact same changes need to be applied on each and every node in the cluster.

A safer approach would be to apply the change on one of the nodes and have the users and users_roles files distributed/copied to all other nodes in the cluster (either manually or using a configuration management system such as Puppet or Chef).

While it is possible to modify these files directly using any standard text editor, we strongly recommend using the esusers command-line tool to apply the required changes.

The `users` File

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The users file stores all the users and their passwords. Each line in the users file represents a single user entry consisting of the username and hashed password.

rdeniro:$2a$10$BBJ/ILiyJ1eBTYoRKxkqbuDEdYECplvxnqQ47uiowE7yGqvCEgj9W
alpacino:$2a$10$cNwHnElYiMYZ/T3K4PvzGeJ1KbpXZp2PfoQD.gfaVdImnHOwIuBKS
jacknich:$2a$10$GYUNWyABV/Ols/.bcwxuBuuaQzV6WIauW6RdboojxcixBq3LtI3ni

The esusers command-line tool uses bcrypt to hash the password by default.

The `users_roles` File

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The users_roles file stores the roles associated with the users, as in the following example:

admin:rdeniro
power_user:alpacino,jacknich
user:jacknich

Each row maps a role to a comma-separated list of all the users that are associated with that role.

« PKI User Authentication [1.3.0] Added in 1.3.0. Integrating with Other Authentication Systems »

File-based User Authentication