Security needs vary depending on whether you’re developing locally on your
laptop or securing all communications in a production environment. Because
security needs vary, the following scenarios provide options for configuring
the Elastic Stack.
Each subsequent scenario builds on the previous one so that you can add
additional security by building on the existing layer.
These scenarios don’t cover every situation, but provide a framework for
securing Elasticsearch and the Elastic Stack based on typical use cases.
If you want to set up Elasticsearch on your laptop and start developing, this scenario
is for you. This configuration prevents unauthorized access to your local
cluster by setting up passwords for the built-in users. You also configure
password authentication for Kibana.
The minimal security scenario is not sufficient for
production mode
clusters. If your cluster has multiple
nodes, you must enable minimal security and then
configure Transport Layer Security (TLS)
between
nodes.
Set up minimal security
This scenario builds on the minimal security requirements by adding transport
Layer Security (TLS) for communication between nodes. This additional layer
requires that nodes verify security certificates, which prevents unauthorized
nodes from joining your Elasticsearch cluster.
Your external HTTP traffic between Elasticsearch and Kibana won’t be encrypted, but
internode communication will be secured.
Set up basic security
This scenario builds on the one for basic security and secures all HTTP
traffic with TLS. In addition to configuring TLS on the transport interface of
your Elasticsearch cluster, you configure TLS on the HTTP interface for both
Elasticsearch and Kibana.
If you need mutual (bidirectional) TLS on the HTTP layer, then you’ll
need to configure mutual authenticated encryption.
You then configure Kibana and Beats to communicate with
Elasticsearch using TLS so that all communications are encrypted. This level
of security is strong, and ensures that any communications in and out of your
cluster are secure.
Set up basic security plus HTTPS traffic
