Users and roles

The security plugin includes an internal user database. Use this database in place of or in addition to an external authentication system such as LDAP or Active Directory.

Roles are the core way of controlling access to your cluster. Roles contain any combination of cluster-wide permissions, index-specific permissions, document- and field-level security, and tenants. Then you map users to these roles so that users gain those permissions.

Unless you need to create new reserved or hidden users, we highly recommend using OpenSearch Dashboards or the REST API to create new users, roles, and role mappings. The .yml files are for initial setup, not ongoing use.

Create users

You can create users using OpenSearch Dashboards, internal_users.yml, or the REST API. When creating a user, you can map users to roles using internal_users.yml or the REST API, but that feature is not currently available in OpenSearch Dashboards.

OpenSearch Dashboards

  1. Choose Security, Internal Users, and Create internal user.
  2. Provide a username and password. The security plugin automatically hashes the password and stores it in the .opendistro_security index.

  3. If desired, specify user attributes.

    Attributes are optional user properties that you can use for variable substitution in index permissions or document-level security.

  4. Choose Submit.

internal_users.yml

See YAML files.

REST API

See Create user.

Create roles

Just like users, you can create roles using OpenSearch Dashboards, roles.yml, or the REST API.

OpenSearch Dashboards

  1. Choose Security, Roles, and Create role.
  2. Provide a name for the role.

  3. Add permissions as desired.

    For example, you might give a role no cluster permissions, read permissions to two indices, unlimited permissions to a third index, and read permissions to the analysts tenant.

  4. Choose Submit.

roles.yml

See YAML files.

REST API

See Create role.

Map users to roles

If you didn’t specify roles when you created your user, you can map roles to it afterwards.

Just like users and roles, you create role mappings using OpenSearch Dashboards, roles_mapping.yml, or the REST API.

OpenSearch Dashboards

  1. Choose Security, Roles, and a role.
  2. Choose the Mapped users tab and Manage mapping.
  3. Specify users or external identities (also known as backend roles).
  4. Choose Map.

roles_mapping.yml

See YAML files.

REST API

See Create role mapping.

Predefined roles

The security plugin includes several predefined roles that serve as useful defaults.

RoleDescription
alerting_ack_alertsGrants permissions to view and acknowledge alerts, but not modify destinations or monitors.
alerting_full_accessGrants full permissions to all alerting actions.
alerting_read_accessGrants permissions to view alerts, destinations, and monitors, but not acknowledge alerts or modify destinations or monitors.
anomaly_full_accessGrants full permissions to all anomaly detection actions.
anomaly_read_accessGrants permissions to view detectors, but not create, modify, or delete detectors.
all_accessGrants full access to the cluster: all cluster-wide operations, write to all indices, write to all tenants.
cross_cluster_replication_follower_full_accessGrants full access to perform cross-cluster replication actions on the follower cluster.
cross_cluster_replication_leader_full_accessGrants full access to perform cross-cluster replication actions on the leader cluster.
observability_full_accessGrants full access to perform actions on Observability objects such as visualizations, notebooks, and operational panels.
observability_read_accessGrants permission to view Observability objects such as visualizations, notebooks, and operational panels, but not create, modify, or delete them.
opensearch_dashboards_read_onlyA special role that prevents users from making changes to visualizations, dashboards, and other OpenSearch Dashboards objects. See opensearch_security.readonly_mode.roles in opensearch_dashboards.yml. Pair with the opensearch_dashboards_user role.
opensearch_dashboards_userGrants permissions to use OpenSearch Dashboards: cluster-wide searches, index monitoring, and write to various OpenSearch Dashboards indices.
logstashGrants permissions for Logstash to interact with the cluster: cluster-wide searches, cluster monitoring, and write to the various Logstash indices.
manage_snapshotsGrants permissions to manage snapshot repositories, take snapshots, and restore snapshots.
readallGrants permissions for cluster-wide searches like msearch and search permissions for all indices.
readall_and_monitorSame as readall, but with added cluster monitoring permissions.
security_rest_api_accessA special role that allows access to the REST API. See plugins.security.restapi.roles_enabled in opensearch.yml and Access control for the API.
reports_read_accessGrants permissions to generate on-demand reports, download existing reports, and view report definitions, but not to create report definitions.
reports_instances_read_accessGrants permissions to generate on-demand reports and download existing reports, but not to view or create report definitions.
reports_full_accessGrants full permissions to reports.
asynchronous_search_full_accessGrants full permissions to all asynchronous search actions.
asynchronous_search_read_accessGrants permissions to view asynchronous searches but not to submit, modify, or delete async searches.
index_management_full_accessGrants full permissions to all index management actions, including Index State Management (ISM), transforms, and rollups.
snapshot_management_full_accessGrants full permissions to all snapshot management actions.
snapshot_management_read_accessGrants permissions to view policies but not create, modify, start, stop, or delete them.
point_in_time_full_accessGrants full permissions to all Point in Time operations.

For more detailed summaries of the permissions for each role, reference their action groups against the descriptions in Default action groups.

Sample roles

The following examples show how you might set up a read-only and a bulk access role.

Set up a read-only user in OpenSearch Dashboards

Create a new read_only_index role:

  1. Open OpenSearch Dashboards.
  2. Choose Security, Roles.
  3. Create a new role named read_only_index.
  4. For Cluster permissions, add the cluster_composite_ops_ro action group.
  5. For Index Permissions, add an index pattern. For example, you might specify my-index-*.
  6. For index permissions, add the read action group.
  7. Choose Create.

Map three roles to the read-only user:

  1. Choose the Mapped users tab and Manage mapping.
  2. For Internal users, add your read-only user.
  3. Choose Map.
  4. Repeat these steps for the opensearch_dashboards_user and opensearch_dashboards_read_only roles.

Set up a bulk access role in OpenSearch Dashboards

Create a new bulk_access role:

  1. Open OpenSearch Dashboards.
  2. Choose Security, Roles.
  3. Create a new role named bulk_access.
  4. For Cluster permissions, add the cluster_composite_ops action group.
  5. For Index Permissions, add an index pattern. For example, you might specify my-index-*.
  6. For index permissions, add the write action group.
  7. Choose Create.

Map the role to your user:

  1. Choose the Mapped users tab and Manage mapping.
  2. For Internal users, add your bulk access user.
  3. Choose Map.