[role="xpack"] [[configuring-pki-realm]] === Configuring a PKI realm You can configure {es} to use Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates to authenticate users. This requires clients connecting directly to {es} to present X.509 certificates. The certificates must first be accepted for authentication on the SSL/TLS layer on {es}. Only then they are optionally further validated by a PKI realm. Users may also use PKI certificates to authenticate to {kib}, however this requires some <>. On {es}, this configuration enables {kib} to act as a proxy for SSL/TLS authentication and to submit the client certificates to {es} for further validation by a PKI realm. For more general information, see {stack-ov}/pki-realm.html[PKI user authentication]. [float] [role="xpack"] [[pki-realm-for-direct-clients]] ==== PKI authentication for clients connecting directly to {es} To use PKI in {es}, you configure a PKI realm, enable client authentication on the desired network layers (transport or http), and map the Distinguished Name (DN) from the Subject field in the user certificate to roles by using the <> or the role-mapping file. You can also use a combination of PKI and username/password authentication. For example, you can enable SSL/TLS on the transport layer and define a PKI realm to require transport clients to authenticate with X.509 certificates, while still authenticating HTTP traffic using username and password credentials. You can also set `xpack.security.transport.ssl.client_authentication` to `optional` to allow clients without certificates to authenticate with other credentials. IMPORTANT: You must enable SSL/TLS with client authentication to use PKI when clients connect directly to {es}. . Add a realm configuration for a `pki` realm to `elasticsearch.yml` under the `xpack.security.authc.realms.pki` namespace. If you are configuring multiple realms, you should explicitly set the `order` attribute. See <> for all of the options you can set for a `pki` realm. + -- For example, the following snippet shows the most basic `pki` realm configuration: [source, yaml] ------------------------------------------------------------ xpack: security: authc: realms: pki: pki1: order: 1 ------------------------------------------------------------ With this configuration, any certificate trusted by the {es} SSL/TLS layer is accepted for authentication. The username is the common name (CN) extracted from the DN in the Subject field of the end-entity certificate. This configuration does not permit PKI authentication to {kib}. IMPORTANT: When you configure realms in `elasticsearch.yml`, only the realms you specify are used for authentication. If you also want to use the `native` or `file` realms, you must include them in the realm chain. If you want to use something other than the CN of the Subject DN as the username, you can specify a regex to extract the desired username. The regex is applied on the Subject DN. For example, the regex in the following configuration extracts the email address from the Subject DN: [source, yaml] ------------------------------------------------------------ xpack: security: authc: realms: pki: pki1: username_pattern: "EMAILADDRESS=(.*?)(?:,|$)" ------------------------------------------------------------ NOTE: If the regex is too restrictive and does not match the Subject DN of the client's certificate, then the realm does not authenticate the certificate. -- . Restart {es} because realm configuration is not reloaded automatically. If you're following through with the next steps, you might wish to hold the restart for last. . <>. . Enable client authentication on the desired network layers (transport or http). + -- When clients connect directly to {es} and are not proxy-authenticated, the PKI realm relies on the TLS settings of the node's network interface. The realm can be configured to be more restrictive than the underlying network connection. That is, it is possible to configure the node such that some connections are accepted by the network interface but then fail to be authenticated by the PKI realm. However, the reverse is not possible. The PKI realm cannot authenticate a connection that has been refused by the network interface. In particular this means: * The transport or http interface must request client certificates by setting `client_authentication` to `optional` or `required`. * The interface must _trust_ the certificate that is presented by the client by configuring either the `truststore` or `certificate_authorities` paths, or by setting `verification_mode` to `none`. See <> for an explanation of this setting. * The _protocols_ supported by the interface must be compatible with those used by the client. The relevant network interface (transport or http) must be configured to trust any certificate that is to be used within the PKI realm. However, it is possible to configure the PKI realm to trust only a _subset_ of the certificates accepted by the network interface. This is useful when the SSL/TLS layer trusts clients with certificates that are signed by a different CA than the one that signs your users' certificates. To configure the PKI realm with its own truststore, specify the `truststore.path` option. The path must be located within the Elasticsearch configuration directory (ES_PATH_CONF). For example: [source, yaml] ------------------------------------------------------------ xpack: security: authc: realms: pki: pki1: truststore: path: "pki1_truststore.jks" ------------------------------------------------------------ If the truststore is password protected, the password should be configured by adding the appropriate `secure_password` setting to the {es} keystore. For example, the following command adds the password for the example realm above: [source, shell] ------------------------------------------------------------ bin/elasticsearch-keystore add \ xpack.security.authc.realms.pki.pki1.truststore.secure_password ------------------------------------------------------------ The `certificate_authorities` option can be used as an alternative to the `truststore.path` setting, when the certificate files are PEM formatted . The setting accepts a list. The two options are exclusive, they cannot be both used simultaneously. -- . Map roles for PKI users. + -- You map roles for PKI users through the <> or by using a file stored on each node. Both configuration options are merged together. When a user authenticates against a PKI realm, the privileges for that user are the union of all privileges defined by the roles to which the user is mapped. You identify a user by the distinguished name in their certificate. For example, the following mapping configuration maps `John Doe` to the `user` role: Using the role-mapping API: [source,js] -------------------------------------------------- PUT /_security/role_mapping/users { "roles" : [ "user" ], "rules" : { "field" : { "dn" : "cn=John Doe,ou=example,o=com" <1> } }, "enabled": true } -------------------------------------------------- // CONSOLE <1> The distinguished name (DN) of a PKI user. Or, alternatively, configured inside a role-mapping file. The file's path defaults to `ES_PATH_CONF/role_mapping.yml`. You can specify a different path (which must be within ES_PATH_CONF) by using the `files.role_mapping` realm setting (e.g. `xpack.security.authc.realms.pki.pki1.files.role_mapping`): [source, yaml] ------------------------------------------------------------ user: <1> - "cn=John Doe,ou=example,o=com" <2> ------------------------------------------------------------ <1> The name of a role. <2> The distinguished name (DN) of a PKI user. The distinguished name for a PKI user follows X.500 naming conventions which place the most specific fields (like `cn` or `uid`) at the beginning of the name, and the most general fields (like `o` or `dc`) at the end of the name. Some tools, such as _openssl_, may print out the subject name in a different format. One way that you can determine the correct DN for a certificate is to use the <> (use the relevant PKI certificate as the means of authentication) and inspect the metadata field in the result. The user's distinguished name will be populated under the `pki_dn` key. You can also use the authenticate API to validate your role mapping. For more information, see {stack-ov}/mapping-roles.html[Mapping Users and Groups to Roles]. NOTE: The PKI realm supports {stack-ov}/realm-chains.html#authorization_realms[authorization realms] as an alternative to role mapping. -- [float] [role="xpack"] [[pki-realm-for-proxied-clients]] ==== PKI authentication for clients connecting to {kib} By default, the PKI realm relies on the node's network interface to perform the SSL/TLS handshake and extract the client certificate. This behaviour requires that that clients connect directly to {es} so that their SSL connection is terminated by the {es} node. If SSL/TLS authenticatication is to be performed by {kib}, the PKI realm must be configured to permit delegation. Specifically, when clients presenting X.509 certificates connect to {kib}, {kib} performs the SSL/TLS authentication. {kib} then forwards the client's certificate chain, by calling an {es} API, to have them further validated by the PKI realms that have been configured for delegation. To permit authentication delegation for a specific {es} PKI realm, start by configuring the realm for the usual case, as detailed in the <> section. Note that you must explicitly configure a `truststore` (or, equivalently `certificate_authorities`) even though it is the same trust configuration that you have configured on the network layer. Afterwards, simply toggle the `delegation.enabled` realm setting to `true`. This realm is now allowed to validate delegated PKI authentication (after restarting {es}). NOTE: PKI authentication delegation requires that the `xpack.security.authc.token.enabled` setting be `true` and that SSL/TLS be configured (without SSL/TLS client authentication). NOTE: {kib} also needs to be {kibana-ref}/kibana-authentication.html#pki-authentication[configured to allow PKI certificate authentication]. A PKI realm with `delegation.enabled` still works unchanged for clients connecting directly to {es}. Directly authenticated users, and users that are PKI authenticated by delegation to {kib} both follow the same {stack-ov}/mapping-roles.html[role mapping rules] or {stack-ov}/realm-chains.html#authorization_realms[authorization realms configurations]. However, if you use the <>, you can distinguish between users that are authenticated by delegation and users that are authenticated directly. The former have the extra fields `pki_delegated_by_user` and `pki_delegated_by_realm` in the user's metadata. In the common setup, where authentication is delegated to {kib}, the values of these fields are `kibana` and `reserved`, respectively. For example, the following role mapping rule will assign the `role_for_pki1_direct` role to all users that have been authenticated directly by the `pki1` realm, by connecting to {es} instead of going through {kib}: [source,js] -------------------------------------------------- PUT /_security/role_mapping/direct_pki_only { "roles" : [ "role_for_pki1_direct" ], "rules" : { "all": [ { "field": {"realm.name": "pki1"} }, { "field": { "metadata.pki_delegated_by_user": null <1> } } ] }, "enabled": true } -------------------------------------------------- // CONSOLE <1> only when this metadata field is set (it is *not* `null`) the user has been authenticated in the delegation scenario.