Document-level security lets you restrict a role to a subset of documents in an index. The easiest way to get started with document- and field-level security is open OpenSearch Dashboards and choose **Security**. Then choose **Roles**, create a new role, and review the **Index permissions** section.
Document-level security uses the OpenSearch query DSL to define which documents a role grants access to. In OpenSearch Dashboards, choose an index pattern and provide a query in the **Document level security** section:
```json
{
"bool": {
"must": {
"match": {
"genres": "Comedy"
}
}
}
}
```
This query specifies that for the role to have access to a document, its `genres` field must include `Comedy`.
A typical request to the `_search` API includes `{ "query": { ... } }` around the query, but in this case, you only need to specify the query itself.
In the REST API, you provide the query as a string, so you must escape your quotes. This role allows a user to read any document in any index with the field `public` set to `true`:
These queries can be as complex as you want, but we recommend keeping them simple to minimize the performance impact that the document-level security feature has on the cluster.
{: .warning }
## Parameter substitution
A number of variables exist that you can use to enforce rules based on the properties of a user. For example, `${user.name}` is replaced with the name of the current user.
This rule allows a user to read any document where the username is a value of the `readable_by` field:
You can perform term-level lookup queries (TLQs) with document-level security (DLS) using either of two modes: adaptive or filter level. The default mode is adaptive, where OpenSearch automatically switches between Lucene-level or filter-level mode depending on whether or not there is a TLQ. DLS queries without TLQs are executed in Lucene-level mode, whereas DLS queries with TLQs are executed in filter-level mode.
By default, the DLS evaluation mode is set to `adaptive`. You can also explicitly set the mode in `opensearch.yml` with the `plugins.security.dls.mode` setting. Add a line to `opensearch.yml` with the desired evaluation mode.
Lucene-level DLS | `lucene-level` | This setting makes all DLS queries apply to the Lucene level. | Lucene-level DLS modifies Lucene queries and data structures directly. This is the most efficient mode but does not allow certain advanced constructs in DLS queries, including TLQs.
Filter-level DLS | `filter-level` | This setting makes all DLS queries apply to the filter level. | In this mode, OpenSearch applies DLS by modifying queries that OpenSearch receives. This allows for term-level lookup queries in DLS queries, but you can only use the `get`, `search`, `mget`, and `msearch` operations to retrieve data from the protected index. Additionally, cross-cluster searches are limited with this mode.
Adaptive | `adaptive-level` | The default setting that allows OpenSearch to automatically choose the mode. | DLS queries without TLQs are executed in Lucene-level mode, while DLS queries that contain TLQ are executed in filter- level mode.