NOTE: You are looking at documentation for an older release. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
File-based user authenticationedit
You can manage and authenticate users with the built-in file realm.
With the file realm, users are defined in local files on each node in the cluster.
As the administrator of the cluster, it is your responsibility to
ensure the same users are defined on every node in the cluster. The Elastic Stack
security features do not deliver any mechanism to guarantee this. You should
also be aware that you cannot add or manage users in the file realm via the
user APIs and you cannot add or manage them in Kibana on the
Management / Security / Users page
The file realm is very useful as a fallback or recovery realm. For example in cases where
the cluster is unresponsive or the security index is unavailable, or when you forget the
password for your administrative users.
In this type of scenario, the file realm is a convenient way out - you can
define a new admin user in the file realm and use it to log in and reset the
credentials of all other users.
When you configure realms in elasticsearch.yml, only the realms you
specify are used for authentication. To use the file realm you must explicitly
include it in the realm chain.
To define users, the security features provide the users command-line tool. This tool enables you to add and remove users, assign user roles, and manage user passwords.
For more information, see Configuring a file realm.