OpenID Connect

    • Automatic configuration

      Point the Security plugin to the metadata of your identity provider (IdP), and the Security plugin uses that data for configuration.

    • Automatic key fetching

      The Security plugin automatically retrieves the public key for validating the JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) from the JSON Web Key Set (JWKS) endpoint of your IdP. You don’t have to configure keys or shared secrets in .

    • Key rollover

      You can change the keys used for signing the JWTs directly in your IdP. If the Security plugin detects an unknown key, it tries to retrieve it from the IdP. This rollover is transparent to the user.

    • OpenSearch Dashboards as single sign-on or as one option among multiple authentication types in the Dashboards sign-in window.

    To integrate with an OpenID IdP, set up an authentication domain and choose openid as the HTTP authentication type. JWTs already contain all of the information required to verify the request, so set challenge to false and authentication_backend to noop.

    This is the minimal configuration:

    The following table shows the configuration parameters.

    OpenID Connect URL

    OpenID Connect specifies various endpoints for integration purposes. The most important endpoint is well-known, which lists endpoints and other configuration options for the Security plugin.

    The URL differs between IdPs, but usually ends in /.well-known/openid-configuration.

    Keycloak example:

    1. http(s)://<server>:<port>/auth/realms/<realm>/.well-known/openid-configuration

    The main information that the Security plugin needs is jwks_uri. This URI specifies where the IdP’s public keys in JWKS format can be found. For example:

    1. jwks_uri: "https://keycloak.example.com:8080/auth/realms/master/protocol/openid-connect/certs"
    1. {
    2.    keys:[
    3.       {
    4.          kid:"V-diposfUJIk5jDBFi_QRouiVinG5PowskcSWy5EuCo",
    5.          kty:"RSA",
    6.          alg:"RS256",
    7.          use:"sig",
    8.          n:"rI8aUrAcI_auAdF10KUopDOmEFa4qlUUaNoTER90XXWADtKne6VsYoD3ZnHGFXvPkRAQLM5d65ScBzWungcbLwZGWtWf5T2NzQj0wDyquMRwwIAsFDFtAZWkXRfXeXrFY0irYUS9rIJDafyMRvBbSz1FwWG7RTQkILkwiC4B8W1KdS5d9EZ8JPhrXvPMvW509g0GhLlkBSbPBeRSUlAS2Kk6nY5i3m6fi1H9CP3Y_X-TzOjOTsxQA_1pdP5uubXPUh5YfJihXcgewO9XXiqGDuQn6wZ3hrF6HTlhNWGcSyQPKh1gEcmXWQlRENZMvYET-BuJEE7eKyM5vRhjNoYR3w",
    9.          e:"AQAB"
    10.       }
    11.    ]
    12. }

    Occasionally you may find that the clock times between the authentication server and the OpenSearch node are not perfectly synchronized. When this is the case, even by a few seconds, the system that either issues or receives a JWT may try to validate nbf (not before) and exp (expiration) claims and fail to authenticate the user due to the time disparity.

    By default, Security allows for a window of 30 seconds to compensate for possible misalignment between server clock times. To set a custom value for this feature and override the default, you can add the jwt_clock_skew_tolerance_seconds setting to the config.yml:

    1.   type: openid
    2.   challenge: false
    3.   config:
    4.     subject_key: preferred_username
    5.     roles_key: roles
    6.     openid_connect_url: https://keycloak.example.com:8080/auth/realms/master/.well-known/openid-configuration
    7.     jwt_clock_skew_tolerance_seconds: 20

    Fetching public keys

    When an IdP generates and signs a JWT, it must add the ID of the key to the JWT header. For example:

    As per the OpenID Connect specification, the kid (key ID) is mandatory. Token verification does not work if an IdP fails to add the kid field to the JWT.

    If the Security plugin receives a JWT with an unknown kid, it visits the IdP’s jwks_uri and retrieves all available, valid keys. These keys are used and cached until a refresh is triggered by retrieving another unknown key ID.

    The Security plugin can maintain multiple valid public keys at once. The OpenID specification does not allow for a validity period of public keys, so a key is valid until it has been removed from the list of valid keys in your IdP and the list of valid keys has been refreshed.

    If you want to roll over a key in your IdP, follow these best practices:

    • Create a new key pair in your IdP, and give the new key a higher priority than the currently used key.

      Your IdP uses this new key over the old key.

    • Upon first appearance of the new kid in a JWT, the Security plugin refreshes the key list.

      At this point, both the old key and the new key are valid. Tokens signed with the old key are also still valid.

    • The old key can be removed from your IdP when the last JWT signed with this key has timed out.

    If you have to immediately change your public key, you can also delete the old key first and then create a new one. In this case, all JWTs signed with the old key become invalid immediately.

    TLS settings

    To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, you should secure the connection between the Security plugin and your IdP with TLS.

    1. config:
    2.   openid_connect_idp:
    3.     enable_ssl: <true|false>
    NameDescription
    enable_sslWhether to use TLS. Default is false.
    verify_hostnamesWhether to verify the hostnames of the IdP’s TLS certificate. Default is true.

    Certificate validation

    To validate the TLS certificate of your IdP, configure either the path to the IdP’s root CA or the root certificate’s content:

    1. config:
    2.   openid_connect_idp:
    3.     enable_ssl: true
    4.     pemtrustedcas_filepath: /full/path/to/trusted_cas.pem
    1. config:
    2.   openid_connect_idp:
    3.     enable_ssl: true
    4.     pemtrustedcas_content: |-
    5.       MIID/jCCAuagAwIBAgIBATANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADCBjzETMBEGCgmSJomT8ixk
    6.       ARkWA2NvbTEXMBUGCgmSJomT8ixkARkWB2V4YW1wbGUxGTAXBgNVBAoMEEV4YW1w
    7.       bGUgQ29tIEluYy4xITAfBgNVBAsMGEV4YW1wbGUgQ29tIEluYy4gUm9vdCBDQTEh
    8.       ...

    To use TLS client authentication, configure the PEM certificate and private key the Security plugin should send for TLS client authentication (or its content):

    1. config:
    2.   openid_connect_idp:
    3.     enable_ssl: true
    4.     pemkey_filepath: /full/path/to/private.key.pem
    5.     pemkey_password: private_key_password
    6.     pemcert_filepath: /full/path/to/certificate.pem
    NameDescription
    enable_ssl_client_authWhether to send the client certificate to the IdP server. Default is false.
    pemcert_filepathAbsolute path to the client certificate.
    pemcert_contentThe content of the client certificate. Cannot be used when pemcert_filepath is set.
    pemkey_filepathAbsolute path to the file containing the private key of the client certificate.
    pemkey_contentThe content of the private key of your client certificate. Cannot be used when pemkey_filepath is set.
    pemkey_passwordThe password of your private key, if any.

    Enabled ciphers and protocols

    You can limit the allowed ciphers and TLS protocols by using the following keys.

    To help protect against denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, the Security plugin only allows a maximum number of new key IDs in a certain span of time. If the number of new key IDs exceeds this threshold, the Security plugin returns HTTP status code 503 (Service Unavailable) and refuses to query the IdP. By default, the Security plugin does not allow for more than 10 unknown key IDs within 10 seconds. The following table shows how to modify these settings.

    NameDescription
    refresh_rate_limit_countThe maximum number of unknown key IDs in the time frame. Default is 10.
    refresh_rate_limit_time_window_msThe time frame to use when checking the maximum number of unknown key IDs, in milliseconds. Default is 10000 (10 seconds).

    OpenSearch Dashboards single sign-on

    Activate OpenID Connect by adding the following to opensearch_dashboards.yml:

    1. opensearch_security.auth.type: "openid"

    OpenID Connect providers usually publish their configuration in JSON format under the metadata url. Therefore, most settings can be pulled in automatically, so the OpenSearch Dashboards configuration becomes minimal. The most important settings are the following:

    • Connect URL

    • Client ID

      Every IdP can host multiple clients (sometimes called applications) with different settings and authentication protocols. When enabling OpenID Connect, you should create a new client for OpenSearch Dashboards in your IdP. The client ID uniquely identifies OpenSearch Dashboards.

    • Client secret

      Beyond the ID, each client also has a client secret assigned. The client secret is usually generated when the client is created. Applications can obtain an identity token only when they provide a client secret. You can find this secret in the settings of the client on your IdP.

    Configuration settings

    1. # Enable OpenID authentication
    2. opensearch_security.auth.type: "openid"
    4. # The IdP metadata endpoint
    5. opensearch_security.openid.connect_url: "http://keycloak.example.com:8080/auth/realms/master/.well-known/openid-configuration"
    6. # The ID of the OpenID Connect client in your IdP
    7. opensearch_security.openid.client_id: "opensearch-dashboards-sso"
    9. # The client secret of the OpenID Connect client
    10. opensearch_security.openid.client_secret: "a59c51f5-f052-4740-a3b0-e14ba355b520"
    12. # Use HTTPS instead of HTTP
    13. opensearch.url: "https://<hostname>.com:<http port>"
    15. # Configure the OpenSearch Dashboards internal server user
    16. opensearch.username: "kibanaserver"
    17. opensearch.password: "kibanaserver"
    19. # Disable SSL verification when using self-signed demo certificates
    20. opensearch.ssl.verificationMode: none
    22. # allowlist basic headers and multi-tenancy header
    23. opensearch.requestHeadersAllowlist: ["Authorization", "security_tenant"]

    To include OpenID Connect with other authentication types in the Dashboards sign-in window, see .

    Session management with additional cookies

    To improve session management—especially for users who have multiple roles assigned to them—Dashboards provides an option to split cookie payloads into multiple cookies and then recombine the payloads when receiving them. This can help prevent larger OpenID Connect assertions from exceeding size limits for each cookie. The two settings in the following example allow you to set a prefix name for additional cookies and specify the number of them. They are added to the opensearch_dashboards.yml file. The default number of additional cookies is three:

    1. opensearch_security.openid.extra_storage.cookie_prefix: security_authentication_oidc
    2. opensearch_security.openid.extra_storage.additional_cookies: 3

    Note that reducing the number of additional cookies can cause some of the cookies that were in use before the change to stop working. We recommend establishing a fixed number of additional cookies and not changing the configuration after that.

    If the ID token from the IdP is especially large, OpenSearch may throw a server log authentication error indicating that the HTTP header is too large. In this case, you can increase the value for the http.max_header_size setting in the opensearch.yml file.

    OpenSearch security configuration

    Modify and apply the following example settings in config.yml:

    1. basic_internal_auth_domain:
    2.   http_enabled: true
    3.   transport_enabled: true
    4.   order: 0
    5.   http_authenticator:
    6.     type: basic
    7.     challenge: false
    8.   authentication_backend:
    9.     type: internal
    10. openid_auth_domain:
    11.   http_enabled: true
    12.   transport_enabled: true
    13.   order: 1
    14.   http_authenticator:
    15.     type: openid
    16.     challenge: false
    17.     config:
    18.       subject_key: preferred_username
    19.       roles_key: roles
    20.       openid_connect_url: https://keycloak.example.com:8080/auth/realms/master/.well-known/openid-configuration