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Use TLS certificate

If enableSSL is set to be true in Elasticsearch object, only HTTPS calls are allowed to database server.

Before You Begin

At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using Minikube.

Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.

To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.

$ kubectl create ns demo
namespace "demo" created

$ kubectl get ns demo
NAME    STATUS  AGE
demo    Active  5s

Note: Yaml files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/elasticsearch folder in github repository kubedb/cli.

We need an Elasticsearch object in Running phase where enableSSL is set to be true.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  name: ssl-elasticsearch
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "5.6"
  replicas: 2
  enableSSL: true

If Elasticsearch object ssl-elasticsearch doesn’t exists, create it first.

$ kubedb create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedb/cli/0.8.0-rc.0/docs/examples/elasticsearch/search-guard/ssl-elasticsearch.yaml
elasticsearch "ssl-elasticsearch" created
$ kubedb get es -n demo ssl-elasticsearch
NAME                STATUS    AGE
ssl-elasticsearch   Running   17m

HTTPS request to Elasticsearch

If enableSSL is set to be true, only HTTPS calls are allowed to Elasticsearch server. If certificates are not provided when Elasticsearch is created, KubeDB operator will create necessary certificates and use those in Search Guard.

Lets check the certificate, KubeDB created for Elasticsearch ssl-elasticsearch.

$ kubectl get secret -n demo ssl-elasticsearch-cert -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
data:
  client.jks: /u3+7QAAAAIAAAABAAAA...mVv0I52GubpXTAahXDo=
  node.jks: /u3+7QAAAAIAAAABAAAA...pn6opk0qoxabtPTP30c=
  root.jks: /u3+7QAAAAIAAAABAAAA...rjIEWtBA1IMnDcB2JJm5
  root.pem: LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBDRVJU...VElGSUNBVEUtLS0tLQo=
  sgadmin.jks: /u3+7QAAAAIAAAABAAAA...12OXut1U7gYnEyJsBg==
  key_pass: NnRhN3h2
kind: Secret
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2018-02-19T09:51:45Z
  labels:
    kubedb.com/kind: Elasticsearch
    kubedb.com/name: ssl-elasticsearch
  name: ssl-elasticsearch-cert
  namespace: demo
  resourceVersion: "754"
  selfLink: /api/v1/namespaces/demo/secrets/ssl-elasticsearch-cert
  uid: 7efdaf31-155a-11e8-a001-42010a8000d5
type: Opaque

Connect Elasticsearch

In this tutorial, we will expose ClusterIP Service ssl-elasticsearch to connect database from local.

$ kubectl expose svc -n demo ssl-elasticsearch --name=ssl-es-exposed --port=9200 --protocol=TCP --type=NodePort
service "ssl-es-exposed" exposed
$ kubectl get svc -n demo ssl-es-exposed
NAME             TYPE       CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
ssl-es-exposed   NodePort   10.110.138.210   <none>        9200:30582/TCP   2m

Elasticsearch ssl-elasticsearch is exposed with following URL

$ minikube service ssl-es-exposed -n demo --https --url
https://192.168.99.100:30582

To connect Elasticsearch server securely, now you need to use DNS endpoints of client certificate which are:

  • localhost
  • ssl-elasticsearch.demo.svc

Lets use ssl-elasticsearch.svc.demo as host name

curl https://ssl-elasticsearch.demo.svc:30582

Note: You need to set ssl-elasticsearch.svc.demo as DNS entry of IP 192.168.99.100 (minikube IP)

As TLS on HTTP layer is enabled, we need to provide root/ca certificate.

To get the root certificate data from Secret, run following command

$ kubectl get secrets -n demo ssl-elasticsearch-cert -o jsonpath='{.data.\root\.pem}' | base64 --decode > root.pem

Now try to connect, it will give Unauthorized reply. That means, provided certificate works

$ curl https://ssl-elasticsearch.demo.svc:30582 --cacert root.pem
Unauthorized⏎

Run following command to get admin user password

$ kubectl get secrets -n demo ssl-elasticsearch-auth -o jsonpath='{.data.\ADMIN_PASSWORD}' | base64 -d
uv2io5au⏎

Now run following commands to connect to Elasticsearch server in secure mode with basic auth information.

export es_service=https://ssl-elasticsearch.demo.svc:30582
export es_admin_pass=$(kubectl get secrets -n demo ssl-elasticsearch-auth -o jsonpath='{.data.\ADMIN_PASSWORD}' | base64 -d)
curl --user "admin:$es_admin_pass" "$es_service/_cluster/health?pretty" --cacert root.pem
{
  "cluster_name" : "ssl-elasticsearch",
  "status" : "green",
  "timed_out" : false,
  "number_of_nodes" : 2,
  "number_of_data_nodes" : 2,
  "active_primary_shards" : 1,
  "active_shards" : 2,
  "relocating_shards" : 0,
  "initializing_shards" : 0,
  "unassigned_shards" : 0,
  "delayed_unassigned_shards" : 0,
  "number_of_pending_tasks" : 0,
  "number_of_in_flight_fetch" : 0,
  "task_max_waiting_in_queue_millis" : 0,
  "active_shards_percent_as_number" : 100.0
}

In summary,

  • If enableSSL is not set, you do not need certificate to validate client, but still you need basic auth.
  • If enableSSL is set, you need root certificate to validate client.

If certificate Secret is not provided when creating Elasticsearch, one will be created for user.

Note: Do not need to provide client certificate. Client is verified by valid host name.

Cleaning up

To cleanup the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:

$ kubectl patch -n demo es/ssl-elasticsearch -p '{"spec":{"doNotPause":false}}' --type="merge"
$ kubectl delete -n demo es/ssl-elasticsearch

$ kubectl patch -n demo drmn/ssl-elasticsearch -p '{"spec":{"wipeOut":true}}' --type="merge"
$ kubectl delete -n demo drmn/ssl-elasticsearch

$ kubectl delete ns demo

Next Steps