Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch is trying to authenticate a user using LDAP or Active Directory, but it’s having trouble finding the user’s DN (Distinguished Name). This could be due to incorrect configuration of the user search filter or base DN. To resolve this issue, you can: 1) Verify the correctness of the base DN and user search filter in your realm configuration. 2) Check the connectivity and accessibility of your LDAP/AD server. 3) Ensure that the user exists in the LDAP/AD server and that Elasticsearch has the necessary permissions to search for users.
This log is related to search problems, in addition to reading the guide below you can use the free Search Log Analyzer. With Opster’s Analyzer, you can easily locate slow searches and understand what led to them adding additional load to your system. The tool is free and takes just 2 minutes to run.
Overview
Search refers to the searching of documents in an index or multiple indices. The simple search is just a GET API request to the _search endpoint. The search query can either be provided in query string or through a request body.
Examples
When looking for any documents in this index, if search parameters are not provided, every document is a hit and by default 10 hits will be returned.
GET my_documents/_search
A JSON object is returned in response to a search query. A 200 response code means the request was completed successfully.
{
"took" : 1,
"timed_out" : false,
"_shards" : {
"total" : 2,
"successful" : 2,
"failed" : 0
},
"hits" : {
"total" : 2,
"max_score" : 1.0,
"hits" : [
...
]
}
}Notes and good things to know
- Distributed search is challenging and every shard of the index needs to be searched for hits, and then those hits are combined into a single sorted list as a final result.
- There are two phases of search: the query phase and the fetch phase.
- In the query phase, the query is executed on each shard locally and top hits are returned to the coordinating node. The coordinating node merges the results and creates a global sorted list.
- In the fetch phase, the coordinating node brings the actual documents for those hit IDs and returns them to the requesting client.
- A coordinating node needs enough memory and CPU in order to handle the fetch phase.
Log Context
Log “Realm [{}] is in user-search mode – base_dn=[{}]; search filter=[{}]” classname is LdapUserSearchSessionFactory.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
"[" + RealmSettings.getFullSettingKey(config; LdapUserSearchSessionFactorySettings.SEARCH_BASE_DN) + "] must be specified"
);
});
scope = config.getSetting(LdapUserSearchSessionFactorySettings.SEARCH_SCOPE);
searchFilter = getSearchFilter(config);
logger.info("Realm [{}] is in user-search mode - base_dn=[{}]; search filter=[{}]"; config.name(); userSearchBaseDn; searchFilter);
}
static List extends Setting.AffixSetting>> configuredUserSearchSettings(RealmConfig config) {
return Stream.of(
LdapUserSearchSessionFactorySettings.SEARCH_BASE_DN;
