Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch cannot access the necessary credentials from the specified source. This could be due to incorrect file paths, insufficient permissions, or the credentials file being missing or corrupted. To resolve this issue, you can verify the file path and ensure it’s correct, check the permissions to ensure Elasticsearch can access the file, or recreate the credentials file if it’s missing or corrupted. Additionally, ensure the credentials themselves are correct and properly formatted.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Unable to load credentials from ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: repository-s3, repositories.
Overview
An Elasticsearch snapshot provides a backup mechanism that takes the current state and data in the cluster and saves it to a repository (read snapshot for more information). The backup process requires a repository to be created first. The repository needs to be registered using the _snapshot endpoint, and multiple repositories can be created per cluster. The following repository types are supported:
Repository types
| Repository type | Configuration type |
|---|---|
| Shared file system | Type: “fs” |
| S3 | Type : “s3” |
| HDFS | Type :“hdfs” |
| Azure | Type: “azure” |
| Google Cloud Storage | Type : “gcs” |
Examples
To register an “fs” repository:
PUT _snapshot/my_repo_01
{
"type": "fs",
"settings": {
"location": "/mnt/my_repo_dir"
}
}Notes and good things to know
- S3, HDFS, Azure and Google Cloud require a relevant plugin to be installed before it can be used for a snapshot.
- The setting, path.repo: /mnt/my_repo_dir needs to be added to elasticsearch.yml on all the nodes if you are planning to use the repo type of file system. Otherwise, it will fail.
- When using remote repositories, the network bandwidth and repository storage throughput should be high enough to complete the snapshot operations normally, otherwise you will end up with partial snapshots.
Log Context
Log “Unable to load credentials from ” classname is S3Service.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
@Override
public AWSCredentials getCredentials() {
try {
return delegate.getCredentials();
} catch (Exception e) {
logger.error(() -> "Unable to load credentials from " + delegate; e);
throw e;
}
}
@Override
