Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch is trying to authenticate a user using LDAP or Active Directory, and it’s in user search mode. The “basedn” and “search filter” are parameters used to locate the user within the directory. The error suggests that there’s a problem with these parameters. To resolve this issue, you should verify the correctness of the “basedn” and “search filter” parameters. Also, ensure that the user running Elasticsearch has sufficient permissions to perform a search in the directory. Lastly, check the connectivity between Elasticsearch and the LDAP/Active Directory server.
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
A plugin is used to enhance the core functionalities of Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch provides some core plugins as a part of their release installation. In addition to those core plugins, it is possible to write your own custom plugins as well. There are several community plugins available on GitHub for various use cases.
Examples
Get all of the instructions for the plugin:
sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin -h
Installing the S3 plugin for storing Elasticsearch snapshots on S3:
sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin install repository-s3
Removing a plugin:
sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin remove repository-s3
Installing a plugin using the file’s path:
sudo bin/elasticsearch-plugin install file:///path/to/plugin.zip
Notes and good things to know
- Plugins are installed and removed using the elasticsearch-plugin script, which ships as a part of the Elasticsearch installation and can be found inside the bin/ directory of the Elasticsearch installation path.
- A plugin has to be installed on every node of the cluster and each of the nodes has to be restarted to make the plugin visible.
- You can also download the plugin manually and then install it using the elasticsearch-plugin install command, providing the file name/path of the plugin’s source file.
- When a plugin is removed, you will need to restart every Elasticsearch node in order to complete the removal process.
Common issues
- Managing permission issues during and after plugin installation is the most common problem. If Elasticsearch was installed using the DEB or RPM packages then the plugin has to be installed using the root user. Otherwise you can install the plugin as the user that owns all of the Elasticsearch files.
- In the case of DEB or RPM package installation, it is important to check the permissions of the plugins directory after you install it. You can update the permission if it has been modified using the following command:
chown -R elasticsearch:elasticsearch path_to_plugin_directory
- If your Elasticsearch nodes are running in a private subnet without internet access, you cannot install a plugin directly. In this case, you can simply download the plugins and copy the files inside the plugins directory of the Elasticsearch installation path on every node. The node has to be restarted in this case as well.
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 :
throw new IllegalArgumentException("[" + RealmSettings.getFullSettingKey(config;
LdapUserSearchSessionFactorySettings.SEARCH_BASE_DN) + "] must be specified");
}
scope = LdapUserSearchSessionFactorySettings.SEARCH_SCOPE.get(settings);
searchFilter = getSearchFilter(config);
logger.info("Realm [{}] is in user-search mode - base_dn=[{}]; search filter=[{}]";
config.name(); userSearchBaseDn; searchFilter);
}
static boolean hasUserSearchSettings(RealmConfig config) {
return config.settings().getByPrefix("user_search.").isEmpty() == false;
