Unclear error with multi.allow_explicit_index disabled in ES

[mohantnr]

Kibana version:kibana-4.5.1

Elasticsearch version:elasticsearch-2.3.3-1

Server OS version:Centos6.7

Browser version:Google Chrome Version 53.0.2785.116 m

Browser OS version:Windows 10

Original install method (e.g. download page, yum, from source, etc.): Yum

Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior:
We have enabled rest.action.multi.allow_explicit_index: false in yml file in ES and after that we are facing issue in Kibana

Courier Fetch Error: unhandled courier request error: [illegal_argument_exception] explicit index in multi get is not allowed

Steps to reproduce:

1. add the entry "enabled rest.action.multi.allow_explicit_index: false" in /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml in all nodes
2. restart ES instance
3. open Kibana browser

Errors in browser console (if relevant):
Courier Fetch Error: unhandled courier request error: [illegal_argument_exception] explicit index in multi get is not allowed

Provide logs and/or server output (if relevant):
ES server logs:
[2016-09-22 21:41:39,592][DEBUG][rest.suppressed ] /_mget Params: {preference=1474605698868, timeout=0, ignore_unavailable=true}
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: explicit index in multi get is not allowed
at org.elasticsearch.action.get.MultiGetRequest.parseDocuments(MultiGetRequest.java:398)
at org.elasticsearch.action.get.MultiGetRequest.add(MultiGetRequest.java:364)
at org.elasticsearch.rest.action.get.RestMultiGetAction.handleRequest(RestMultiGetAction.java:68)
at org.elasticsearch.rest.BaseRestHandler.handleRequest(BaseRestHandler.java:54)
at org.elasticsearch.rest.RestController.executeHandler(RestController.java:205)
at org.elasticsearch.rest.RestController.dispatchRequest(RestController.java:166)

Describe the feature:

[mohantnr]

any update on this error?

[epixa]

By default, Kibana always searches against explicit indices via the request body, so this configuration in Elasticsearch is not supported by Kibana.

To support this, we would really need to create more consistent conventions for our multi requests, and it may not be something we can address in a performant way on dashboard at all.

[spalger]

We talked about this as a group, and decided that the complexity of supporting this feature isn't really worth it in the short-term. We absolutely need to improve the error messaging though, so I've updated the title/tags appropriately.

@tbragin also plans to check with the elasticsearch folks if this is even a setting they plan to support long term now that shield is the proper way to implement security in elasticsearch.

[mohantnr]

Thanks for the update

[tbragin]

I followed up with @clintongormley on long-term viability of URL-based access control in Elasticsearch. At this time, the plan is to leave this setting in Elasticsearch so legacy perimeter-based security in custom UIs built on top of Elasticsearch do not break, but there is no expectation for this functionality to work through Kibana. The supported way for fine-grained data-level access control in Kibana is through using Shield.

[jimgoodwin]

We decided to have Kibana go into 'red' state with an error message indicating that we can't work with this setting.

[jimgoodwin]

@spalger did we add this to the startup checks ?

[spalger]

See #10855