Version: 7.x-47.0.0
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Expert: Role mapping modes

By default, Search Guard maps every incoming request to a Search Guard role by mapping the user name, the backend roles and/or the hostname to one or more Search Guard roles. This is configured in roles mapping configuration.

This offers great flexibility when working with external authentication systems like LDAP, which have their own role management: You can for example map multiple backend roles stored in your LDAP to one Search Guard role. The same applies for backend roles coming from a JWT or the Internal Users Database.

However, in some cases this is too much overhead, especially when you want to map backend roles 1:1 to Search Guard roles. For example, you want to just map a backend role from LDAP or the Internal Users Database directly to a Search Guard role.

By specifying the role mapping mode, you can configure how Search Guard maps backend roles. This can be configured in elasticsearch.yml by setting:

searchguard.roles_mapping_resolution: <mode>

Mode: MAPPING_ONLY

This is the default and means that all backend roles are mapped via the roles mapping as described above. If there is no entry for a specific backend role in sg_roles_mapping.yml it is not mapped to any Search Guard role.

Mode: BACKENDROLES_ONLY

The backend roles are mapped to Search Guard roles directly, effectively skipping the role mapping completely. If you use this setting, you can use the names of the backend roles in sg_roles.yml directly, but no additional mapping takes place.

For example, if your LDAP returns a role ldap_finance, you can directly define the permissions in sg_roles.yml like:

ldap_finance:
  cluster_permissions:
    - CLUSTER_COMPOSITE_OPS_RO
  index_permissions:
    ...

Mode: BOTH

In this mode, the roles are mapped via sg_roles_mapping.yml as in MAPPING_ONLY, but the backend roles are added to the final set of roles as well. This is basically a combination of MAPPING_ONLY and BACKENDROLES_ONLY.

Let’s say you’ve defined a mapping like:

sg_finance:
  backend_roles:
    - ldap_finance

If your LDAP returns a role ldap_finance, the user will have two Search Guard roles:

  • ldap_finance: The role from LDAP
  • sg_finance: The mapped role from LDAP


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