Tag Archives: Amazon OpenSearch Service

Building SAML federation for Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards with Auth0

Post Syndicated from Raghavarao Sodabathina original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/building-saml-federation-for-amazon-opensearch-dashboards-with-auth0/

Amazon OpenSearch is a fully managed, distributed, open search, and analytics service that is powered by the Apache Lucene search library. OpenSearch is derived from Elasticsearch 7.10.2, and is used for real-time application monitoring, log analytics, and website search. It’s ideal for use cases that require fast access and response for large volumes of data. OpenSearch Dashboards is derived from Kibana 7.10.2, and used for visual data exploration. With Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)-based federation for OpenSearch, Dashboards lets you use your existing identity provider (IdP) like Auth0. You can use Auth0 to provide single sign-on (SSO) for OpenSearch Dashboards on Amazon OpenSearch search domains. It also gives you fine-grained access control, and the ability to search your data and build visualizations. Amazon OpenSearch supports providers that use the SAML 2.0 standard, such as Auth0, Okta, Keycloak, Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), and Ping Identity (PingID).

In this post, we provide step-by-step guidance to show you how to set up a trial Auth0 account. We’ll demonstrate how to build users and groups within your organization’s directory, and enable SP-initiated single sign-on (SSO) into OpenSearch Dashboards.

To use this feature, you must enable fine-grained access control. Rather than authenticating through Amazon Cognito or an internal user database, SAML authentication for OpenSearch Dashboards lets you use third-party identity providers to log in to the OpenSearch Dashboards. SAML authentication for OpenSearch Dashboards is only for accessing the OpenSearch Dashboards through a web browser. Your SAML credentials do not let you make direct HTTP requests to OpenSearch or OpenSearch Dashboards APIs.

Auth0 is an AWS Competency Partner and popular Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) solution. It supports both service provider (SP)-initiated and identity provider (IdP)-initiated SSO. For SP-initiated SSO, when you sign into the OpenSearch Dashboards login page it sends an authorization request to Auth0. Once it authenticates your identity, you are redirected to OpenSearch Dashboards. In IdP-initiated SSO, you log in to the Auth0 SSO page, and choose OpenSearch Dashboards to open the application.

Overview of AuthO SAML authenticated solution

Figure 1 depicts a sample architecture of a generic, integrated solution between Auth0 and OpenSearch Dashboards over SAML authentication.

High level flow of SAML transactions between Amazon OpenSearch and Auth0

Figure 1. A high-level view of a SAML transaction between Amazon OpenSearch and Auth0

The sign-in flow is as follows:

  1. User opens browser window and navigates to Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards
  2. Amazon OpenSearch generates SAML authentication request
  3. Amazon OpenSearch redirects request back to browser
  4. Browser redirects to Auth0 URL
  5. Auth0 parses SAML request, authenticates user, and generates SAML response
  6. Auth0 returns encoded SAML response to browser
  7. Browser sends SAML response back to Amazon OpenSearch Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL
  8. ACS verifies SAML response
  9. User logs into Amazon OpenSearch domain

Prerequisites

For this walkthrough, you should have the following prerequisites:

  1. An AWS account
  2. A virtual private cloud (VPC) based Amazon OpenSearch domain with fine-grained access control enabled
  3. An Auth0 account with user and a group
  4. A browser with network connectivity to Auth0, Amazon OpenSearch domain, and Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards.

The steps in this post are structured into the following sections:

  1. Identity provider (Auth0) setup
  2. Prepare Amazon OpenSearch for SAML configuration
  3. Identity provider (Auth0) SAML configuration
  4. Finish Amazon OpenSearch for SAML configuration
  5. Validation
  6. Cleanup

Identity provider (Auth0) setup

Step 1: Sign up for an Auth0 account

  • Sign up for an Auth0 account, then click on the Sign up button to complete your account setup.
  • If you already have an account with Auth0, log in to your Auth0 account.

Step 2: Create Groups in Auth0

  • Choose User Management in the left menu and click Users, then click on the +Create User button.
  • Provide an email, password, and connection to your users. Click on the Create button to create your user.
  • Add more users to your Auth0 account.

Step 3: Install Auth0 Extension to create a group and assign users to the group

  • Click on Extensions in the left menu and search for “Auth0 Authorization”. Click on Auth0 Authorization to install the extension, shown in Figure 2.
The diagram depicts the Installing of Auth0 Authorization extension

Figure 2. Installing Auth0 Authorization extension

  • Use all default options and click on the Install button to install the extension.
  • Click on the Auth0 Authorization extension and choose the Accept button to provide access to your Auth0 account.
  • The Auth0 Authorization extension must be configured. Click on Go to Configuration (Figure 3).
The diagram depicts the configuration of Auth0 Authorization extension

Figure 3. Configuring the Auth0 Authorization extension

  • Rotate your API keys and check Groups, Roles, and Permissions to provide authorization to the extension and then click on PUBLISH RULE to complete the configuration, see Figure 4.
The diagram depicts the providing permissions to Auth0 Authorization extension

Figure 4. Providing the permissions to Auth0 Authorization extension

Step 4: Create a group in Auth0

  • Choose Groups from the left menu and click on the Create your first Group button. For this example, we will create a group called opensearch for OpenSearch Dashboards access.
  • Add your users to opensearch by clicking on ADD MEMBERS BUTTON, then click on the CONFIRM button to complete your group assignment (Figure 5).
The diagram depicts the adding users to Auth0 Group

Figure 5. Adding users to Auth0 Group

Step 5: Create an Auth0 Application

  • Choose Applications from the left menu. Click on the +Create Application button.
  • For this example, we are creating an application called “opensearch”.
  • Select Single Page Web Applications, then click on the CREATE button to proceed.
  • Click on the Addons tab on the application Kibana (Figure 6).
The diagram depicts the creation of Auth0 SAML application

Figure 6. Creating an Auth0 SAML application

  • Click on the SAML2 WEB APP, then select settings to provide SAML URLs from Amazon OpenSearch. We will configure these details after preparing the Amazon OpenSearch cluster for SAML.

Prepare Amazon OpenSearch for SAML configuration

Once the Amazon OpenSearch domain is up and running, we can proceed with configuration.

  • Under Actions, choose Edit security configuration (Figure 7).
The diagram depicts the enablement of OpenSearch security configuration for SAML

Figure 7. Enabling Amazon OpenSearch security configuration for SAML

  • Under SAML authentication for OpenSearch Dashboards/Kibana, select the Enable SAML authentication check box (Figure 8). When we enable SAML, it will create different URLs required for configuring SAML with your identity provider.
The diagram depicts the Amazon OpenSearch URLs for SAML configuration

Figure 8. Amazon OpenSearch URLs for SAML configuration

We will be using the Service Provider entity ID and SP-initiated SSO URL (highlighted in Figure 8) for Auth0 SAML configuration. We will complete the rest of the Amazon OpenSearch SAML configuration after the Auth0 SAML configuration.

Auth0 SAML configuration

Go back to Auth0.com, and navigate to Applications from the left menu. Then select the opensearch application that you created as a part of the Auth0 setup.

  • Click on the Addons tab on the application opensearch.
  • Click on the SAML2 WEB APP, then select Settings to provide SAML URLs from Amazon OpenSearch, as shown in Figure 9:
    • Application Callback URL = https://vpc-XXXXX-XXXXX.us-east-1.es.amazonaws.com/_dashboards/_opendistro/_security/saml/acs (SP-initiated SSO URL)
    • audience”: “https://vpc-XXXXX-XXXXX.us-east-1.es.amazonaws.com” (Service provider entity ID)
    • destination”: “ https://vpc-XXXXX-XXXXX.us-east-1.es.amazonaws.com/_plugin/kibana/_opendistro/_security/saml/acs” (SP-initiated SSO URL)
    • Mappings and other configurations shown in Figure 9

{
  "audience": "https://vpc-XXXXX-XXXXX.us-east-1.es.amazonaws.com",
  "destination": "https://vpc-XXXXX-XXXXX.us-east-1.es.amazonaws.com/_plugin/kibana/_opendistro/_security/saml/acs",
  "mappings":
  {
    "email":
    "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress",
    "name": "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/name",
    "groups": "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/claims/Group"
  },
  "createUpnClaim": false,
  "passthroughClaimsWithNoMapping": false,
  "mapUnknownClaimsAsIs": false,
  "mapIdentities": false,
  "nameIdentifierFormat":
  "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress", "nameIdentifierProbes": [
"http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress" ]
}

The diagram depicts the configuration of Auth0 SAML parameters

Figure 9. Configuring Auth0 SAML parameters

  • Click on Enable to save the SAML configurations.
  • Go to the Usage tab, and click on the Download button to download Identity Provider Metadata, see Figure 10.
The diagram depicts the downloading of Auth0 identity provider meta data for SAML configuration

Figure 10. Downloading Auth0 identity provider metadata for SAML configuration

Amazon OpenSearch SAML configuration

  • Switch back to Amazon OpenSearch domain:
    • Navigate to Amazon OpenSearch console
    • Click on Actions, then click on Modify Security configuration
    • Select Enable SAML authentication check box
  • Under Import IdP metadata section (Figure 11):
    • Metadata from IdP: Import the Auth0 identity provider metadata from downloaded XML file
    • SAML master backend role: opensearch (Auth0 group). Provide a SAML backend role/group SAML assertion key for group SSO into Kibana
The diagram depicts the configuration of Amazon OpenSearch SAML parameters

Figure 11. Configuring Amazon OpenSearch SAML parameters

  • Under Optional SAML settings (Figure 12):
    • Leave Subject Key as blank, as Auth0 provides NameIdentifier
    • Role key should be http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/claims/Group. Auth0 lets you view a sample assertion during the configuration process by clicking on the DEBUG button on SAML2 WebApp. Tools like SAML-tracer can help you examine and troubleshoot the contents of real assertions.
    • Session time to live (mins): 60
The diagram depicts the configuration of Amazon OpenSearch optional SAML parameters

Figure 12. Configuring Amazon OpenSearch optional SAML parameters

Click on the Save changes button to complete Amazon OpenSearch SAML configuration for Kibana. We have successfully completed SAML configuration and are now ready for testing.

Validating access with Auth0 users

  • Access OpenSearch Dashboards from the previously created OpenSearch cluster. The OpenSearch Dashboards URL can be found as shown in Figure 13. The first access to the OpenSearch Dashboards URL redirects you to the Auth0 login screen.
The diagram depicts the validation of Auth0 users access with Amazon OpenSearch

Figure 13. Validating Auth0 users access with Amazon OpenSearch

  • Now copy and paste the OpenSearch Dashboards URL in your browser, and enter the user credentials.
  • If your OpenSearch domain is hosted within a private VPC, you will not be able to access your OpenSearch Dashboard over the public internet. But you can still use SAML as long as your browser can communicate with both your OpenSearch cluster and your identity provider.
  • You can create a Mac or Windows EC2 instance within the same VPC. This way you can access Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards from your EC2 instance’s web browser to validate your SAML configuration. You can also access Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards through Site-to-Site VPN from an on-premises environment.
  • After successful login, you will be redirected into the OpenSearch Dashboards home page. Explore our sample data and visualizations in OpenSearch Dashboards, as shown in Figure 14.
SAML authenticated Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards

Figure 14. SAML authenticated Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards

  • You now have successfully federated Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards with Auth0 as an identity provider. You can connect OpenSearch Dashboards by using your Auth0 credentials.

Cleaning up

After you test out this solution, remember to delete all the resources you created to avoid incurring future charges. Refer to these links:

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have demonstrated how to set up Auth0 as an identity provider over SAML authentication for Amazon OpenSearch Dashboards access. With this solution, you now have an OpenSearch Dashboard that uses Auth0 as the custom identity provider for your users. This reduces the customer login process to one set of credentials and improves employee productivity.

Get started by checking the Amazon OpenSearch Developer Guide, which provides guidance on how to build applications using Amazon OpenSearch for your operational analytics.

Understanding the JVMMemoryPressure metric changes in Amazon OpenSearch Service

Post Syndicated from Liz Snyder original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/understanding-the-jvmmemorypressure-metric-changes-in-amazon-opensearch-service/

Amazon OpenSearch Service is a managed service that makes it easy to secure, deploy, and operate OpenSearch and legacy Elasticsearch clusters at scale.

In the latest service software release of Amazon OpenSearch Service, we’ve changed the behavior of the JVMMemoryPressure metric. This metric now reports the overall heap usage, including young and old pools, for all domains that use the G1GC garbage collector. If you’re using Graviton-based data nodes (C6, R6, and M6 instances), or if you enabled Auto-Tune and it has switched your garbage collection algorithm to G1GC, this change will improve your ability to detect and respond to problems with OpenSearch’s Java heap.

Basics of Java garbage collection

Objects in Java are allocated in a heap memory, occupying half of the instance’s RAM up to approximately 32 GB. As your application runs, it creates and destroys objects in the heap, leaving the heap fragmented and making it harder to allocate new objects. Java’s garbage collection algorithm periodically goes through the heap and reclaims the memory of any unused objects. It also compacts the heap when necessary to provide more contiguous free space.

The heap is allocated into smaller memory pools:

Young generation – The young generation memory pool is where new objects are allocated. The young generation is further divided into an Eden space, where all new objects start, and two survivor spaces (S0 and S1), where objects are moved from Eden after surviving one garbage collection cycle. When the young generation fills up, Java performs a minor garbage collection to clean up unmarked objects. Objects that remain in the young generation age until they eventually move to the old generation.

Old generation – The old generation memory pool stores long-lived objects. When objects reach a certain age after multiple garbage collection iterations in the young generation, they are then moved to the old generation.

Permanent generation – The permanent generation contains metadata required by the JVM to describe the classes and methods used in the application at runtime. It is not populated when the old generation’s objects reach a certain age.

Java processes can employ different garbage collection algorithms, selected by command-line option.

  • Concurrent Mark Sweep (CMS) – The different pools are segregated in memory. Stop-the-world pauses, and heap compaction are regular occurrences. The young generation pool is small. All non-Graviton data nodes use CMS.
  • G1 Garbage Collection (G1GC) – All heap memory is a single block, with different areas of memory (regions) allocated to the different pools. The pools are interleaved in physical memory. Stop-the-world pauses and heap compaction are infrequent. The young generation pool is larger. All Graviton data nodes use G1GC. Amazon OpenSearch Service’s Auto-Tune feature can choose G1GC for non-Graviton data nodes.

You can use the CloudWatch console to retrieve statistics about those data points as an ordered set of time-series data, known as metrics. Amazon OpenSearch Service currently publishes three metrics related to JVM memory pressure to CloudWatch:

  • JVMMemoryPressure – The maximum percentage of the Java heap used for all data nodes in the cluster.
  • MasterJVMMemoryPressure – The maximum percentage of the Java heap used for all dedicated master nodes in the cluster.
  • WarmJVMMemoryPressure – The maximum percentage of the Java heap used for UltraWarm nodes in the cluster.

In the latest service software update, Amazon OpenSearch Service improved the logic that it uses to compute these metrics in order to more accurately reflect actual memory utilization.

The problem

Previously, all data nodes used CMS, where the young pool was a small portion of memory. The JVM memory pressure metrics that Amazon OpenSearch Service published to CloudWatch only considered the old pool of the Java heap. You could detect problems in the heap usage by looking only at old generation usage.

When the domain uses G1GC, the young pool is larger, representing a larger percentage of the total heap. Since objects are created first in the young pool, and then moved to the old pool, a significant portion of the usage could be in the young pool. However, the prior metric reported only on the old pool. This leaves domains vulnerable to invisibly running out of memory in the young pool.

What’s changing?

In the latest service software update, Amazon OpenSearch Service changed the logic for the three JVM memory pressure metrics that it sends to CloudWatch to account for the total Java heap in use (old generation and young generation). The goal of this update is to provide a more accurate representation of total memory utilization across your Amazon Opensearch Service domains, especially for Graviton instance types, whose garbage collection logic makes it important to consider all memory pools to calculate actual utilization.

What you can expect

After you update your Amazon OpenSearch Service domains to the latest service software release, the following metrics that Amazon OpenSearch Service sends to CloudWatch will begin to report JVM memory usage for the old and young generation memory pools, rather than just old: JVMemoryPressure, MasterJVMMemoryPressure, and WarmJVMMemoryPressure.

You might see an increase in the values of these metrics, predominantly in G1GC configured domains. In some cases, you might notice a different memory usage pattern altogether, because the young generation memory pool has more frequent garbage collection. Any CloudWatch alarms that you have created around these metrics might be triggered. If this keeps happening, consider scaling your instances vertically up to 64 GiB of RAM, at which point you can scale horizontally by adding instances.

As a standard practice, for domains that have low available memory, Amazon OpenSearch Service blocks further write operations to prevent the domain from reaching red status. You should monitor your memory utilization after the update to get a sense of the actual utilization on your domain. The _nodes/stats/jvm API offers a useful summary of JVM statistics, memory pool usage, and garbage collection information.

Conclusion

Amazon OpenSearch Service recently improved the logic that it uses to calculate JVM memory usage to more accurately reflect actual utilization. The JVMMemoryPressure, MasterJVMMemoryPressure, and WarmJVMMemoryPressure CloudWatch metrics now account for both old and young generation memory pools when calculating memory usage, rather than just old generation. For more information about these metrics, see Monitoring OpenSearch cluster metrics with Amazon CloudWatch.

With the updated metrics, your domains will start to more accurately reflect memory utilization numbers, and might breach CloudWatch alarms that you previously configured. Make sure to monitor your alarms for these metrics and scale your clusters accordingly to maintain optimal memory utilization.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates and new features in Amazon OpenSearch Service.

About the Authors

Liz Snyder is a San Francisco-based technical writer for Amazon OpenSearch Service, OpenSearch OSS, and Amazon CloudSearch.

Jon Handler is a Senior Principal Solutions Architect, specializing in AWS search technologies – Amazon CloudSearch, and Amazon OpenSearch Service. Based in Palo Alto, he helps a broad range of customers get their search and log analytics workloads deployed right and functioning well.