Amazon Elasticsearch Service Authorization Error: Troubleshooting and Solutions

Reasons for Elasticsearch es:ESHttpGet Authorization Error

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Question

You are the senior developer in a company that builds and sells analytics dashboards for organizations in a B2B model.

After implementing the architecture designed by the solutions architect which integrates Amazon Cognito and Amazon Elasticsearch Service, you notice that you are able to log in but you cannot see the Kibana dashboard getting an Elasticsearch es:ESHttpGet authorization error.

What could be the possible reason?

Answers

Explanations

Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer

A. B. C. D.

Correct Answer: A.

By default, the authenticated IAM role for identity pools doesn't include the privileges required to access Kibana.

You have to add the name of the authenticated role to the Amazon ES access policy.

Option B is incorrect because Amazon Cognito authentication is not required.

You have to be careful when including your users' identity IDs in your access policies, particularly for unauthenticated identities, as these may change if the user chooses to log in.

Options C, D are incorrect because although the statements are true, they do not apply to this scenario.

References:

https://amzn.to/3gi6yGA https://go.aws/3d5IJ2B

The error "Elasticsearch es:ESHttpGet authorization error" indicates that the user is not authorized to access Kibana in Amazon Elasticsearch Service. The possible reason for this issue could be:

A. The authenticated IAM role for identity pools doesn't include the privileges required to access Kibana. Amazon Cognito identity pools allow you to grant temporary AWS credentials to access AWS services, including Amazon Elasticsearch Service. The IAM roles associated with the identity pools define the privileges for the authenticated and unauthenticated users. If the IAM role doesn't have the necessary permissions to access Kibana, the user will not be authorized to access it.

B. Amazon Cognito authentication is required. The user identity has changed with respect to the access policy variables for unauthenticated identities. If the user is not authenticated with Amazon Cognito, they will be treated as an unauthenticated user. The access policy variables for unauthenticated identities might not allow access to Kibana, which could cause an authorization error. In some cases, the user identity might change during the session, which could also result in an authorization error.

C. Authenticated identities belong to users who are authenticated by any supported identity provider. Unauthenticated identities typically belong to guest users. Amazon Cognito supports various identity providers such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others. Authenticated users belong to these identity providers, and they have different privileges based on the IAM roles associated with them. On the other hand, unauthenticated users are typically guest users, and they have limited privileges.

D. For each identity type, there is an assigned role. This role has a policy attached to it which dictates which AWS services that role can access. Each identity type, whether authenticated or unauthenticated, has an assigned IAM role with a policy attached to it. This policy defines the privileges for the user to access different AWS services. If the policy doesn't allow access to Kibana in Amazon Elasticsearch Service, the user will not be authorized to access it.

In conclusion, the possible reason for the Elasticsearch es:ESHttpGet authorization error could be that the IAM role associated with the identity pool doesn't have the necessary permissions to access Kibana in Amazon Elasticsearch Service. It could also be because the access policy variables for unauthenticated identities don't allow access to Kibana, or the user identity has changed during the session. Finally, the IAM policy attached to the assigned role for the user might not allow access to Kibana.