Kibana Audit Logging

Enable and configure audit logging for Kibana via kibana.yml. Kibana audit logs cover application-layer security events that Elasticsearch does not see: saved object CRUD (dashboards, visualizations, index patterns, rules, cases), login/logout, session expiry, space operations, and Kibana-level RBAC enforcement.

For Elasticsearch audit logging (authentication failures, access grants/denials, security config changes), see elasticsearch-audit. For authentication and API key management, see elasticsearch-authn. For roles and user management, see elasticsearch-authz.

For detailed event types, schema, and correlation queries, see references/api-reference.md.

Deployment note: Kibana audit configuration differs across deployment types. See Deployment Compatibility for details.

Jobs to Be Done

• Enable or disable Kibana audit logging
• Configure audit log output (rolling file, console)
• Filter out noisy events (e.g. saved_object_find)
• Investigate saved object access or deletion events
• Track Kibana login/logout and session activity
• Monitor space creation, modification, and deletion
• Correlate Kibana audit events with Elasticsearch audit logs via trace.id
• Ship Kibana audit logs to Elasticsearch for unified querying

Prerequisites

Item	Description
Kibana access	Filesystem access to kibana.yml (self-managed) or Cloud console access (ECH)
License	Audit logging requires a gold, platinum, enterprise, or trial license
Elasticsearch URL	Cluster endpoint for correlation queries against .security-audit-*

Prompt the user for any missing values.

Enable Kibana Audit Logging

Kibana audit is configured statically in kibana.yml (not via API). A Kibana restart is required after changes.

xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
xpack.security.audit.appender:
  type: rolling-file
  fileName: /path/to/kibana/data/audit.log
  policy:
    type: time-interval
    interval: 24h
  strategy:
    type: numeric
    max: 10

To disable, set xpack.security.audit.enabled to false and restart Kibana.

Appender types

Type	Description
rolling-file	Writes to a file with rotation policy. Recommended.
console	Writes to stdout. Useful for containerized deployments.

Event Types

Kibana audit events use ECS format with the same core fields as ES audit (event.action, event.outcome, user.name, trace.id, @timestamp) plus Kibana-specific fields like kibana.saved_object.type, kibana.saved_object.id, and kibana.space_id.

Key event actions:

Event action	Description	Category
saved_object_create	A saved object was created	database
saved_object_get	A saved object was read	database
saved_object_update	A saved object was updated	database
saved_object_delete	A saved object was deleted	database
saved_object_find	A saved object search was performed	database
saved_object_open_point_in_time	A PIT was opened on saved objects	database
saved_object_close_point_in_time	A PIT was closed on saved objects	database
saved_object_resolve	A saved object was resolved (alias redirect)	database
login	A user logged in (success or failure)	authentication
logout	A user logged out	authentication
session_cleanup	An expired session was cleaned up	authentication
access_agreement_acknowledged	A user accepted the access agreement	authentication
space_create	A Kibana space was created	web
space_update	A Kibana space was updated	web
space_delete	A Kibana space was deleted	web
space_get	A Kibana space was retrieved	web

See references/api-reference.md for the complete event schema.

Filter Policies

Suppress noisy events using ignore_filters in kibana.yml:

xpack.security.audit.ignore_filters:
  - actions: [saved_object_find]
    categories: [database]

Filter field	Type	Description
actions	list	Event actions to ignore
categories	list	Event categories to ignore

An event is filtered out if it matches all specified fields within a single filter entry.

Correlate with Elasticsearch Audit Logs

When Kibana makes requests to Elasticsearch on behalf of a user, both systems record the same trace.id (passed via the X-Opaque-Id header). This is the primary key for correlating events across the two audit logs.

Prerequisite: Elasticsearch audit must be enabled via the cluster settings API. See the elasticsearch-audit skill for setup instructions, event types, and ES-specific filter policies.

Correlation workflow

1. Find the suspicious event in the Kibana audit log.
2. Extract its trace.id value.
3. Search the ES audit index (.security-audit-*) for all events with the same trace.id.
4. Review the combined timeline to understand what ES-level operations the Kibana action triggered.

The elasticsearch-audit skill also documents this workflow from the ES side — use it when starting from an ES audit event and looking for the originating Kibana action.

Search ES audit by trace ID

Given a suspicious Kibana event (e.g. a saved object deletion), extract its trace.id and search the ES audit index:

curl -X POST "${ELASTICSEARCH_URL}/.security-audit-*/_search" \
  <auth_flags> \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": {
      "bool": {
        "filter": [
          { "term": { "trace.id": "'"${TRACE_ID}"'" } },
          { "range": { "@timestamp": { "gte": "now-24h" } } }
        ]
      }
    },
    "sort": [{ "@timestamp": { "order": "asc" } }]
  }'

Secondary correlation fields: user.name, source.ip, and @timestamp (time-window joins).

Ship Kibana audit logs to Elasticsearch

To query Kibana audit events alongside ES audit events, ship the Kibana audit log file to an Elasticsearch index using Filebeat:

filebeat.inputs:
  - type: log
    paths: ["/path/to/kibana/data/audit.log"]
    json.keys_under_root: true
    json.add_error_key: true

output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["https://localhost:9200"]
  index: "kibana-audit-%{+yyyy.MM.dd}"

Once indexed, both .security-audit-* (ES) and kibana-audit-* (Kibana) can be searched together using a multi-index query filtered by trace.id.

Examples

Enable Kibana audit for compliance

Request: "Enable Kibana audit logging and keep 10 rotated log files."

xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
xpack.security.audit.appender:
  type: rolling-file
  fileName: /var/log/kibana/audit.log
  policy:
    type: time-interval
    interval: 24h
  strategy:
    type: numeric
    max: 10

Restart Kibana after applying.

Investigate a deleted dashboard

Request: "Someone deleted a dashboard. Check the Kibana audit log."

Search the Kibana audit log (or the indexed kibana-audit-* data) for saved_object_delete events with kibana.saved_object.type: dashboard. Extract the trace.id and cross-reference with the ES audit index to see the underlying Elasticsearch operations.

Reduce audit noise from saved object searches

Request: "Kibana audit logs are too large because of constant saved_object_find events."

xpack.security.audit.ignore_filters:
  - actions: [saved_object_find]
    categories: [database]

This suppresses high-volume read operations while preserving create, update, and delete events.

Guidelines

Always enable alongside Elasticsearch audit

For full coverage, enable audit in both kibana.yml and Elasticsearch. Without Kibana audit, saved object access and Kibana login events are invisible. Without ES audit, cluster-level operations are invisible. See the elasticsearch-audit skill for ES-side setup.

Use trace.id for correlation

When investigating a Kibana event, always extract trace.id and search the ES audit index (.security-audit-*). This reveals the full chain of operations triggered by a single Kibana action. See Correlate with Elasticsearch Audit Logs above for queries.

Filter noisy read events

saved_object_find generates very high volume on busy Kibana instances. Suppress it unless you specifically need to audit read access.

Ship logs to Elasticsearch for unified querying

Kibana audit logs are written to files by default. Ship them to Elasticsearch via Filebeat for programmatic querying alongside ES audit events.

Rotate and retain appropriately

Configure rolling-file rotation to avoid filling the disk. A 30-90 day retention is typical for compliance.

Deployment Compatibility

Capability	Self-managed	ECH	Serverless
Kibana audit (kibana.yml)	Yes	Via Cloud UI	Not available
Rolling-file appender	Yes	Via Cloud UI	Not available
Console appender	Yes	Yes	Not available
Ignore filters	Yes	Via Cloud UI	Not available
Correlate via trace.id	Yes	Yes	Not available
Ship to ES via Filebeat	Yes	Yes	Not available

ECH notes: Kibana audit is enabled via the deployment edit page in the Cloud console. Log files are accessible through the Cloud console deployment logs.

Serverless notes:

• Kibana audit logging is not user-configurable on Serverless. Security events are managed by Elastic as part of the platform.
• If a user asks about Kibana auditing on Serverless, direct them to the Elastic Cloud console or their account team.