Install Elastic Stack Server

The deployment of the Elastic Stack server involves the installation of Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana services. In the repository of Ansible that Wazuh has we can find the playbooks and roles necessary to carry out the installation. The Ansible server must have access to the Elastic Stack server.

Note

Following the example we started in the previous sections, we have added a second host to the /etc/ansible/hosts file, in this case the operating system is Ubuntu 17 and we need to indicate the path of the Python interpreter.

192.168.0.180 ansible_ssh_user=centos

192.168.0.108 ansible_ssh_user=elk ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/wazuh-ansible$ ansible all -m ping
192.168.0.108 | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false,
    "ping": "pong"
}
192.168.0.180 | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false,
    "ping": "pong"
}

1 - Access to wazuh-ansible

1.1 - We access the directory where we have cloned the repository from our Ansible server.

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible$ ls
CHANGELOG.md  playbooks  README.md  roles  VERSION

We can see the roles we have.

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible$ tree roles -d
roles
├── ansible-galaxy
│   └── meta
├── elastic-stack
│   ├── ansible-elasticsearch
│   │   ├── defaults
│   │   ├── handlers
│   │   ├── meta
│   │   ├── tasks
│   │   └── templates
│   ├── ansible-kibana
│   │   ├── defaults
│   │   ├── handlers
│   │   ├── meta
│   │   ├── tasks
│   │   └── templates
│   └── ansible-logstash
│       ├── defaults
│       ├── handlers
│       ├── meta
│       ├── tasks
│       └── templates
└── wazuh
    ├── ansible-filebeat
    │   ├── defaults
    │   ├── handlers
    │   ├── meta
    │   ├── tasks
    │   ├── templates
    │   └── tests
    ├── ansible-wazuh-agent
    │   ├── defaults
    │   ├── handlers
    │   ├── meta
    │   ├── tasks
    │   ├── templates
    │   └── vars
    └── ansible-wazuh-manager
        ├── defaults
        ├── handlers
        ├── meta
        ├── tasks
        ├── templates
        └── vars

And we can see the preconfigured playbooks we have.

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible$ tree playbooks/
playbooks/
├── wazuh-agent.yml
├── wazuh-elastic_stack-distributed.yml
├── wazuh-elastic_stack-single.yml
├── wazuh-elastic.yml
├── wazuh-kibana.yml
├── wazuh-logstash.yml
└── wazuh-manager.yml

Using Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana roles we will install and configure the Elastic Stack server components, there are several variables we can use to customize the installation or configuration. To consult the default configuration go to this section.

If we want to change the default configuration we can change the following files: - /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-elasticsearch/defaults/main.yml - /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-logstash/defaults/main.yml - /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-kibana/defaults/main.yml

We also can create another YAML file only with the content we want to change the configuration for each role. We can find more information here:

Let's see below, the content of the playbooks /etc/ansible/wazuh-elastic.yml.

- hosts: <your elasticsearch host>
  roles:
    - { role: /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-elasticsearch, elasticsearch_network_host: 'your elasticsearch IP' }
- hosts: <your logstash host>
  roles:
    - { role: /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-logstash, elasticsearch_network_host: 'your elasticsearch IP' }
- hosts: <your kibana host>
  roles:
    - { role: /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-kibana, elasticsearch_network_host: 'your elasticsearch IP' }

These files are designed to run the installations of each service individually.

Let's take a closer look at the content.

The first line hosts: indicates the machines where the commands below will be executed.

The roles: section indicates the roles that will be executed on the hosts.

2 - Preparing the playbook

We could configure these three files and execute them, but we are going to create a single file that executes the installation of the services in our Elastic Stack Server.

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/wazuh-ansible$ cat wazuh-elk.yml
- hosts: 192.168.0.108
  roles:
      - { role: role: /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-elasticsearch, elasticsearch_network_host: 'localhost' }
      - { role: /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-logstash, logstash_input_beats: true,  elasticsearch_network_host: 'localhost' }
      - { role: /etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/roles/elastic-stack/ansible-kibana, elasticsearch_network_host: 'localhost' }

As we can see, we have added the IP address of our Elastic Stack server to the hosts entry. We have added the three roles to execute, as everything goes on a single server, they will use localhost to communicate with Elasticsearch. Finally, we prepare Logstash by adding the entry logstash_input_beats: true to receive Filebeat events.

3 - Running the playbook

It seems that we are ready to run the playbook and start the installation, but some of the operations we will perform on the remote systems will need sudo permissions. We can solve this in several ways, opting to enter the password when Ansible requests it. To contemplate other options we consult the option become (to avoid entering passwords one by one).

3.1 - Let's launch the playbook run.

  • We use the -b option to indicate that we are going to become a super user.

  • We use the -K option to indicate Ansible to ask for the password.

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/roles/wazuh-ansible/playbooks$ ansible-playbook wazuh-elk.yml -b -K

Note

The installation of the Wazuh application for Kibana may take some time.

We will obtain a final result similar to the one shown in the following code block.

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Make sure Elasticsearch is running before proceeding.] ************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Reload systemd] ***************************************************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Kibana configuration] *********************************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Checking Wazuh-APP version] ***************************************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Removing old Wazuh-APP] *******************************************************************************************************
skipping: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Removing bundles] *************************************************************************************************************
skipping: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Install Wazuh-APP (can take a while)] *****************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Ensure Kibana started and enabled] ********************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Remove Elasticsearch repository (and clean up left-over metadata)] ************************************************************
skipping: [192.168.0.108]

TASK [ansible-role-kibana : Debian/Ubuntu | Removing Elasticsearch repository] ****************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.0.108]

RUNNING HANDLER [ansible-role-elasticsearch : restart elasticsearch] **************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.0.108]

RUNNING HANDLER [ansible-role-logstash : restart logstash] ************************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.0.108]

RUNNING HANDLER [ansible-role-kibana : restart kibana] ****************************************************************************************************
changed: [192.168.0.108]

PLAY RECAP ************************************************************************************************************************************************
192.168.0.108              : ok=43   changed=23   unreachable=0    failed=0

ansible@ansible:/etc/ansible/wazuh-ansible$

We can check the status of our new services in our Elastic Stack server.

  • Elasticsearch.

root@elk:/home/elk# systemctl status elasticsearch.service
● elasticsearch.service - Elasticsearch
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service.d
           └─elasticsearch.conf
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-09-13 16:51:59 CEST; 5min ago
  • Logstash.

root@elk:/home/elk# systemctl status logstash.service
● logstash.service - logstash
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/logstash.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-09-13 16:53:31 CEST; 4min 8s ago
  • Kibana

root@elk:/home/elk# systemctl status kibana.service
● kibana.service - Kibana
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/kibana.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-09-13 16:53:32 CEST; 4min 58s ago

Once the Wazuh API is registered we can access it through our Kibana portal.