Installing the Wazuh indexer step by step

Install and configure the Wazuh indexer as a single-node or multi-node cluster following step-by-step instructions. Wazuh indexer is a highly scalable full-text search engine and offers advanced security, alerting, index management, deep performance analysis, and several other features.

The installation process is divided into three stages.

  1. Certificates creation

  2. Nodes installation

  3. Cluster initialization

Note

Root user privileges are required to run the commands described below.

1. Certificates creation

Generating the SSL certificates

  1. Download the wazuh-certs-tool.sh script and the config.yml configuration file. This creates the certificates that encrypt communications between the Wazuh central components.

    # curl -sO https://packages.wazuh.com/4.3/wazuh-certs-tool.sh
# curl -sO https://packages.wazuh.com/4.3/config.yml

  2. Edit the ./config.yml and replace the node names and IP values with the corresponding names and IP addresses. You need to do this for all Wazuh server, Wazuh indexer, and Wazuh dashboard nodes. Add as many node fields as needed.

    nodes:
  # Wazuh indexer nodes
  indexer:
    - name: node-1
      ip: <indexer-node-ip>
    #- name: node-2
    #  ip: <indexer-node-ip>
    #- name: node-3
    #  ip: <indexer-node-ip>

  # Wazuh server nodes
  # If there is more than one Wazuh server
  # node, each one must have a node_type
  server:
    - name: wazuh-1
      ip: <wazuh-manager-ip>
    #  node_type: master
    #- name: wazuh-2
    #  ip: <wazuh-manager-ip>
    #  node_type: worker
    #- name: wazuh-3
    #  ip: <wazuh-manager-ip>
    #  node_type: worker

  # Wazuh dashboard nodes
  dashboard:
    - name: dashboard
      ip: <dashboard-node-ip>

    To learn more about how to create and configure the certificates, see the Certificates deployment section.

  3. Run ./wazuh-certs-tool.sh to create the certificates. For a multi-node cluster, these certificates need to be later deployed to all Wazuh instances in your cluster.

    #  bash ./wazuh-certs-tool.sh -A

  4. Compress all the necessary files.

    # tar -cvf ./wazuh-certificates.tar -C ./wazuh-certificates/ .
# rm -rf ./wazuh-certificates

  5. Copy the wazuh-certificates.tar file to all the nodes, including the Wazuh indexer, Wazuh server, and Wazuh dashboard nodes. This can be done by using the scp utility.

2. Nodes installation

Installing package dependencies

  1. Install the following packages if missing:

    Yum

    APT

    # yum install coreutils

    # apt-get install debconf adduser procps

Adding the Wazuh repository

Yum

APT

  1. Import the GPG key.

    # rpm --import https://packages.wazuh.com/key/GPG-KEY-WAZUH

  2. Add the repository.

    # echo -e '[wazuh]\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https://packages.wazuh.com/key/GPG-KEY-WAZUH\nenabled=1\nname=EL-$releasever - Wazuh\nbaseurl=https://packages.wazuh.com/4.x/yum/\nprotect=1' | tee /etc/yum.repos.d/wazuh.repo

  1. Install the following packages if missing.

    # apt-get install gnupg apt-transport-https

  2. Install the GPG key.

    # curl -s https://packages.wazuh.com/key/GPG-KEY-WAZUH | gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring gnupg-ring:/usr/share/keyrings/wazuh.gpg --import && chmod 644 /usr/share/keyrings/wazuh.gpg

  3. Add the repository.

    # echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/wazuh.gpg] https://packages.wazuh.com/4.x/apt/ stable main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wazuh.list

  4. Update the packages information.

    # apt-get update

Installing the Wazuh indexer

  1. Install the Wazuh indexer package.

    Yum

    APT

    # yum -y install wazuh-indexer

    # apt-get -y install wazuh-indexer

Configuring the Wazuh indexer

  1. Edit the /etc/wazuh-indexer/opensearch.yml configuration file and replace the following values:

    1. network.host: Sets the address of this node for both HTTP and transport traffic. The node will bind to this address and use it as its publish address. Accepts an IP address or a hostname.

      Use the same node address set in config.yml to create the SSL certificates.

    2. node.name: Name of the Wazuh indexer node as defined in the config.yml file. For example, node-1.

    3. cluster.initial_master_nodes: List of the names of the master-eligible nodes. These names are defined in the config.yml file. Uncomment the node-2 and node-3 lines, change the names, or add more lines, according to your config.yml definitions.

      cluster.initial_master_nodes:
- "node-1"
- "node-2"
- "node-3"

    4. discovery.seed_hosts: List of the addresses of the master-eligible nodes. Each element can be either an IP address or a hostname. You may leave this setting commented if you are configuring the Wazuh indexer as a single node. For multi-node configurations, uncomment this setting and set the IP addresses of each master-eligible node.

      discovery.seed_hosts:
  - "10.0.0.1"
  - "10.0.0.2"
  - "10.0.0.3"

    5. plugins.security.nodes_dn: List of the Distinguished Names of the certificates of all the Wazuh indexer cluster nodes. Uncomment the lines for node-2 and node-3 and change the common names (CN) and values according to your settings and your config.yml definitions.

      plugins.security.nodes_dn:
- "CN=node-1,OU=Wazuh,O=Wazuh,L=California,C=US"
- "CN=node-2,OU=Wazuh,O=Wazuh,L=California,C=US"
- "CN=node-3,OU=Wazuh,O=Wazuh,L=California,C=US"

Deploying certificates

Note

Make sure that a copy of the wazuh-certificates.tar file, created during the initial configuration step, is placed in your working directory.

  1. Run the following commands replacing <indexer-node-name> with the name of the Wazuh indexer node you are configuring as defined in config.yml. For example, node-1. This deploys the SSL certificates to encrypt communications between the Wazuh central components.

    # NODE_NAME=<indexer-node-name>

    # mkdir /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs
# tar -xf ./wazuh-certificates.tar -C /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs/ ./$NODE_NAME.pem ./$NODE_NAME-key.pem ./admin.pem ./admin-key.pem ./root-ca.pem
# mv -n /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs/$NODE_NAME.pem /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs/indexer.pem
# mv -n /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs/$NODE_NAME-key.pem /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs/indexer-key.pem
# chmod 500 /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs
# chmod 400 /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs/*
# chown -R wazuh-indexer:wazuh-indexer /etc/wazuh-indexer/certs

  2. Recommended action: If no other Wazuh components are going to be installed on this node, remove the wazuh-certificates.tar file by running rm -f ./wazuh-certificates.tar to increase security.

Starting the service

  1. Enable and start the Wazuh indexer service.

    Systemd

    SysV init

    # systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl enable wazuh-indexer
# systemctl start wazuh-indexer

    Choose one option according to the operating system used.

    1. RPM-based operating system:

    # chkconfig --add wazuh-indexer
# service wazuh-indexer start

    1. Debian-based operating system:

    # update-rc.d wazuh-indexer defaults 95 10
# service wazuh-indexer start

Repeat this stage of the installation process for every Wazuh indexer node in your cluster. Then proceed with initializing your single-node or multi-node cluster in the next stage.

3. Cluster initialization

  1. Run the Wazuh indexer indexer-security-init.sh script on any Wazuh indexer node to load the new certificates information and start the single-node or multi-node cluster.

    # /usr/share/wazuh-indexer/bin/indexer-security-init.sh

    Note

    You only have to initialize the cluster once, there is no need to run this command on every node.

Testing the cluster installation

  1. Replace <WAZUH_INDEXER_IP> and run the following commands to confirm that the installation is successful.

    # curl -k -u admin:admin https://<WAZUH_INDEXER_IP>:9200

    {
  "name" : "node-1",
  "cluster_name" : "wazuh-cluster",
  "cluster_uuid" : "cMeWTEWxQWeIPDaf1Wx4jw",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "7.10.2",
    "build_type" : "rpm",
    "build_hash" : "e505b10357c03ae8d26d675172402f2f2144ef0f",
    "build_date" : "2022-01-14T03:38:06.881862Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "8.10.1",
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "6.8.0",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "6.0.0-beta1"
  },
  "tagline" : "The OpenSearch Project: https://opensearch.org/"
}

  2. Replace <WAZUH_INDEXER_IP> and run the following command to check if the single-node or multi-node cluster is working correctly.

    # curl -k -u admin:admin https://<WAZUH_INDEXER_IP>:9200/_cat/nodes?v

Next steps

The Wazuh indexer is now successfully installed on your single-node or multi-node cluster, and you can proceed with installing the Wazuh server. To perform this action, see the Installing the Wazuh server step by step section.

If you want to uninstall the Wazuh indexer, see Uninstall the Wazuh indexer.