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. Certificate creation

  2. Wazuh indexer nodes installation

  3. Cluster initialization

Note

You need root user privileges to run all the commands described below.

Certificate creation

Wazuh uses certificates to establish confidentiality and encrypt communications between its central components. Follow these steps to create certificates for the Wazuh central components.

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/4.13/wazuh-certs-tool.sh
    # curl -sO https://packages.wazuh.com/4.13/config.yml
    
  2. Edit ./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.

Wazuh indexer nodes installation

Follow these steps to install and configure a single-node or multi-node Wazuh indexer.

Installing package dependencies

  1. Run the following command to install the following packages if missing:

    # apt-get install debconf adduser procps
    

Adding the Wazuh repository

  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.

    # apt-get -y install wazuh-indexer
    

Configuring the Wazuh indexer

  1. Edit /etc/wazuh-indexer/opensearch.yml 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"
      

Note

Firewalls can block communication between Wazuh components on different hosts. Refer to the Required ports section and ensure the necessary ports are open.

Deploying certificates

Note

Make sure that a copy of wazuh-certificates.tar, created in the previous stage of the installation process, 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 will be installed on this node, run the following command to remove the wazuh-certificates.tar file.

    # rm -f ./wazuh-certificates.tar
    

Note

For Wazuh indexer installation on hardened endpoints with noexec flag on the /tmp directory, additional setup is required. See the Wazuh indexer configuration on hardened endpoints section for necessary configuration.

Starting the service

  1. Enable and start the Wazuh indexer service.

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

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

Disable Wazuh updates

We recommend disabling the Wazuh package repositories after installing all components on this server to prevent accidental upgrades.

Execute the following command only after completing all installations:

# sed -i "s/^deb /#deb /" /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wazuh.list
# apt update

Cluster initialization

The final stage of installing the Wazuh indexer single-node or multi-node cluster consists of running the security admin script.

  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. Run the following commands to confirm that the installation is successful. Replace <WAZUH_INDEXER_IP_ADDRESS> with the IP address of the Wazuh indexer and enter admin as the password when prompted:

    # curl -k -u admin https://<WAZUH_INDEXER_IP_ADDRESS>:9200
    
    {
      "name" : "node-1",
      "cluster_name" : "wazuh-cluster",
      "cluster_uuid" : "095jEW-oRJSFKLz5wmo5PA",
      "version" : {
        "number" : "7.10.2",
        "build_type" : "rpm",
        "build_hash" : "db90a415ff2fd428b4f7b3f800a51dc229287cb4",
        "build_date" : "2023-06-03T06:24:25.112415503Z",
        "build_snapshot" : false,
        "lucene_version" : "9.6.0",
        "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "7.10.0",
        "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "7.0.0"
      },
      "tagline" : "The OpenSearch Project: https://opensearch.org/"
    }
    
  2. Run the following command to check if the cluster is working correctly. Replace <WAZUH_INDEXER_IP_ADDRESS> with the IP address of the Wazuh indexer and enter admin as the password when prompted:

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

    The command produces output similar to the following:

    ip              heap.percent ram.percent cpu load_1m load_5m load_15m node.role node.roles                               cluster_manager name
    192.168.107.240           19          94   4    0.22    0.21     0.20 dimr      data,ingest,master,remote_cluster_client *               node-1
    

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.

To uninstall the Wazuh indexer, see Uninstalling the Wazuh indexer.