Kibana

Kibana enables you to interactively explore, visualize, and share insights into your network flow data, as well as manage and monitor Elasticsearch.

Download Kibana Objects

The Kibana dashboards and related configuration artifacts can be easily imported. You must first download the relevant import file, depending on the configuration of your environment.

Kibana Objects for Network Flow Data

Version	Schema	Saved Objects
8.2.x - 8.6.x	CODEX	kibana-8.2.x-flow-codex.ndjson
8.2.x - 8.6.x	ECS	kibana-8.2.x-flow-ecs.ndjson
7.17.x - 8.1.x	CODEX	kibana-7.17.x-flow-codex.ndjson
7.17.x - 8.1.x	ECS	kibana-7.17.x-flow-ecs.ndjson

Kibana Objects for SNMP Telemetry Data

Version	Schema	Saved Objects
8.2.x - 8.6.x	CODEX	kibana-8.2.x-snmp-codex.ndjson
8.2.x - 8.6.x	ECS	kibana-8.2.x-snmp-ecs.ndjson
7.17.x - 8.1.x	CODEX	kibana-7.17.x-snmp-codex.ndjson
7.17.x - 8.1.x	ECS	kibana-7.17.x-snmp-ecs.ndjson

Import Kibana Objects

Importing via the User Interface

To import the configuration, in Kibana go to Stack Management --> Saved Objects and click Import in the upper right corner.

A side-bar will appear. Again click Import at the top of the side-bar.

Select the file which you downloaded, and click the Import button at the bottom of the side-bar.

The configuration will be imported and you will see all of the imported objects.

Close the side-bar. You will also see all of the imported objects in the Saved Objects list.

Importing via the API

curl -XPOST "https://username:password@IPORHOSTOFKIBANA:5601/api/saved_objects/_import?overwrite=true" -k -H "kbn-xsrf: true" -H "securitytenant: global" --form file=@kibana-7.14.x-ecs-light.ndjson

Troubleshooting Import Problems

When the Kibana import fails neither the import UI nor the Kibana logs will provide any useful information. However attempting to import via curl will usually provide more detail.

The most common issue is related to the relative large size of the Kibana Saved Objects file. This can cause the import to fail unless the maximum allowed payload size is increased. The Kibana setting is server.maxPayloadBytes (or SERVER_MAXPAYLOADBYTES if using Docker), which should also be set to 8388608.

If you have a reverse proxy in front of Kibana, you may have to modify your proxy settings as well. Many reverse proxies also have relatively low values for the maximum body size. For example the NGINX default is only 1MB. This can be increased by setting client_max_body_size to 8388608. Refer to the documentation for your proxy software to similarly modify its behavior.

Recommended Kibana Advanced Settings

Settings for All Kibana Distributions

You may find that modifying a few of the Kibana advanced settings will produce a more user-friendly experience while using ElastiFlow. These settings are made in Kibana, under Stack Management -> Kibana -> Advanced Settings.

Advanced Setting	Value	Why make the change?
filters:pinnedByDefault	true	Pinning a filter allows it to persist when you are changing dashboards. This is very useful when drilling-down into something of interest and you want to change dashboards for a different perspective of the same data. This is the #1 setting we recommend changing.
defaultRoute	see description	If your primary or only use-case for Kibana is ElastiFlow, set this the URL path for the dashboard to which you which to load immediately after logging in, or when returning to "home". The format of this value is /app/dashboards#/view/4a608bc0-3d3e-11eb-bc2c-c5758316d788.
doc_table:highlight	false	There be a query performance penalty that comes with using the highlighting feature. As it isn't very useful for this use-case, it is better to just turn it off.
state:storeInSessionStorage	true	Kibana URLs can get pretty large. Especially when working with Vega visualizations. This will likely result in error messages for users of Internet Explorer. Using in-session storage will fix this issue for these users.
theme:darkMode	true or false	Enable dark mode for the Kibana UI. This setting should match the ndjson import file discussed above.
timepicker:timeDefaults	see below	The Time Picker Quick Range to use when Kibana is started without one.
timepicker:quickRanges	see below	The default options in the Time Picker are less than optimal, for most logging and monitoring use-cases. Fortunately Kibana now allows you to customize the time picker. Our recommended settings can be found below.
format:number:defaultPattern	0,0.[00]	Default numeral format for the "number" format.
format:percent:defaultPattern	0,0.[00]%	Default numeral format for the "percent" format.

Recommended Time Picker Time Defaults (timepicker:timeDefaults)

We find that the following Time Picker Time Default provides more useful views of the data for network flow related use-cases.

{
  "from": "now-1h/m",
  "to": "now"
}

Recommended Time Picker Quick Ranges (timepicker:quickRanges)

We find that the following set of Time Picker Quick Ranges provides more useful views of the data for network flow related use-cases.

[
  {
    "from": "now-15m/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 15 minutes"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-30m/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 30 minutes"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-1h/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 1 hour"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-2h/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 2 hours"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-4h/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 4 hours"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-12h/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 12 hours"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-24h/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 24 hours"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-48h/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 48 hours"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-7d/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 7 days"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-30d/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 30 days"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-60d/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 60 days"
  },
  {
    "from": "now-90d/m",
    "to": "now/m",
    "display": "Last 90 days"
  }
]

Settings for Elastic's X-Pack Features

note

The following settings require that the ElastiFlow Unified Flow Collector is used with an Elastic Stack deployment licensed for X-Pack Basic or higher. The collector's Elasticsearch output must also be configured with ECS-support enabled (set EF_OUTPUT_ELASTICSEARCH_ECS_ENABLE to true).

Advanced Setting	Value	Why make the change?
securitySolution:ipReputationLinks	see below	Modifying these settings provides a more seamless integration with the RiskIQ PassiveTotal service while using Kibana's Security app.
securitySolution:defaultIndex	add elastiflow-flow-ecs-*	Add the ElastiFlow index pattern, with support for ECS, to populate the Kibana's Security app with data network flow records from ElastiFlow.
securitySolution:timeDefaults	see below	For the best experience set this value similar to timepicker:timeDefaults.

Recommended IP Reputation Links (securitySolution:ipReputationLinks)

[
  { "name": "RiskIQ", "url_template": "https://community.riskiq.com/research?query={{ip}}" },
  { "name": "VirusTotal", "url_template": "https://www.virustotal.com/gui/search/{{ip}}" }
]

Recommended Security Solution Time Defaults (securitySolution:timeDefaults)

We find that the following Security Solution Time Default provides more useful views of the data for network flow related use-cases.

{
  "from": "now-1h/m",
  "to": "now"
}