# Automatically configuring Kibana settings (indexes, visualizations, dashboards) on ECE **URL:** \ **Category:** Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE)\ **Tags:** elastic-stack-security\ **Created:** [April 8, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169 "2020-04-08T15:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robertiansweetman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/robertiansweetman/32/65933_2.png) [@robertiansweetman](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/robertiansweetman)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/1 "2020-04-08T15:42:02Z")
Hi team I have used the elasticsearch superuser (elastic) credentials to automatically set up a bunch of elasticsearch indexes by sending the index-file.json contents to the Elastic API endpoint. My struggle is that I would very much like to do the same with the Kibana settings _because there are a lot more of them_ but I am having some challenges understanding whether this is even possible from the ECE documentation... If I use the Kibana Endpoint and the elastic (superuser) username and password as credentials I only ever receive a 401 (unauthorized) response. If I use the Elastic endpoint base url this doesn't _appear_ to work with any of the Kibana API endpoints... which is not entirely a suprise... Is this process documented anywhere with some good examples? Do I need to create a new user in Kibana with some sort of other permissions? I really want to avoid having to upload all the kibana saved objects manually every time we make a change or acquire a new customer. Really appreciate any help with this ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Piggott](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alex_piggott/32/11053_2.png) [@Alex\_Piggott](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alex_Piggott)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/2 "2020-04-08T16:18:11Z")
Can you give an example of a (sanitized) API endpoint call that is returning 401? Using `elastic` should allow you to do anything (on a recent cluster - older - 12+ months - ones had some additional restrictions) Also `401` is normally "wrong password", `403` is what you get when you're not allowed to do something ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Piggott](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alex_piggott/32/11053_2.png) [@Alex\_Piggott](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alex_Piggott)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 4:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/3 "2020-04-08T16:21:53Z")
Ah I just re-read .. I suspect the problem is that your Kibana isn't configured to support basic auth? ~~Do you have a config for `xpack.security.authc.providers` in your Kibana YAML? (It defaults to allowing basic)~~ ~~[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/7.x/kibana-authentication.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/7.x/kibana-authentication.html)~~ EDIT: see below ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Piggott](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alex_piggott/32/11053_2.png) [@Alex\_Piggott](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alex_Piggott)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/4 "2020-04-08T16:23:26Z")
Oh in fact, some more digging ... looks like Kibana API only allows token based auth: [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/7.6/using-api.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/7.6/using-api.html) ---
**Author:** ![robertiansweetman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/robertiansweetman/32/65933_2.png) [@robertiansweetman](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/robertiansweetman)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/5 "2020-04-08T16:38:30Z")
Thanks @Alex_Piggott Actually it get's a bit more interesting than that 😉 I'm using PowerShell with the ElasticAPI endpoints and if I create a PSCredential object for Invoke-RestMethod that works fine... ```auto $secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $Password -AsPlainText -Force $ElasticCreds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($Username, $secpasswd) ``` This approach doesn't work with the Kibana endpoints HOWEVER if I go back to something like this which is (possibly) more like curl... ```auto $base64AuthInfo = [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes(("{0}:{1}" -f $username,$password))) $Headers = @{Authorization=("Basic {0}" -f $base64AuthInfo)} ``` Then this works with [https://KibanaAPIendpoint/api/status](https://KibanaAPIendpoint/api/status) I have set xpack.security.authc.providers: [basic] in the Kibana.yml backend via the user setting over-rides. Any ideas why one approach would work with Elasticsearch but doesn't with Kibana? ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Piggott](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alex_piggott/32/11053_2.png) [@Alex\_Piggott](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Alex_Piggott)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 5:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/6 "2020-04-08T17:07:10Z")
This maybe explains it: [PowerShell's Invoke-RestMethod equivalent of curl -u (Basic Authentication) - Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/24678979/10483457) > As noted in the comments, this method will not send the Authorization header on the initial request. It waits for a challenge response then re-sends the request with the Authorization header. This will not work for services that require credentials on the initial request. I guessing the Kibana API falls into that category and ES API doesn't? Probably worth posting over in the Kibana forum to discuss the gory details 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![robertiansweetman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/robertiansweetman/32/65933_2.png) [@robertiansweetman](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/robertiansweetman)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/7 "2020-04-08T17:25:38Z")
Aha! That's super useful to know Alex - thanks Yes, I will put this in the Kibana forum tomorrow 😉 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/automatically-configuring-kibana-settings-indexes-visualizations-dashboards-on-ece/227169/8 "2020-04-22T17:25:39Z")
This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.