Cannot disable security in 8.1

[fulkon (Sergey)]

I need elasticsearch without any security. In 7.17 it was enough to set xpack.security.enabled: false, but in 8.1.0 got error on startup:
org.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchSecurityException: invalid configuration for xpack.security.transport.ssl - [xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled] is not set, but the following settings have been configured in elasticsearch.yml : [xpack.security.transport.ssl.keystore.secure_password,xpack.security.transport.ssl.truststore.secure_password]
but my elasticsearch.yml is pretty simple

cluster.name: test
node.name: test1
path.data: /var/lib/elasticsearch
path.logs: /var/log/elasticsearch
network.host: 0.0.0.0
http.port: 80
xpack.security.enabled: false

Please help

[ikakavas (Ioannis Kakavas)]

Hi there, as you have figured out, security features are enabled and configured by default. We strongly suggest that you keep it this way so that your data are protected. If this doesn't fit your use case and you still want to disable security, you can

Before starting Elasticsearch for the first time

Set xpack.security.enabled: false and then start Elasticsearch

After you have started Elasticsearch for the first time

You have two options here

1. Set

   xpack.security.enabled: false
   xpack.security.transport.ssl.enabled: false
   xpack.security.http.ssl.enabled: false
   

   and then start Elasticsearch.

2. Run

   bin/elasticsearch-keystore remove xpack.security.transport.ssl.keystore.secure_password
   bin/elasticsearch-keystore remove xpack.security.transport.ssl.truststore.secure_password
   bin/elasticsearch-keystore remove xpack.security.http.ssl.keystore.secure_password
   

   Set

   xpack.security.enabled: false
   

   and then start Elasticsearch.

[fulkon (Sergey)]

Thanks. First step fixed startup for me