# Elasticsearch.py with SSL and api key getting 401 unauthorized error

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-py-with-ssl-and-api-key-getting-401-unauthorized-error/233808>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [May 21, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-py-with-ssl-and-api-key-getting-401-unauthorized-error/233808 "2020-05-21T20:19:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TonyLuc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@TonyLuc](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/TonyLuc)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-py-with-ssl-and-api-key-getting-401-unauthorized-error/233808/1 "2020-05-21T20:19:05Z")

</div>

Objectives: To perform search on ElasticSearch via Python.  
I have followed the example in [https://elasticsearch-py.readthedocs.io/en/master/](https://elasticsearch-py.readthedocs.io/en/master/) section SSL and Authentication and I could not get it to work.  
I been staring at this for sometimes, I know I am missing something but I don't know what? Help?

elasticsearch.py -\> Version 7.0.4  
python -\> Version 3.7  
platform: windows

Sample Code

```auto
# SSL client authentication using client_cert and client_key
from elasticsearch import Elasticsearch
from ssl import create_default_context

context = create_default_context(cafile=r"c:\certs\cert.pem")
es = Elasticsearch(
    ['someserver', 'otherserver'],
    api_key=(‘id’, ‘api_key’),
    scheme="https",
    port=9200,
    ssl_context=context,
)

try:
    res = es.search(index="filebeat-*", body={"size":1,"query": {"match_all": {}}})
    print("Got %d Hits:" % res['hits']['total']['value'])
    for hit in res['hits']['hits']:
        print("%(@timestamp)s %(message)s" % hit["_source"])
except Exception as esError:
    print(' ********')
    print(type(esError))
    print(esError.args)

```

Errors  
(401, 'security\_exception', {'error': {'root\_cause': [{'type': 'security\_exception', 'reason': 'missing authentication credentials for REST request [/logs-_/\_search]', 'header': {'WWW-Authenticate': ['Bearer realm="security"', 'ApiKey', 'Basic realm="security" charset="UTF-8"']}}], 'type': 'security\_exception', 'reason': 'missing authentication credentials for REST request [/filebeat-_/\_search]', 'header': {'WWW-Authenticate': ['Bearer realm="security"', 'ApiKey', 'Basic realm="security" charset="UTF-8"']}}, 'status': 401})

What I observed:  
The cert file is correct, I have used the same file for the elastic beat agents without any problem.  
i.e. specify the in output.elasticsearch: -\> ssl.certificate\_authorities  
To confirm, on a selected server, I commented the above entry and as expected no data were coming from the it till I corrected it.

The api key entry is correct. I can use it in Postman and it is returning the right data.

The cert file and api key combo works when I ran in via c# code using both the NEST high and low-level client.

The above sample works if I switch to using http\_auth=("", "").

Ask  
What am I missing?

Thanks in advance!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TonyLuc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@TonyLuc](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/TonyLuc)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-py-with-ssl-and-api-key-getting-401-unauthorized-error/233808/2 "2020-05-28T19:28:37Z")

</div>

Hi all,

Finally found a workaround for my problem.  
I am using Elasticsearch.py Version 7.0.4, unless otherwise stated I think there is a potential bug.  
Based on the document you set the API Key with the syntax api\_key=(‘id’, ‘api\_key’), this did not work.  
I have to set the api key using the headers variable instead, i.e. headers={"Authorization": "ApiKey base64 encoded"}

Hopefully this will helpful to the community.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-py-with-ssl-and-api-key-getting-401-unauthorized-error/233808/3 "2020-06-25T19:28:57Z")

</div>

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