# Inability to set up Shield/Security within X-Pack Trial
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Tags:** elastic-stack-security
**Created:** [August 3, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924 "2018-08-03T14:12:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tvoll](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tvoll)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/1 "2018-08-03T14:12:59Z")
So, I'm currently testing out the trial of X-Pack on my test install, and i'm having an issue enabling the Security portion of X-Pack. From the guides provided, it is presented that it should be as easy as entering `xpack.security.enabled = true` at the end of my elasticsearch.yml. However, every time I do this, Elasticsearch will fail to start up.
Are there any other steps that I'd need to do? Was hoping the trial would snap into action a bit faster.
---
### Author:  [@ikakavas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ikakavas)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 2:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/2 "2018-08-03T14:33:24Z")
> [@tvoll](#):
>
> Elasticsearch will fail to start up.
Can you please add a little more context / information ? What is the error message?
Which Elasticsearch version are you trying out?
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### Author:  [@ikakavas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ikakavas)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 2:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/3 "2018-08-03T14:37:19Z")
> [@tvoll](#):
>
> xpack.security.enabled = true
Also, not sure if you misspoke above, but elasticsearch.yml is a YAML file and as such the correct syntax is
```auto
xpack.security.enabled: true
```
and not
```auto
xpack.security.enabled= true
```
---
### Author:  [@tvoll](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tvoll)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 3:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/4 "2018-08-03T15:24:24Z")
Whoops, it might have just been a stupid mistake on my part.
Running everything at v6.3.2. I believe that was all it was, just a simple =.
Since it wasn't specified in the guides as `xpack.security.enabled: true`, but instead 'set xpack.security.enabled' to true, so my first thought was =, I guess.
Thanks once again and sorry for the silliness.
---
### Author:  [@tvoll](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tvoll)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 3:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/5 "2018-08-03T15:30:22Z")
I am still having issues, but I have gotten a little bit further.
Now I have Kibana constantly reloading after enabling security.
I already have nginx basic authentication being used, and am not sure if this could be the cause for the issue.
My logs look like this for Kibana
> Aug 3 10:25:39 ELKD01 kibana[23568]: {"type":"log","@timestamp":"2018-08-03T15:25:39Z","tags":["info","authentication"],"pid":23568,"message":"Authentication attempt failed: [security\_exception] unable to authenticate user [tjvadmin] for REST request [/\_xpack/security/\_authenticate], with { header={ WWW-Authenticate="Basic realm=\"security\" charset=\"UTF-8\"" } }"}
> Aug 3 10:25:39 ELKD01 kibana[23568]: {"type":"log","@timestamp":"2018-08-03T15:25:39Z","tags":["license","warning","xpack"],"pid":23568,"message":"License information from the X-Pack plugin could not be obtained from Elasticsearch for the [data] cluster. [security\_exception] missing authentication token for REST request [/\_xpack], with { header={ WWW-Authenticate="Basic realm=\"security\" charset=\"UTF-8\"" } } :: {"path":"/\_xpack","statusCode":401,"response":"{\"error\":{\"root\_cause\":[{\"type\":\"security\_exception\",\"reason\":\"missing authentication token for REST request [/\_xpack]\",\"header\":{\"WWW-Authenticate\":\"Basic realm=\\\"security\\\" charset=\\\"UTF-8\\\"\"}}],\"type\":\"security\_exception\",\"reason\":\"missing authentication token for REST request [/\_xpack]\",\"header\":{\"WWW-Authenticate\":\"Basic realm=\\\"security\\\" charset=\\\"UTF-8\\\"\"}},\"status\":401}","wwwAuthenticateDirective":"Basic realm=\"security\" charset=\"UTF-8\""}"}
> Aug 3 10:25:39 ELKD01 kibana[23568]: {"type":"response","@timestamp":"2018-08-03T15:25:39Z","tags":,"pid":23568,"method":"get","statusCode":401,"req":{"url":"/app/monitoring","method":"get","headers":{"connection":"upgrade","host":"[logsd.securecomwireless.com](http://logsd.securecomwireless.com)","user-agent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/61.0","accept":"text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,_/_;q=0.8","accept-language":"en-US,en;q=0.5","accept-encoding":"gzip, deflate, br","referer":"[https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana","upgrade-insecure-requests":"1"},"remoteAddress":"127.0.0.1","userAgent":"127.0.0.1","referer":"https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana"},"res":{"statusCode":401,"responseTime":4,"contentLength":9},"message":"GET](https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana%22,%22upgrade-insecure-requests%22:%221%22%7D,%22remoteAddress%22:%22127.0.0.1%22,%22userAgent%22:%22127.0.0.1%22,%22referer%22:%22https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana%22%7D,%22res%22:%7B%22statusCode%22:401,%22responseTime%22:4,%22contentLength%22:9%7D,%22message%22:%22GET) /app/monitoring 401 4ms - 9.0B"}
> Aug 3 10:25:39 ELKD01 kibana[23568]: {"type":"log","@timestamp":"2018-08-03T15:25:39Z","tags":["info","authentication"],"pid":23568,"message":"Authentication attempt failed: [security\_exception] unable to authenticate user [tjvadmin] for REST request [/\_xpack/security/\_authenticate], with { header={ WWW-Authenticate="Basic realm=\"security\" charset=\"UTF-8\"" } }"}
> Aug 3 10:25:39 ELKD01 kibana[23568]: {"type":"log","@timestamp":"2018-08-03T15:25:39Z","tags":["license","warning","xpack"],"pid":23568,"message":"License information from the X-Pack plugin could not be obtained from Elasticsearch for the [data] cluster. [security\_exception] missing authentication token for REST request [/\_xpack], with { header={ WWW-Authenticate="Basic realm=\"security\" charset=\"UTF-8\"" } } :: {"path":"/\_xpack","statusCode":401,"response":"{\"error\":{\"root\_cause\":[{\"type\":\"security\_exception\",\"reason\":\"missing authentication token for REST request [/\_xpack]\",\"header\":{\"WWW-Authenticate\":\"Basic realm=\\\"security\\\" charset=\\\"UTF-8\\\"\"}}],\"type\":\"security\_exception\",\"reason\":\"missing authentication token for REST request [/\_xpack]\",\"header\":{\"WWW-Authenticate\":\"Basic realm=\\\"security\\\" charset=\\\"UTF-8\\\"\"}},\"status\":401}","wwwAuthenticateDirective":"Basic realm=\"security\" charset=\"UTF-8\""}"}
> Aug 3 10:25:39 ELKD01 kibana[23568]: {"type":"response","@timestamp":"2018-08-03T15:25:39Z","tags":,"pid":23568,"method":"get","statusCode":401,"req":{"url":"/app/monitoring","method":"get","headers":{"connection":"upgrade","host":"[logsd.securecomwireless.com](http://logsd.securecomwireless.com)","user-agent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/61.0","accept":"text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,_/_;q=0.8","accept-language":"en-US,en;q=0.5","accept-encoding":"gzip, deflate, br","referer":"[https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana","upgrade-insecure-requests":"1"},"remoteAddress":"127.0.0.1","userAgent":"127.0.0.1","referer":"https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana"},"res":{"statusCode":401,"responseTime":3,"contentLength":9},"message":"GET](https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana%22,%22upgrade-insecure-requests%22:%221%22%7D,%22remoteAddress%22:%22127.0.0.1%22,%22userAgent%22:%22127.0.0.1%22,%22referer%22:%22https://logsd.securecomwireless.com/app/kibana%22%7D,%22res%22:%7B%22statusCode%22:401,%22responseTime%22:3,%22contentLength%22:9%7D,%22message%22:%22GET) /app/monitoring 401 3ms - 9.0B"}
---
### Author:  [@ikakavas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ikakavas)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/6 "2018-08-03T16:08:35Z")
You don't need nginx with basic auth in front of kibana now that you are using X-Pack.
The issue here is that Kibana can't communicate with Elasticsearch as Elasticsearch now needs authenticated requests ( security is enabled ) and you probably haven't configured Kibana for this.
Please read through our [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elastic-stack-overview/current/security-getting-started.html) on how to start with security. You can probably start [here](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elastic-stack-overview/current/get-started-built-in-users.html). Most of these initial required steps are well covered in there.
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### Author:  [@tvoll](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tvoll)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/7 "2018-08-03T20:48:43Z")
Thank you!
Those documents did help out a lot.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/inability-to-set-up-shield-security-within-x-pack-trial/142924/8 "2018-08-31T20:48:50Z")
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