Is it possible to migrate visualizations from version 4.1 to 6.4

We want to upgrade from Elasticsearch 1.7 + Kibana 4.1 to Elasticsearch 6.4 + Kibana 6.4.

We have setup a new cluster using Elasticsearch 6.4 + Kibana 6.4. We also migrated the Elasticsearch index using reindex-from-remote approach successfully.

Since there are so many Kibana visualizations created in the old cluster, we want to migrate them to the new cluster without re-creating.

I have followed this document to reindex .kibana index. When opening the saved visualization, I got error "The index pattern associated with this object no longer exists."

Then I found this thread and tried the workaround with Export/Import:

While importing I still receive this warning: " The following saved objects use index patterns that do not exist. Please select the index patterns you'd like re-associated with them. You can create a new index pattern if necessary." along with this error message: "Cannot read property 'save' of undefined".

Is this the right way to migrate visualizations from ver 4.1 to 6.4?

No there is as far as I know not. At least not unless you step through all the versions. You will unfortunately likely need to recreate.

Hi Christian_Dahlqvist,

Do you think if it's going to work if I go through the 4.1 to 5.x, 5.x to 6.x path?

I'm considering to setup a separate 5.x cluster just for this migration purpose. But I'd like to verify if somebody else has successfully done it.

I do not know how migrations have evolved over time and whether something is likely to break. I would wait for someone from the Kibana team to comment.

Kibana team,

Since we have 1,000+ visulizations created in version 4.1, we desperately want an approach to automate the migration process. Is there any solution or workaround?