X-pack compatibility with ES and Kibana

[lalitr]

Hi,

As per compatibility matrix here # https://www.elastic.co/support/matrix#show_compatibility i should be able to use something like below;
Elasticsearch 5.1.1, Kibana 5.1.2 and X-pack 5.1.1.

But when we try to install x-pack 5.1.1 to Kibana 5.1.2 , the installation fails saying it requires exact match for the version. Which means we have to use same 5.1.1 version of all three products, is that correct ?

Thanks.

[Christian_Dahlqvist]

Yes, that is correct.

[lalitr]

Thanks for confirming - you want to get that reflected in the https://www.elastic.co/support/matrix#show_compatibility, should people confuse .x with any version instead.

[skearns (Steve Kearns)]

There's slightly more to the story

As a best practice, if you can run the same version of all parts of the stack, that's ideal. If, for some reason, you cannot, then upgrade ES first.

Unless you are installing these plugins in an offline environment, simply running bin/elasticsearch-plugin install x-pack and bin/kibana-plugin install x-pack in the respective ES and Kibana home directories will download and install the proper x-pack versions.

If you're in an offline environment, ES requires plugins to be have version numbers that match the ES version, so if you have ES 5.1.1, you need x-pack 5.1.1. Kibana has the same rule, the Kibana plugin must match the Kibana version.

Finally, ES 5.1.x should work with Kibana 5.1.x. It's just that the plugins for each must exactly match.