After renewing certificates, Kibana shows multiple expiry dates (2028 vs 2125)

LimSuyun
Tue, 30 Sep 2025 03:00:25 +0000
Elasticsearch

We have currently set up 3 Elasticsearch clusters with master nodes on 1.1.1.10, 1.1.1.11, and 1.1.1.12.

Since the certificates had expired, we generated new ones. On the master node (1.1.1.10), we created http.p12, transport.p12, and http_ca.crt, and then copied them to the other nodes (1.1.1.11 and 1.1.1.12).

To verify the certificate validity, we ran the following commands, and they all returned the same output:

echo | openssl s_client -connect 1.1.1.10:9200 -servername 1.1.1.10:9200 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates -subject -issuer
echo | openssl s_client -connect 1.1.1.11:9200 -servername 1.1.1.11:9200 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates -subject -issuer
echo | openssl s_client -connect 1.1.1.12:9200 -servername 1.1.1.11:9200 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates -subject -issuer

However, when checking in Kibana with GET _ssl/certificates, we see the following output:

[
  {
    "path": "certs/http.p12",
    "format": "PKCS12",
    "alias": "ca",
    "subject_dn": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA",
    "serial_number": "bd....36",
    "has_private_key": false,
    "expiry": "2028-09-25T09:18:24.000Z",
    "issuer": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA"
  },
  {
    "path": "certs/http.p12",
    "format": "PKCS12",
    "alias": "instance",
    "subject_dn": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA",
    "serial_number": "bd....36",
    "has_private_key": false,
    "expiry": "2028-09-25T09:18:24.000Z",
    "issuer": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA"
  },
  {
    "path": "certs/http.p12",
    "format": "PKCS12",
    "alias": "instance",
    "subject_dn": "CN=instance",
    "serial_number": "bf....86",
    "has_private_key": true,
    "expiry": "2125-09-02T09:18:51.000Z",
    "issuer": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA"
  },
  {
    "path": "certs/transport.p12",
    "format": "PKCS12",
    "alias": "ca",
    "subject_dn": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA",
    "serial_number": "e9....e3",
    "has_private_key": false,
    "expiry": "2028-09-25T08:43:32.000Z",
    "issuer": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA"
  },
  {
    "path": "certs/transport.p12",
    "format": "PKCS12",
    "alias": "instance",
    "subject_dn": "CN=instance",
    "serial_number": "16....6b",
    "has_private_key": true,
    "expiry": "2125-09-02T08:43:59.000Z",
    "issuer": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA"
  },
  {
    "path": "certs/transport.p12",
    "format": "PKCS12",
    "alias": "instance",
    "subject_dn": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA",
    "serial_number": "e9....e3",
    "has_private_key": false,
    "expiry": "2028-09-25T08:43:32.000Z",
    "issuer": "CN=Elastic Certificate Tool Autogenerated CA"
  }
]

We would like to know:

1. Why do the certificates appear differently in Kibana compared to the OpenSSL command results?

2. Which certificate expiry dates should we follow for the next renewal? (e.g., 2028 vs 2125)

2 posts - 2 participants