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Installing OpenSearch Dashboards

OpenSearch Dashboards is the user interface for OpenSearch. You can use it to explore, visualize, and query your data. You can install OpenSearch Dashboards using any of the following methods:

OpenSearch Dashboards connects to an existing OpenSearch cluster, so install OpenSearch first. For more information, see Installing OpenSearch.

Preparing OpenSearch Dashboards for production

The Installation quickstart and the default configuration in most guides connect OpenSearch Dashboards to OpenSearch using the demo security configuration. In this configuration, OpenSearch Dashboards serves pages over HTTP, does not verify the OpenSearch certificate, and authenticates to OpenSearch using the kibanaserver user’s known default password. Before you use OpenSearch Dashboards in production, complete the following tasks:

Accessing OpenSearch Dashboards

After you install and start OpenSearch Dashboards, open it in a web browser:

  1. Go to http://localhost:5601. OpenSearch Dashboards listens on port 5601 by default. If OpenSearch Dashboards runs on a different host, replace localhost with the IP address or DNS name of that host.

    By default, the tarball, RPM, and Debian installations bind OpenSearch Dashboards to localhost, so you cannot reach it from other hosts. To allow access from other hosts, set server.host to 0.0.0.0 or to an IP address of the host in opensearch_dashboards.yml and restart OpenSearch Dashboards.

  2. Log in as the admin user using the custom admin password that you set when you installed OpenSearch. If you disabled the Security plugin, no login is required.

OpenSearch Dashboards can take about 1 minute to start. If the page does not load or returns a 503 error, wait and then reload the page.

If you cannot log in, see Common issues.

To learn how to use OpenSearch Dashboards, see OpenSearch Dashboards.

Browser compatibility

OpenSearch Dashboards supports the following web browsers:

  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Edge (Chromium)

Other Chromium-based browsers might work, as well. Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge Legacy are not supported.

Node.js compatibility

OpenSearch Dashboards requires the Node.js runtime binary to run. One is included in the distribution packages available from the OpenSearch downloads page.

OpenSearch Dashboards versions 2.8 through 2.19 support Node.js 14, 16, and 18. Distribution packages for versions 2.10 through 2.19 include Node.js 18 and Node.js 14 (for backward compatibility).

OpenSearch Dashboards versions 3.0 through 3.4 include Node.js 20. Versions 3.5 and later include Node.js 22.

To use a Node.js runtime binary other than the ones included in the distribution packages, follow these steps:

  1. Download and install Node.js. The compatible versions are >=14.20.1 <23.

  2. Set the OSD_NODE_HOME or NODE_HOME environment variable to the Node.js installation directory:

    • On Linux or macOS, if Node.js is installed to /usr/local/nodejs and the runtime binary is /usr/local/nodejs/bin/node:

      export NODE_HOME=/usr/local/nodejs

    • If Node.js is installed using NVM and the runtime binary is /Users/user/.nvm/versions/node/v22.22.3/bin/node:

      export NODE_HOME=/Users/user/.nvm/versions/node/v22.22.3
# or, if NODE_HOME is used for something else:
export OSD_NODE_HOME=/Users/user/.nvm/versions/node/v22.22.3

    • On Windows, if Node.js is installed to C:\Program Files\nodejs and the runtime binary is C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe, use the following command in Command Prompt:

      set "NODE_HOME=C:\Program Files\nodejs"

      Alternatively, use the following command in PowerShell:

      $Env:NODE_HOME = 'C:\Program Files\nodejs'

    Consult your operating system’s documentation to make a persistent change to the environment variables.

The OpenSearch Dashboards start script, bin/opensearch-dashboards, searches for the Node.js runtime binary using OSD_NODE_HOME and then NODE_HOME before using the binaries included with the distribution packages. If a usable Node.js runtime binary is not found, the start script attempts to find one in the system-wide PATH before failing.

Configuration

To learn how to configure TLS for OpenSearch Dashboards, see Configuring TLS for OpenSearch Dashboards.

Common issues

Review these common issues and suggested solutions if OpenSearch Dashboards fails to start or you cannot log in.

Error message: “Request Timeout after 30000ms”

If you encounter the error FATAL Error: Request Timeout after 30000ms when OpenSearch Dashboards starts, run OpenSearch Dashboards on a host that has more resources. We recommend four CPU cores and 8 GB of RAM.

You can’t log in to OpenSearch Dashboards

OpenSearch Dashboards does not have its own users. You log in using a user defined in the OpenSearch Security plugin. After installation, log in as the admin user using the password that you set in OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD when you installed OpenSearch. The admin user does not have a default password, so admin as a password does not work. The kibanaserver user is the account that OpenSearch Dashboards uses to connect to OpenSearch and is not intended for logging in.

The login page appears after you disable security in OpenSearch

If you disable the Security plugin in OpenSearch, also remove the Security plugin from OpenSearch Dashboards. Otherwise, OpenSearch Dashboards shows a login page, but no credentials work. For more information, see Removing the Security plugin from OpenSearch Dashboards.

Error message: “OpenSearch Dashboards server is not ready yet”

This message means that OpenSearch Dashboards cannot connect to OpenSearch. To find the cause, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure that OpenSearch is running by sending a request directly to OpenSearch:

    curl https://localhost:9200 -u admin:<custom-admin-password> --insecure

    If this request fails, the problem is in OpenSearch, not in OpenSearch Dashboards. Check the OpenSearch log.

  2. Make sure that opensearch.hosts in opensearch_dashboards.yml contains the address of OpenSearch.

  3. Make sure that opensearch.username and opensearch.password in opensearch_dashboards.yml match the credentials of the kibanaserver user in OpenSearch. If you changed the kibanaserver password in internal_users.yml, set opensearch.password to the new password in plain text and restart OpenSearch Dashboards.

Error message: “Client network socket disconnected before secure TLS connection was established”

OpenSearch Dashboards connects to OpenSearch using the protocol in opensearch.hosts. This error means that OpenSearch Dashboards tried to connect using HTTPS but OpenSearch did not complete a TLS handshake. If the Security plugin is disabled in OpenSearch, OpenSearch serves HTTP, so use http:// in opensearch.hosts. If the Security plugin is enabled, use https://.

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