Unable to login using OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD in AWS EKS

[santosh-sahoo334]

Hi Team,
We have installed OpenSearch in AWS EKS as a single-node mode for POC. When setting the OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD via extraEnvs and try to access, it throws below exception.

[2025-02-28T11:30:08,292][DEBUG][c.p.PropertyReader       ] [opensearch-cluster-master-0] Cannot access properties file
java.security.AccessControlException: access denied ("java.io.FilePermission" "/psw4j.properties" "read")
        at java.base/java.security.AccessControlContext.checkPermission(AccessControlContext.java:488) ~[?:?]
        at java.base/java.security.AccessController.checkPermission(AccessController.java:1071) ~[?:?]
        at java.base/java.lang.SecurityManager.checkPermission(SecurityManager.java:411) ~[?:?]
        at java.base/java.lang.SecurityManager.checkRead(SecurityManager.java:742) ~[?:?]
        at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:141) ~[?:?]
        at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:106) ~[?:?]
        at com.password4j.PropertyReader.getResource(PropertyReader.java:214) ~[password4j-1.8.2.jar:?]
        at com.password4j.PropertyReader.init(PropertyReader.java:139) [password4j-1.8.2.jar:?]
        at com.password4j.PropertyReader.<clinit>(PropertyReader.java:45) [password4j-1.8.2.jar:?]
        at com.password4j.Utils.printBanner(Utils.java:610) [password4j-1.8.2.jar:?]
        at com.password4j.Password.<clinit>(Password.java:37) [password4j-1.8.2.jar:?]
[2025-02-28T11:30:08,293][DEBUG][c.p.PropertyReader       ] [opensearch-cluster-master-0] Cannot find any properties file.
[2025-02-28T11:30:08,626][DEBUG][o.o.s.a.BackendRegistry  ] [opensearch-cluster-master-0] Can not authenticate admin due to exception
com.google.common.util.concurrent.UncheckedExecutionException: OpenSearchSecurityException[password does not match]

So as a workaround, we changed the Container Security context in values.yaml as below. But that did not help either.

  capabilities:
    drop:
      - ALL
  # readOnlyRootFilesystem: true
  runAsNonRoot: true
  runAsUser: 1000
  allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
  readOnlyRootFilesystem: false  # Ensure container can read files

Our OpenSearch instance is only accessible with default admin credentials - admin:admin.

We also tried changing the default admin password using internalUsersSecret under securityConfig as below

securityConfig:
  enabled: true
  path: "/usr/share/opensearch/config/opensearch-security"
  actionGroupsSecret:
  configSecret:
  internalUsersSecret: "opensearch-internal-users"
  rolesSecret:
  rolesMappingSecret:
  tenantsSecret:

And the secret opensearch-internal-users is defined as below:

_meta:
  type: "internalusers"
  config_version: 2

admin:
  hash: "$2y$12$9Fveg1NqB/zpZZw9MqGaUuyDiR5MYkl/J0kBOEHSdHM3GYfDQpIGa"  # Password: Admin123456!
  reserved: true
  backend_roles:
  - "admin"
  description: "Admin user"
  opendistro_security_roles:
  - "admin"

kibanaserver:
  hash: "$2y$12$9Fveg1NqB/zpZZw9MqGaUuyDiR5MYkl/J0kBOEHSdHM3GYfDQpIGa"  # Password: Admin123456!
  reserved: true
  description: "OpenSearch Dashboards server user"
  opendistro_security_roles:
  - "kibana_server"

Still the same issue
java.security.AccessControlException: access denied ("java.io.FilePermission" "/psw4j.properties" "read")

OpenSearch version- 2.19.0

Here is the complete values.yaml

---
clusterName: "opensearch-cluster"
nodeGroup: "master"

# If discovery.type in the opensearch configuration is set to "single-node",
# this should be set to "true"
# If "true", replicas will be forced to 1
singleNode: true

# The service that non master groups will try to connect to when joining the cluster
# This should be set to clusterName + "-" + nodeGroup for your master group
masterService: "opensearch-cluster-master"

# OpenSearch roles that will be applied to this nodeGroup
# These will be set as environment variable "node.roles". E.g. node.roles=master,ingest,data,remote_cluster_client
roles:
  - master
  - ingest
  - data
  - remote_cluster_client

replicas: 1

# if not set, falls back to parsing .Values.imageTag, then .Chart.appVersion.
majorVersion: ""

global:
  # Set if you want to change the default docker registry, e.g. a private one.
  dockerRegistry: ""

# Allows you to add any config files in {{ .Values.opensearchHome }}/config
opensearchHome: /usr/share/opensearch

# such as opensearch.yml and log4j2.properties
config:
  # Values must be YAML literal style scalar / YAML multiline string.
  # <filename>: |
  #   <formatted-value(s)>
  log4j2.properties: |
    status = error
  
    appender.console.type: Console
    appender.console.name: console
    appender.console.layout.type: PatternLayout
    appender.console.layout.pattern: [%d{ISO8601}][%-5p][%-25c{1.}] [%node_name]%marker %m%n
  
    rootLogger.level: debug
    rootLogger.appenderRef.console.ref: console
  opensearch.yml: |
    cluster.name: opensearch-cluster

    # Bind to all interfaces because we don't know what IP address Docker will assign to us.
    network.host: 0.0.0.0

    # Setting network.host to a non-loopback address enables the annoying bootstrap checks. "Single-node" mode disables them again.
    # Implicitly done if ".singleNode" is set to "true".
    discovery.type: single-node

    # Start OpenSearch Security Demo Configuration
    # WARNING: revise all the lines below before you go into production
    plugins:
      security:
        ssl:
          transport:
            pemcert_filepath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls/tls.crt
            pemkey_filepath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls/tls.key
            pemtrustedcas_filepath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls/tls.crt
            enforce_hostname_verification: false
          http:
            enabled: false
            pemcert_filepath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls/tls.crt
            pemkey_filepath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls/tls.key
            pemtrustedcas_filepath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls/tls.crt
        allow_unsafe_democertificates: false # No demo certs
        allow_default_init_securityindex: true
        # authcz:
        #   admin_dn:
        #     - CN=CloudFlare Origin Certificate,OU=CloudFlare Origin CA,O=CloudFlare, Inc.,L=San Francisco,C=US
        audit.type: internal_opensearch
        enable_snapshot_restore_privilege: true
        check_snapshot_restore_write_privileges: true
        restapi:
          roles_enabled: ["all_access", "security_rest_api_access"]
        system_indices:
          enabled: true
          indices:
            [
              ".opendistro-alerting-config",
              ".opendistro-alerting-alert*",
              ".opendistro-anomaly-results*",
              ".opendistro-anomaly-detector*",
              ".opendistro-anomaly-checkpoints",
              ".opendistro-anomaly-detection-state",
              ".opendistro-reports-*",
              ".opendistro-notifications-*",
              ".opendistro-notebooks",
              ".opendistro-asynchronous-search-response*",
            ]
    ######## End OpenSearch Security Demo Configuration ########
  # log4j2.properties:

# Extra environment variables to append to this nodeGroup
# This will be appended to the current 'env:' key. You can use any of the kubernetes env
# syntax here
extraEnvs:
#  - name: MY_ENVIRONMENT_VAR
#    value: the_value_goes_here
# Chart version 2.18.0 and App Version OpenSearch 2.12.0 onwards a custom strong password needs to be provided in order to setup demo admin user.
# Cluster will not spin-up without this unless demo config install is disabled.
 - name: OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD
   value: "Admin123456!"

# Allows you to load environment variables from kubernetes secret or config map
envFrom: []
# - secretRef:
#     name: env-secret
# - configMapRef:
#     name: config-map

# A list of secrets and their paths to mount inside the pod
# This is useful for mounting certificates for security and for mounting
# the X-Pack license
secretMounts: []

hostAliases: []
# - ip: "127.0.0.1"
#   hostnames:
#   - "foo.local"
#   - "bar.local"

image:
  repository: "opensearchproject/opensearch"
  # override image tag, which is .Chart.AppVersion by default
  tag: 2.19.0
  pullPolicy: "IfNotPresent"

podAnnotations: {}
  # iam.amazonaws.com/role: es-cluster

# OpenSearch Statefulset annotations
openSearchAnnotations: {}

# additionals labels
labels: {}

opensearchJavaOpts: "-Xmx512M -Xms512M"

resources:
  requests:
    cpu: "0.5"
    memory: "1Gi"
  limits:
    cpu: "1"
    memory: "2Gi"

initResources: {}
#  limits:
#     cpu: "25m"
#     memory: "128Mi"
#  requests:
#     cpu: "25m"
#     memory: "128Mi"

sidecarResources: {}
#   limits:
#     cpu: "25m"
#     memory: "128Mi"
#   requests:
#     cpu: "25m"
#     memory: "128Mi"

networkHost: "0.0.0.0"

rbac:
  create: false
  serviceAccountAnnotations: {}
  serviceAccountName: ""
  # Controls whether or not the Service Account token is automatically mounted to /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount
  automountServiceAccountToken: false

podSecurityPolicy:
  create: false
  name: ""
  spec:
    privileged: true
    fsGroup:
      rule: RunAsAny
    runAsUser:
      rule: RunAsAny
    seLinux:
      rule: RunAsAny
    supplementalGroups:
      rule: RunAsAny
    volumes:
      - secret
      - configMap
      - persistentVolumeClaim
      - emptyDir

persistence:
  enabled: true
  # Set to false to disable the `fsgroup-volume` initContainer that will update permissions on the persistent disk.
  enableInitChown: true
  # override image, which is busybox by default
  # image: busybox
  # override image tag, which is latest by default
  # imageTag:
  labels:
    # Add default labels for the volumeClaimTemplate of the StatefulSet
    enabled: false
    # Add custom labels for the volumeClaimTemplate of the StatefulSet
    additionalLabels: {}
  # OpenSearch Persistent Volume Storage Class
  # If defined, storageClassName: <storageClass>
  # If set to "-", storageClassName: "", which disables dynamic provisioning
  # If undefined (the default) or set to null, no storageClassName spec is
  #   set, choosing the default provisioner.  (gp2 on AWS, standard on
  #   GKE, AWS & OpenStack)
  #
  # storageClass: "-"
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  size: 8Gi
  annotations: {}

extraVolumes:
  - name: tls-certs
    secret:
      secretName: opensearch-tls

extraVolumeMounts:
  - name: tls-certs
    mountPath: /usr/share/opensearch/config/tls

extraContainers: []
  # - name: do-something
  #   image: busybox
  #   command: ['do', 'something']

extraInitContainers: []
  # - name: do-somethings
  #   image: busybox
  #   command: ['do', 'something']

# This is the PriorityClass settings as defined in
# https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/pod-priority-preemption/#priorityclass
priorityClassName: ""

# By default this will make sure two pods don't end up on the same node
# Changing this to a region would allow you to spread pods across regions
antiAffinityTopologyKey: "kubernetes.io/hostname"

# Hard means that by default pods will only be scheduled if there are enough nodes for them
# and that they will never end up on the same node. Setting this to soft will do this "best effort".
# Setting this to custom will use what is passed into customAntiAffinity.
antiAffinity: "soft"

# Allows passing in custom anti-affinity settings as defined in
# https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/scheduling-eviction/assign-pod-node/#types-of-inter-pod-affinity-and-anti-affinity
# Using this parameter requires setting antiAffinity to custom.
customAntiAffinity: {}

# This is the node affinity settings as defined in
# https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/assign-pod-node/#node-affinity-beta-feature
nodeAffinity: {}

# This is the pod affinity settings as defined in
# https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/scheduling-eviction/assign-pod-node/#types-of-inter-pod-affinity-and-anti-affinity
podAffinity: {}

# This is the pod topology spread constraints
# https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod-topology-spread-constraints/
topologySpreadConstraints: []

# The default is to deploy all pods serially. By setting this to parallel all pods are started at
# the same time when bootstrapping the cluster
podManagementPolicy: "Parallel"

# The environment variables injected by service links are not used, but can lead to slow OpenSearch boot times when
# there are many services in the current namespace.
# If you experience slow pod startups you probably want to set this to `false`.
enableServiceLinks: true

protocol: https
httpPort: 9200
transportPort: 9300
metricsPort: 9600
httpHostPort: ""
transportHostPort: ""


service:
  labels: {}
  labelsHeadless: {}
  headless:
    annotations: {}
  type: ClusterIP
  # The IP family and IP families options are to set the behaviour in a dual-stack environment
  # Omitting these values will let the service fall back to whatever the CNI dictates the defaults
  # should be
  #
  # ipFamilyPolicy: SingleStack
  # ipFamilies:
  # - IPv4
  nodePort: ""
  annotations: {}
  httpPortName: http
  transportPortName: transport
  metricsPortName: metrics
  loadBalancerIP: ""
  loadBalancerSourceRanges: []
  externalTrafficPolicy: ""

updateStrategy: RollingUpdate

# This is the max unavailable setting for the pod disruption budget
# The default value of 1 will make sure that kubernetes won't allow more than 1
# of your pods to be unavailable during maintenance
maxUnavailable: 1

podSecurityContext:
  fsGroup: 1000
  runAsUser: 1000
  runAsGroup: 1000
  # readOnlyRootFilesystem: false  # Allow reading files

securityContext:
  capabilities:
    drop:
      - ALL
  # readOnlyRootFilesystem: true
  runAsNonRoot: true
  runAsUser: 1000
  allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
  readOnlyRootFilesystem: false  # Ensure container can read files

securityConfig:
  enabled: true
  path: "/usr/share/opensearch/config/opensearch-security"
  actionGroupsSecret:
  configSecret:
  internalUsersSecret: "opensearch-internal-users"
  rolesSecret:
  rolesMappingSecret:
  tenantsSecret:
  # The following option simplifies securityConfig by using a single secret and
  # specifying the config files as keys in the secret instead of creating
  # different secrets for for each config file.
  # Note that this is an alternative to the individual secret configuration
  # above and shouldn't be used if the above secrets are used.
  config:
    # There are multiple ways to define the configuration here:
    # * If you define anything under data, the chart will automatically create
    #   a secret and mount it. This is best option to choose if you want to override all the
    #   existing yml files at once.
    # * If you define securityConfigSecret, the chart will assume this secret is
    #   created externally and mount it. This is best option to choose if your intention is to
    #   only update a single yml file.
    # * It is an error to define both data and securityConfigSecret.
    securityConfigSecret: ""
    dataComplete: true
    data: {}
      # config.yml: |-
      # internal_users.yml: |-
      # roles.yml: |-
      # roles_mapping.yml: |-
      # action_groups.yml: |-
      # tenants.yml: |-

# How long to wait for opensearch to stop gracefully
terminationGracePeriod: 120

sysctlVmMaxMapCount: 262144

startupProbe:
  tcpSocket:
    port: 9200
  initialDelaySeconds: 5
  periodSeconds: 10
  timeoutSeconds: 3
  failureThreshold: 30

livenessProbe: {}
  # periodSeconds: 20
  # timeoutSeconds: 5
  # failureThreshold: 10
  # successThreshold: 1
  # initialDelaySeconds: 10
  # tcpSocket:
  #   port: 9200

readinessProbe:
  tcpSocket:
    port: 9200
  periodSeconds: 5
  timeoutSeconds: 3
  failureThreshold: 3

## Use an alternate scheduler.
## ref: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/configure-multiple-schedulers/
##
schedulerName: ""

imagePullSecrets: []
nodeSelector: {}
tolerations: []

# Enabling this will publically expose your OpenSearch instance.
# Only enable this if you have security enabled on your cluster
ingress:
  enabled: true
  # For Kubernetes >= 1.18 you should specify the ingress-controller via the field ingressClassName
  # See https://kubernetes.io/blog/2020/04/02/improvements-to-the-ingress-api-in-kubernetes-1.18/#specifying-the-class-of-an-ingress
  ingressClassName: nginx

  annotations:
    kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
    # kubernetes.io/tls-acme: "true"
  ingressLabels: {}
  path: /
  hosts:
    - opensearch.example.com
  tls:
   - secretName: opensearch-tls
     hosts:
       - opensearch.example.com

nameOverride: ""
fullnameOverride: ""

masterTerminationFix: false

opensearchLifecycle: {}
  # preStop:
  #   exec:
  #     command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "echo Hello from the preStart handler > /usr/share/message"]
  # postStart:
  #   exec:
  #     command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "echo Hello from the postStart handler > /usr/share/message"]

lifecycle: {}
  # preStop:
  #   exec:
  #     command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "echo Hello from the postStart handler > /usr/share/message"]
  # postStart:
  #   exec:
  #     command:
  #       - bash
  #       - -c
  #       - |
  #         #!/bin/bash
  #         # Add a template to adjust number of shards/replicas1
  #         TEMPLATE_NAME=my_template
  #         INDEX_PATTERN="logstash-*"
  #         SHARD_COUNT=8
  #         REPLICA_COUNT=1
  #         ES_URL=http://localhost:9200
  #         while [[ "$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' $ES_URL)" != "200" ]]; do sleep 1; done
  #         curl -XPUT "$ES_URL/_template/$TEMPLATE_NAME" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d'{"index_patterns":['\""$INDEX_PATTERN"\"'],"settings":{"number_of_shards":'$SHARD_COUNT',"number_of_replicas":'$REPLICA_COUNT'}}'

keystore: []
# To add secrets to the keystore:
#  - secretName: opensearch-encryption-key

networkPolicy:
  create: false
  ## Enable creation of NetworkPolicy resources. Only Ingress traffic is filtered for now.
  ## In order for a Pod to access OpenSearch, it needs to have the following label:
  ## {{ template "uname" . }}-client: "true"
  ## Example for default configuration to access HTTP port:
  ## opensearch-master-http-client: "true"
  ## Example for default configuration to access transport port:
  ## opensearch-master-transport-client: "true"

  http:
    enabled: false

# Deprecated
# please use the above podSecurityContext.fsGroup instead
fsGroup: ""

## Set optimal sysctl's through securityContext. This requires privilege. Can be disabled if
## the system has already been preconfigured. (Ex: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/vm-max-map-count.html)
## Also see: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/sysctl-cluster/
sysctl:
  enabled: false

## Set optimal sysctl's through privileged initContainer.
sysctlInit:
  enabled: false
  # override image, which is busybox by default
  # image: busybox
  # override image tag, which is latest by default
  # imageTag:

## Enable to add 3rd Party / Custom plugins not offered in the default OpenSearch image.
plugins:
  enabled: false
  installList: []
  # - example-fake-plugin
  removeList: []
  # - example-fake-plugin

# -- Array of extra K8s manifests to deploy
extraObjects: []
  # - apiVersion: secrets-store.csi.x-k8s.io/v1
  #   kind: SecretProviderClass
  #   metadata:
  #     name: argocd-secrets-store
  #   spec:
  #     provider: aws
  #     parameters:
  #       objects: |
  #         - objectName: "argocd"
  #           objectType: "secretsmanager"
  #           jmesPath:
  #               - path: "client_id"
  #                 objectAlias: "client_id"
  #               - path: "client_secret"
  #                 objectAlias: "client_secret"
  #     secretObjects:
  #     - data:
  #       - key: client_id
  #         objectName: client_id
  #       - key: client_secret
  #         objectName: client_secret
  #       secretName: argocd-secrets-store
  #       type: Opaque
  #       labels:
  #         app.kubernetes.io/part-of: argocd
  # - |
  #    apiVersion: policy/v1
  #    kind: PodDisruptionBudget
  #    metadata:
  #      name: {{ template "opensearch.uname" . }}
  #      labels:
  #        {{- include "opensearch.labels" . | nindent 4 }}
  #    spec:
  #      minAvailable: 1
  #      selector:
  #        matchLabels:
  #          {{- include "opensearch.selectorLabels" . | nindent 6 }}

# ServiceMonitor Configuration for Prometheus
# Enabling this option will create a ServiceMonitor resource that allows Prometheus to scrape metrics from the OpenSearch service.
# This only creates the serviceMonitor, to actually have metrics Make sure to install the prometheus-exporter plugin needed for
# serving metrics over the `.Values.plugins` value:
# plugins:
#   enabled: true
#   installList:
#     - https://github.com/aiven/prometheus-exporter-plugin-for-opensearch/releases/download/x.x.x.x/prometheus-exporter-x.x.x.x.zip
serviceMonitor:
  # Set to true to enable the ServiceMonitor resource
  enabled: false

  # HTTP path where metrics are exposed.
  # Ensure this matches your OpenSearch service configuration.
  path: /_prometheus/metrics

  # Scheme to use for scraping.
  scheme: http

  # Frequency at which Prometheus will scrape metrics.
  # Adjust based on your needs.
  interval: 10s

  # additional labels to be added to the ServiceMonitor
  # labels:
  #  k8s.example.com/prometheus: kube-prometheus
  labels: {}

  # additional tlsConfig to be added to the ServiceMonitor
  tlsConfig: {}

  # Basic Auth configuration for the service monitor
  # You can either use existingSecret, which expects a secret to be already present with data.username and data.password
  # or set the credentials over the helm values, making helm create a secret for you
  # basicAuth:
  #   enaled: true
  #   existingSecret: my-secret
  #   username:  my-username
  #   password: my-password
  basicAuth:
    enabled: false

[derek-ho]

@santosh-sahoo334 thanks for filing this issue. When @DarshitChanpura and I were working on implementing this we did not need to add any additional permission to JSM for these setups. Is everything running ok and just that exception is seen in the logs, or the cluster is not starting up at all? Any more information you can provide would be helpful, thanks!

[santosh-sahoo334]

@derek-ho Thanks for the response and sorry for the delay in my response.
The cluster is starting up, but when I enter the custom password set in OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD, its throwing the exception I shared. However, admin/admin is perfectly fine.
I gave up on it now. Using the bitnami provided image where I can successfully setup the custom admin password with default tls settings.

[terryquigleysas]

I don't use or work on the helm chart but I have a couple of observations that may be helpful.

1. A psw4j.properties file is not required for OpenSearch's usage. This message is expected to be logged at DEBUG level (rather than ERROR/WARN) and can be safely ignored
2. The hash: "$2y$12$9Fveg1NqB/zpZZw9MqGaUuyDiR5MYkl/J0kBOEHSdHM3GYfDQpIGa" does not appear valid for # Password: Admin123456! - may be relevant on seeing OpenSearchSecurityException[password does not match]