Configure optimise directory using BABEL_CACHE_PATH

[emanzaman]

Kibana version: 5.6.8

Elasticsearch version: 5.6.8

Server OS version: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3

Describe the feature: As per the discussions in #6730, it is not possible to configure the Optimize directory. But when we copied the whole optimize directory to a different folder (owned by kibana user) and tried exporting BABEL_CACHE_PATH which is the path upto ${DIR_OWNED_BY_KIBANA_USER}/optimize/.babelcache.json file, kibana seems to be working fine. Is there any other problem that we might encounter in future?

[emanzaman]

To update on the issue further we are getting the following error on starting Kibana:

FATAL { Error: EACCES: permission denied, open '/opt/app/ignite/pkgs/tp/kibana/5.6.8/optimize/bundles/kibana.entry.js' at Error (native) cause: { Error: EACCES: permission denied, open '/opt/app/ignite/pkgs/tp/kibana/5.6.8/optimize/bundles/kibana.entry.js' at Error (native) errno: -13, code: 'EACCES', syscall: 'open', path: '/opt/app/ignite/pkgs/tp/kibana/5.6.8/optimize/bundles/kibana.entry.js' }, isOperational: true, errno: -13, code: 'EACCES', syscall: 'open', path: '/opt/app/ignite/pkgs/tp/kibana/5.6.8/optimize/bundles/kibana.entry.js' }

We have also not installed any plugin on Kibana. And read permission is provided to the user starting up Kibana on the /opt/app/ignite/pkgs/tp/kibana/5.6.8/optimize/bundles directory.

[epixa]

That error message is what you'll see when the user running Kibana doesn't have sufficient permissions to the optimize directory and contents. If this is still an issue, can you verify whether the user has read permissions to that entry file?

[emanzaman]

Yes, your are right , seems like BABLE_CACHE_PATH didn't actually override the optimize bundles directory path. We ended up keeping the whole of kibana package in a directory owned by the user running kibana but revoked write access to all the directories inside the package except for optimize directory.

[epixa]

@emanzaman That's a good plan. I'm going to close this because we'd prefer people don't configure different locations for optimize.

[rnalrd]

@epixa you leave distro packagers with no options, other than patching the source. You really don't want to have kibana or any other process writing temporary files into /usr.
Thanks for considering this issue.

[epixa]

@rnalrd Can you elaborate? We release official rpm/deb packages for Kibana, so distro packages are available today.

[perlei]

The official deb packages also is writing temporary files to /usr/ they should be in something like /var/run/kibana. The best would ofcource if this was a configurable directory.

Like in this proposal : #5071

[epixa]

@perlei We're in agreement there. #15899 is the issue tracking that, and there's a recent PR that looks to handle this for the optimize directory specifically: #25944