Port 5601 – Kibana

TCP

Port 5601 is the default Kibana web interface port. Kibana is the visualization layer of the Elastic Stack (ELK – Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana). Kibana connects to Elasticsearch on port 9200. Port 5601 should never be exposed directly to the internet – use nginx reverse proxy with authentication instead.

Port Number

5601

Protocol

TCP

Service

Kibana Web UI

Range

IANA Registered (1024–49151)

Description

Kibana's web UI on port 5601 provides dashboards, log search, and observability tooling for data in Elasticsearch. In Elastic Stack deployments, users access Kibana (5601) rather than Elasticsearch (9200) directly. Kibana 7.2+ includes built-in authentication. For production, reverse proxy through nginx/Apache with TLS termination is standard practice.

Security risks

1Unauthenticated access (pre-7.2): Kibana before 7.2 had no built-in auth – anyone reaching port 5601 could search all Elasticsearch data, create dashboards, and use Dev Tools to run arbitrary queries. Upgrade or use nginx basic auth as a proxy.
2Dev Tools console: Kibana's Dev Tools tab allows executing arbitrary Elasticsearch queries including DELETE, PUT, and POST to any index. A user with Kibana access can delete indices or modify data. Restrict Dev Tools access via Kibana Spaces and roles.
3Saved objects injection: Kibana dashboards and visualizations are stored as saved objects. An attacker with write access can create malicious dashboards that embed scripts (stored XSS in older versions) or exfiltrate data via Timelion expressions.

Firewall guidance

Never expose port 5601 directly to the internet. Place behind an nginx reverse proxy with TLS termination and authentication (or use Kibana's built-in security with Elasticsearch credentials). In Elastic Cloud, Kibana is accessed through the cloud URL with SSO – no port management needed.

Diagnosis commands

Check Kibana health status (green/yellow/red)

shell

curl -s http://localhost:5601/api/status | jq .status.overall.level

Count dashboards in Kibana

shell

curl -s http://localhost:5601/api/saved_objects/_find?type=dashboard | jq .total

Verify Kibana process is listening

shell

ss -tnlp sport = :5601

Usage examples

Port 5601 – Kibana

shell

curl http://localhost:5601/api/status
curl -u elastic:password http://localhost:5601/api/fleet/agents

Common services on this port

Kibana OSSKibana (Elastic License)OpenSearch DashboardsElastic Cloud

Related ports

9200

Elasticsearch HTTP API

9300

Elasticsearch transport

5044

Logstash Beats input

History

Kibana was created as a PHP frontend for Logstash in 2011, rewritten in Node.js for Kibana 3 (2013). It became the standard ELK visualization layer. Kibana 7.0 (2019) introduced Elastic Security (SIEM). OpenSearch Dashboards forked from Kibana 7.10 in 2021.

FAQ

Kibana vs Grafana for log visualization?

Kibana is purpose-built for Elasticsearch data – native KQL queries, Discover log exploration, and deep integration with Elastic APM/Security. Grafana is multi-datasource (Prometheus, Loki, ES, InfluxDB) and better for metrics dashboards. Use Kibana for log search and SIEM, Grafana for infrastructure metrics.