Connectors provide a central place to store connection information for services and integrations with third party systems. Actions are instantiations of a connector that are linked to rules and run as background tasks on the {kib} server when rule conditions are met. {kib} provides the following types of connectors:
Some connector types are paid commercial features, while others are free.
For a comparison of the Elastic subscription levels,
see https://www.elastic.co/subscriptions[the subscription page].
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[[connector-management]]
=== Managing Connectors
Rules use *Connectors* to route actions to different destinations like log files, ticketing systems, and messaging tools. While each {kib} app can offer their own types of rules, they typically share connectors. The *Connectors* tab offers a central place to view and manage all the connectors in the current space.
For more information on connectors and the types of actions available see <<action-types>>.
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image::images/connector-listing.png[Example connector listing in the Rules and Connectors UI]
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=== Required permissions
Access to connectors is granted based on your privileges to alerting-enabled features. See <<alerting-security, Alerting Security>> for more information.
Use the <<action-settings, Action configuration settings>> to customize connector networking configurations, such as proxies, certificates, or TLS settings. You can set configurations that apply to all your connectors or use `xpack.actions.customHostSettings` to set per-host configurations.
The *Connectors* tab lists all connectors in the current space. The *search bar* can be used to find specific connectors by name and/or type.
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image::images/connector-filter-by-search.png[Filtering the connector list using the search bar]
The *type* dropdown also lets you filter to a subset of connector types.
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image::images/connector-filter-by-type.png[Filtering the connector list by types of connectors]
You can delete individual connectors using the trash icon. Connectors can also be deleted in bulk by multi-selecting them and clicking the *Delete* button to the left of the search box.
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image::images/connector-delete.png[Deleting connectors individually or in bulk]
New connectors can be created by clicking the *Create connector* button, which will guide you to select the type of connector and configure its properties. Refer to <<action-types>> for the types of connectors available and how to configure them. Once you create a connector it will be made available to you anytime you set up an action in the current space.