[[connect-to-elasticsearch]]
== Connect Kibana with Elasticsearch

Before you can start using Kibana, you need to tell it which Elasticsearch indices you want to explore.
The first time you access Kibana, you are prompted to define an _index pattern_ that matches the name of
one or more of your indices. That's it. That's all you need to configure to start using Kibana. You can
add index patterns at any time from the <<settings-create-pattern,Management tab>>.

TIP: By default, Kibana connects to the Elasticsearch instance running on `localhost`. To connect to a
different Elasticsearch instance, modify the Elasticsearch URL in the `kibana.yml` configuration file and
restart Kibana. For information about using Kibana with your production nodes, see <<production>>.

To configure the Elasticsearch indices you want to access with Kibana:

. Point your browser at port 5601 to access the Kibana UI. For example, `localhost:5601` or
`http://YOURDOMAIN.com:5601`.
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image:images/Start-Page.png[Kibana start page]
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. Specify an index pattern that matches the name of one or more of your Elasticsearch indices. By default,
Kibana guesses that you're working with data being fed into Elasticsearch by Logstash. If that's the case,
you can use the default `logstash-*` as your index pattern. The asterisk (*) matches zero or more
characters in an index's name. If your Elasticsearch indices follow some other naming convention, enter
an appropriate pattern. The "pattern" can also simply be the name of a single index.
. Select the index field that contains the timestamp that you want to use to perform time-based
comparisons. Kibana reads the index mapping to list all of the fields that contain a timestamp. If your
index doesn't have time-based data, disable the *Index contains time-based events* option.
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WARNING: Using event times to create index names is *deprecated* in this release of Kibana. Support for
this functionality will be removed entirely in the next major Kibana release. Elasticsearch 2.1 includes
sophisticated date parsing APIs that Kibana uses to determine date information, removing the need to
specify dates in the index pattern name.
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. Click *Create* to add the index pattern. This first pattern is automatically configured as the default.
When you have more than one index pattern, you can designate which one to use as the default by clicking
on the star icon above the index pattern title from *Management > Index Patterns*.

All done! Kibana is now connected to your Elasticsearch data. Kibana displays a read-only list of fields
configured for the matching index.

[float]
[[explore]]
=== Start Exploring your Data!
You're ready to dive in to your data:

* Search and browse your data interactively from the <<discover, Discover>> page.
* Chart and map your data from the <<visualize, Visualize>> page.
* Create and view custom dashboards from the <<dashboard, Dashboard>> page.

For a step-by-step introduction to these core Kibana concepts, see the <<getting-started,
Getting Started>> tutorial.