Interactive setup mode UI/UX

[azasypkin]

Interactive setup mode is the mode Kibana enters to on the first launch if it detects that user hasn't explicitly configured their own connection to Elasticsearch. In this mode, Kibana will present an interface to the user that would allow them to provide Elasticsearch connection information and potentially any other configuration information. Once the information is verified, Kibana will write it to the disk and allow the rest of Kibana to start.

This issue is solely dedicated to the UI/UX aspects of the interactive setup mode.

Not all requirements are clearly defined yet, and it will surely take several iterations before we get to the ideal UI/UX state. The goal is to start from the minimal functional UI which we can gradually improve.

Below is a brain dump of the requirements we're aware of to date and a very rough UI mockup:

The interactive setup mode UI (later just "UI") is basically a standalone application without Kibana chrome and other standard navigation elements. It proposes two separate flows to a user:

• The first flow or enrollment flow is a recommended flow that allows user to enter a special enrollment token to automatically configure connection to the Elasticsearch
• The second flow or manual configuration flow is a fallback that allows user to manually configure connection the Elasticsearch

Enrollment flow

In this flow user is prompted to enter a special enrollment token (long opaque string generated by the Elasticsearch node, named as magic string at the mockup above). Kibana validates and parses this token, and displays some of the extracted information in the UI:

• The read-only list of the Elasticsearch IP addresses Kibana can try to connect to

Once enrollment token is validated, user can click on the Connect to cluster button to trigger Kibana automatic configuration. Under the hood Kibana tries to connect to Elasticsearch, calls a number of enrollment APIs, stores configuration information to the disk. This process can take some time and once it's complete user is automatically redirected to a home page (or originally requested URL).

Before we finally redirect user to a fully functional Kibana we might want to display some of the configuration information that user, for example, can copy and use to automatically configure other Kibana instances without going through setup UI again.

Manual configuration flow

In this flow user is prompted to enter the following information:

• Elasticsearch address (probably prefilled with `https://localhost:9200)
• A name and a password of the "service user" Kibana should use to connect to Elasticsearch
• A certificate authority (CA) certificate chain for Elasticsearch (probably via uploading the necessary file(s)?)

Once all required fields are filled, user can click on the Connect to cluster button to let Kibana validate connection information and save it to the disk. This process can take some time and once it's complete user is automatically redirected to a home page (or originally requested URL).

Errors

There are a variety of things that can go wrong during any of the aforementioned flows: the enrollment token can be malformed, the Elasticsearch can have an incompatible version or be unavailable at the moment, Kibana process may lack permissions to store configuration information to the disk, etc.

For some of the failures we can offer recovery steps, for others we cannot. But in case we should try to make errors as much clear and actionable as possible.

Miscellaneous

If Kibana is properly configured, interactive setup mode won't be activated during next restart. But Kibana bootstrap can still take a considerable amount of time and we'd like to display a special Kibana server is not ready UI that we may or may not want to make somewhat visually similar to the interactive setup mode UI.

Related: #89287, #104068

@legrego @arisonl @ryankeairns @andreadelrio @MichaelMarcialis

[andreadelrio]

The above and all related designs can be found here.