Allow Console to function if ES is not available

[astefan]

Blocked on #7328

At the moment, if there is no connectivity to the default (or configured) ES connection in Kibana, there is a status Red in Kibana.
I agree with this, but why this needs to apply to Sense, as well? Sense can send the commands to a different URL which can be different from the default (or configured) one.

[spalger]

This is pretty important, as sense or other apps could be very helpful in understanding why elasticsearch is unavailable but the server status could prevent access to those apps for no reason.

[spalger]

I've thought about this a couple times, and this is where I stand on how this should be implemented:

1. Statuses should be able to "depend" on other statuses.

   1. When a dependency changes status

      1. if the dependent is green, but the dependency is not
         1. set the dependents status to red
         2. set the message to "dependecy XXX is unavailable"
      2. elsewise, if the status was previously auto-changed
         1. revert the status to the previous green status

   2. example with multiple dependencies:

      plugin	dependencies	status	message
      elasticsearch	-	red	unable to do foo
      kibana	elasticsearch	red	dependency "elasticsearch" is unavailable
      marvel	kibana, elasticsearch	red	dependencies "kibana" and "elasticsearch" are unavailable

   • example with unrelated status:

     plugin	dependencies	status	message
     elasticsearch	-	yellow	recovering, brb
     sense	-	green	-
     kibana	elasticsearch	red	dependency "elasticsearch" is unavailable

2. When an app or route for a plugin is requested
   1. the status of the plugin that created the app or route should be checked
   2. if the status is green
      1. continue with execution
   3. else
      1. respond with the status page

[gmoskovicz]

+1

[SeaOfTea]

What is the status of this? Is it no longer possible in 5.0 to use sense/console as a standalone app as described here https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/sense/current/installing.html#disable_discover ?

[spalger]

@SeaOfTea Kibana 5.0 ships with a modified version of sense called Console which actually runs inside the Kibana app (as a DevTool) rather than as it's own app.

Because of this disabling the elasticsearch plugin is not an option unfortunately.

[ppf2]

I agree with this, but why this needs to apply to Sense, as well? Sense can send the commands to a different URL which can be different from the default (or configured) one.

This is not currently applicable to 5.0+ console since we no longer allow the console to connect to a different URL - however, we are also blocking the console access if the .kibana index has trouble loading, or if the underlying monitoring cluster connection is failing. This is quite restrictive.

[PhaedrusTheGreek]

Big +1 on this

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/es-ui

[cjcenizal]

I'm going to close this because the issue is largely out of date. I think we should revisit the underlying intention (to use Console to debug cluster issues when the cluster issues degrade Kibana's performance) in a future context, after we migrate to the New Platform and after #32845 has been addressed.