How to disable Kibana telemetry

Disabling Kibana telemetry stops the instance from sending anonymous usage data to Elastic. It is a common hardening step for self-managed clusters that must keep usage statistics inside the environment or route outbound access through strict controls.

The package-based Linux layout reads telemetry settings from /etc/kibana/kibana.yml during startup. telemetry.optIn controls whether telemetry is sent, and telemetry.allowChangingOptInStatus controls whether users can change the same opt-in state from Stack Management → Kibana → Advanced Settings → Global Settings → Usage collection.

Set both values to false so the server stays opted out and the UI cannot turn collection back on. Restart kibana.service after saving the YAML file, then confirm the service is active and the expected keys remain in the active configuration.

Steps to disable Kibana telemetry:

Create a backup of the Kibana configuration file.

$ sudo cp -a /etc/kibana/kibana.yml /etc/kibana/kibana.yml.bak

Open the active Kibana configuration file in an editor.
```
$ sudoedit /etc/kibana/kibana.yml
```
Archive and container installs usually keep kibana.yml under /usr/share/kibana/config instead of /etc/kibana.
Set both telemetry options to false.
```
telemetry.optIn: false
telemetry.allowChangingOptInStatus: false
```
Invalid YAML can keep Kibana from starting, and duplicate top-level entries can hide which value will be used.
Tool: YAML Validator
Restart the kibana service.
```
$ sudo systemctl restart kibana.service
```
Restarting Kibana interrupts active sessions and dashboard access until startup finishes.

Related: How to manage the Kibana service with systemctl in Linux
Confirm that systemd sees Kibana as active after the restart.
```
$ systemctl is-active kibana.service
active
```
Related: How to check Kibana status
Confirm the saved telemetry values in /etc/kibana/kibana.yml.
```
$ sudo grep -n '^telemetry\.' /etc/kibana/kibana.yml
182:telemetry.optIn: false
183:telemetry.allowChangingOptInStatus: false
```
If no lines return, check that the file path matches the active Kibana installation and that the keys were not indented under another setting.

Author: Mohd Shakir Zakaria
Mohd Shakir Zakaria is a cloud architect with deep roots in software development and open-source advocacy. Certified in AWS, Red Hat, VMware, ITIL, and Linux, he specializes in designing and managing robust cloud and on-premises infrastructures.