Enable xpack features on Open Distro For Elasticsearch

As stated in their initial announcement, Open Distro For Elasticsearch is based on the open-source version of Elasticsearch and is not a fork, even though they do include a few other open-source plugins for security, alerting, SQL and more.

You need to know that XPack features are commercial features (some free, some you have to pay for) that Elastic is only including into their official releases, but not in the open-source code base.

Now since ODFE is based on the open-source ES distribution (without XPack by definition) and since XPack (under Elastic licensing) is now bundled as a module into the official ES release, there's no way that you can install XPack as a plugin into ODFE, as that would violate the Elastic license.

Even the free XPack features will never be included in the open source version. The only way that free XPack features will one day be included in ODFE is if Amazon redevelops them from scratch in their own code base. So you need to decide up front what kind of features you need and then take the appropriate ES release that fit your needs.

Also worth reading: Shay Banon (Elastic CEO) on "Open" Distros, Open Source, and Building a Company

UPDATE (May 20th, 2019):

Since version 6.8.0 and 7.1.0, some features of XPack Security are now included into the BASIC license, and are thus free.