[role="xpack"]
[[security-api-get-settings]]
=== Get Security index settings
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<titleabbrev>Get Security settings</titleabbrev>
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==== {api-prereq-title}

* To use this API, you must have at least the `read_security` cluster privilege.

==== {api-description-title}
This API allows a user to retrieve the user-configurable settings for the Security internal index (`.security` and associated indices). Only a subset of the index settings — those that are user-configurable—will be shown. This includes:

- `index.auto_expand_replicas`
- `index.number_of_replicas`

An example of retrieving the Security settings:

[source,console]
-----------------------------------------------------------
GET /_security/settings
-----------------------------------------------------------
// TEST[setup:user_profiles]
// TEST[setup:service_token42]

The configurable settings can be modified using the <<security-api-update-settings,Update Security index settings>> API.