Index Shard Allocation

Allows to control the allocation of indices on nodes based on include/exclude filters. The filters can be set both on the index level and on the cluster level. Lets start with an example of setting it on the cluster level:

Lets say we have 4 nodes, each has specific attribute called tag associated with it (the name of the attribute can be any name). Each node has a specific value associated with tag. Node 1 has a setting node.tag: value1, Node 2 a setting of node.tag: value2, and so on.

We can create an index that will only deploy on nodes that have tag set to value1 and value2 by setting index.routing.allocation.include.tag to value1,value2. For example:

curl -XPUT localhost:9200/test/_settings -d '{
    "index.routing.allocation.include.tag" : "value1,value2"
}'

On the other hand, we can create an index that will be deployed on all nodes except for nodes with a tag of value value3 by setting index.routing.allocation.exclude.tag to value3. For example:

curl -XPUT localhost:9200/test/_settings -d '{
    "index.routing.allocation.exclude.tag" : "value3"
}'

index.routing.allocation.require.* can be used to specify a number of rules, all of which MUST match in order for a shard to be allocated to a node. This is in contrast to include which will include a node if ANY rule matches.

The include, exclude and require values can have generic simple matching wildcards, for example, value1*. Additionally, special attribute names called _ip, _name, _id and _host can be used to match by node ip address, name, id or host name, respectively.

Obviously a node can have several attributes associated with it, and both the attribute name and value are controlled in the setting. For example, here is a sample of several node configurations:

node.group1: group1_value1
node.group2: group2_value4

In the same manner, include, exclude and require can work against several attributes, for example:

curl -XPUT localhost:9200/test/_settings -d '{
    "index.routing.allocation.include.group1" : "xxx"
    "index.routing.allocation.include.group2" : "yyy",
    "index.routing.allocation.exclude.group3" : "zzz",
    "index.routing.allocation.require.group4" : "aaa",
}'

The provided settings can also be updated in real time using the update settings API, allowing to "move" indices (shards) around in realtime.

Cluster wide filtering can also be defined, and be updated in real time using the cluster update settings API. This setting can come in handy for things like decommissioning nodes (even if the replica count is set to 0). Here is a sample of how to decommission a node based on _ip address:

curl -XPUT localhost:9200/_cluster/settings -d '{
    "transient" : {
        "cluster.routing.allocation.exclude._ip" : "10.0.0.1"
    }
}'