WARNING: Version 5.2 of Elasticsearch has passed its EOL date.
This documentation is no longer being maintained and may be removed. If you are running this version, we strongly advise you to upgrade. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.
Configuring system settings
editConfiguring system settings
editWhere to configure systems settings depends on which package you have used to install Elasticsearch, and which operating system you are using.
When using the .zip
or .tar.gz
packages, system settings can be configured:
-
temporarily with
ulimit
, or -
permanently in
/etc/security/limits.conf
.
When using the RPM or Debian packages, most system settings are set in the system configuration file. However, systems which use systemd require that system limits are specified in a systemd configuration file.
ulimit
editOn Linux systems, ulimit
can be used to change resource limits on a
temporary basis. Limits usually need to be set as root
before switching to
the user that will run Elasticsearch. For example, to set the number of
open file handles (ulimit -n
) to 65,536, you can do the following:
Become |
|
Change the max number of open files. |
|
Become the |
The new limit is only applied during the current session.
You can consult all currently applied limits with ulimit -a
.
/etc/security/limits.conf
editOn Linux systems, persistent limits can be set for a particular user by
editing the /etc/security/limits.conf
file. To set the maximum number of
open files for the elasticsearch
user to 65,536, add the following line to
the limits.conf
file:
elasticsearch - nofile 65536
This change will only take effect the next time the elasticsearch
user opens
a new session.
Ubuntu and limits.conf
Ubuntu ignores the limits.conf
file for processes started by init.d
. To
enable the limits.conf
file, edit /etc/pam.d/su
and uncomment the
following line:
# session required pam_limits.so
Sysconfig file
editWhen using the RPM or Debian packages, system settings and environment variables can be specified in the system configuration file, which is located in:
RPM |
|
Debian |
|
However, for systems which uses systemd
, system limits need to be specified
via systemd.
Systemd configuration
editWhen using the RPM or Debian packages on systems that use systemd, system limits must be specified via systemd.
The systemd service file (/usr/lib/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service
)
contains the limits that are applied by default.
To override these, add a file called
/etc/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service.d/elasticsearch.conf
and specify
any changes in that file, such as:
[Service] LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
Setting JVM options
editThe preferred method of setting Java Virtual Machine options (including
system properties and JVM flags) is via the jvm.options
configuration
file. The default location of this file is config/jvm.options
(when
installing from the tar or zip distributions) and
/etc/elasticsearch/jvm.options
(when installing from the Debian or RPM
packages). This file contains a line-delimited list of JVM arguments,
which must begin with -
. You can add custom JVM flags to this file and
check this configuration into your version control system.
An alternative mechanism for setting Java Virtual Machine options is
via the ES_JAVA_OPTS
environment variable. For instance:
export ES_JAVA_OPTS="$ES_JAVA_OPTS -Djava.io.tmpdir=/path/to/temp/dir" ./bin/elasticsearch
When using the RPM or Debian packages, ES_JAVA_OPTS
can be specified in the
system configuration file.