- Elasticsearch Guide: other versions:
- Getting Started
- Set up Elasticsearch
- Installing Elasticsearch
- Configuring Elasticsearch
- Important Elasticsearch configuration
- Important System Configuration
- Bootstrap Checks
- Heap size check
- File descriptor check
- Memory lock check
- Maximum number of threads check
- Maximum size virtual memory check
- Max file size check
- Maximum map count check
- Client JVM check
- Use serial collector check
- System call filter check
- OnError and OnOutOfMemoryError checks
- Early-access check
- G1GC check
- Stopping Elasticsearch
- Upgrade Elasticsearch
- Set up X-Pack
- Breaking changes
- Breaking changes in 6.0
- Aggregations changes
- Analysis changes
- Cat API changes
- Clients changes
- Cluster changes
- Document API changes
- Indices changes
- Ingest changes
- Java API changes
- Mapping changes
- Packaging changes
- Percolator changes
- Plugins changes
- Reindex changes
- REST changes
- Scripting changes
- Search and Query DSL changes
- Settings changes
- Stats and info changes
- Breaking changes in 6.1
- Breaking changes in 6.0
- X-Pack Breaking Changes
- API Conventions
- Document APIs
- Search APIs
- Aggregations
- Metrics Aggregations
- Avg Aggregation
- Cardinality Aggregation
- Extended Stats Aggregation
- Geo Bounds Aggregation
- Geo Centroid Aggregation
- Max Aggregation
- Min Aggregation
- Percentiles Aggregation
- Percentile Ranks Aggregation
- Scripted Metric Aggregation
- Stats Aggregation
- Sum Aggregation
- Top Hits Aggregation
- Value Count Aggregation
- Bucket Aggregations
- Adjacency Matrix Aggregation
- Children Aggregation
- Composite Aggregation
- Date Histogram Aggregation
- Date Range Aggregation
- Diversified Sampler Aggregation
- Filter Aggregation
- Filters Aggregation
- Geo Distance Aggregation
- GeoHash grid Aggregation
- Global Aggregation
- Histogram Aggregation
- IP Range Aggregation
- Missing Aggregation
- Nested Aggregation
- Range Aggregation
- Reverse nested Aggregation
- Sampler Aggregation
- Significant Terms Aggregation
- Significant Text Aggregation
- Terms Aggregation
- Pipeline Aggregations
- Avg Bucket Aggregation
- Derivative Aggregation
- Max Bucket Aggregation
- Min Bucket Aggregation
- Sum Bucket Aggregation
- Stats Bucket Aggregation
- Extended Stats Bucket Aggregation
- Percentiles Bucket Aggregation
- Moving Average Aggregation
- Cumulative Sum Aggregation
- Bucket Script Aggregation
- Bucket Selector Aggregation
- Bucket Sort Aggregation
- Serial Differencing Aggregation
- Matrix Aggregations
- Caching heavy aggregations
- Returning only aggregation results
- Aggregation Metadata
- Returning the type of the aggregation
- Metrics Aggregations
- Indices APIs
- Create Index
- Delete Index
- Get Index
- Indices Exists
- Open / Close Index API
- Shrink Index
- Split Index
- Rollover Index
- Put Mapping
- Get Mapping
- Get Field Mapping
- Types Exists
- Index Aliases
- Update Indices Settings
- Get Settings
- Analyze
- Index Templates
- Indices Stats
- Indices Segments
- Indices Recovery
- Indices Shard Stores
- Clear Cache
- Flush
- Refresh
- Force Merge
- cat APIs
- Cluster APIs
- Query DSL
- Mapping
- Analysis
- Anatomy of an analyzer
- Testing analyzers
- Analyzers
- Normalizers
- Tokenizers
- Token Filters
- Standard Token Filter
- ASCII Folding Token Filter
- Flatten Graph Token Filter
- Length Token Filter
- Lowercase Token Filter
- Uppercase Token Filter
- NGram Token Filter
- Edge NGram Token Filter
- Porter Stem Token Filter
- Shingle Token Filter
- Stop Token Filter
- Word Delimiter Token Filter
- Word Delimiter Graph Token Filter
- Stemmer Token Filter
- Stemmer Override Token Filter
- Keyword Marker Token Filter
- Keyword Repeat Token Filter
- KStem Token Filter
- Snowball Token Filter
- Phonetic Token Filter
- Synonym Token Filter
- Synonym Graph Token Filter
- Compound Word Token Filters
- Reverse Token Filter
- Elision Token Filter
- Truncate Token Filter
- Unique Token Filter
- Pattern Capture Token Filter
- Pattern Replace Token Filter
- Trim Token Filter
- Limit Token Count Token Filter
- Hunspell Token Filter
- Common Grams Token Filter
- Normalization Token Filter
- CJK Width Token Filter
- CJK Bigram Token Filter
- Delimited Payload Token Filter
- Keep Words Token Filter
- Keep Types Token Filter
- Classic Token Filter
- Apostrophe Token Filter
- Decimal Digit Token Filter
- Fingerprint Token Filter
- Minhash Token Filter
- Character Filters
- Modules
- Index Modules
- Ingest Node
- Pipeline Definition
- Ingest APIs
- Accessing Data in Pipelines
- Handling Failures in Pipelines
- Processors
- Append Processor
- Convert Processor
- Date Processor
- Date Index Name Processor
- Fail Processor
- Foreach Processor
- Grok Processor
- Gsub Processor
- Join Processor
- JSON Processor
- KV Processor
- Lowercase Processor
- Remove Processor
- Rename Processor
- Script Processor
- Set Processor
- Split Processor
- Sort Processor
- Trim Processor
- Uppercase Processor
- Dot Expander Processor
- URL Decode Processor
- Monitoring Elasticsearch
- X-Pack APIs
- Info API
- Explore API
- Machine Learning APIs
- Close Jobs
- Create Datafeeds
- Create Jobs
- Delete Datafeeds
- Delete Jobs
- Delete Model Snapshots
- Flush Jobs
- Forecast Jobs
- Get Buckets
- Get Overall Buckets
- Get Categories
- Get Datafeeds
- Get Datafeed Statistics
- Get Influencers
- Get Jobs
- Get Job Statistics
- Get Model Snapshots
- Get Records
- Open Jobs
- Post Data to Jobs
- Preview Datafeeds
- Revert Model Snapshots
- Start Datafeeds
- Stop Datafeeds
- Update Datafeeds
- Update Jobs
- Update Model Snapshots
- Security APIs
- Watcher APIs
- Migration APIs
- Deprecation Info APIs
- Definitions
- X-Pack Commands
- How To
- Testing
- Glossary of terms
- Release Notes
- 6.1.4 Release Notes
- 6.1.3 Release Notes
- 6.1.2 Release Notes
- 6.1.1 Release Notes
- 6.1.0 Release Notes
- 6.0.1 Release Notes
- 6.0.0 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-rc2 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-rc1 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-beta2 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-beta1 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-alpha2 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-alpha1 Release Notes
- 6.0.0-alpha1 Release Notes (Changes previously released in 5.x)
- X-Pack Release Notes
WARNING: Version 6.1 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.
Elasticsearch is also available as Docker images. The images use centos:7 as the base image and are available with X-Pack.
A list of all published Docker images and tags can be found in www.docker.elastic.co. The source code can be found on GitHub.
The images are available in three different configurations or "flavors". The
basic
flavor, which is the default, ships with X-Pack Basic features
pre-installed and automatically activated with a free licence. The platinum
flavor features all X-Pack functionally under a 30-day trial licence. The oss
flavor does not include X-Pack, and contains only open-source Elasticsearch.
X-Pack Security is enabled in the platinum
image. To access your cluster, it’s necessary to set an initial password for the
elastic
user. The initial password can be set at start up time via the
ELASTIC_PASSWORD
environment variable:
docker run -e ELASTIC_PASSWORD=MagicWord docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-platinum:6.1.4
The platinum
image includes a trial license for 30 days. After that, you
can obtain one of the available
subscriptions or revert to a Basic licence. The Basic license is free and
includes a selection of X-Pack features.
Obtaining Elasticsearch for Docker is as simple as issuing a docker pull
command
against the Elastic Docker registry.
Docker images can be retrieved with the following commands:
docker pull docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:6.1.4 docker pull docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-platinum:6.1.4 docker pull docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss:6.1.4
Elasticsearch can be quickly started for development or testing use with the following command:
docker run -p 9200:9200 -p 9300:9300 -e "discovery.type=single-node" docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:6.1.4
The vm.max_map_count
kernel setting needs to be set to at least 262144
for
production use.
Depending on your platform:
-
Linux
The
vm.max_map_count
setting should be set permanently in /etc/sysctl.conf:$ grep vm.max_map_count /etc/sysctl.conf vm.max_map_count=262144
To apply the setting on a live system type:
sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
-
macOS with Docker for Mac
The
vm.max_map_count
setting must be set within the xhyve virtual machine:$ screen ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/tty
Just press enter and configure the
sysctl
setting as you would for Linux:sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
-
Windows and macOS with Docker Toolbox
The
vm.max_map_count
setting must be set via docker-machine:docker-machine ssh sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
The following example brings up a cluster comprising two Elasticsearch nodes.
To bring up the cluster, use the
docker-compose.yml
and just type:
docker-compose up
docker-compose
is not pre-installed with Docker on Linux.
Instructions for installing it can be found on the
Docker Compose webpage.
The node elasticsearch
listens on localhost:9200
while elasticsearch2
talks to elasticsearch
over a Docker network.
This example also uses
Docker named volumes,
called esdata1
and esdata2
which will be created if not already present.
version: '2.2' services: elasticsearch: image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:6.1.4 container_name: elasticsearch environment: - cluster.name=docker-cluster - bootstrap.memory_lock=true - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m" ulimits: memlock: soft: -1 hard: -1 volumes: - esdata1:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data ports: - 9200:9200 networks: - esnet elasticsearch2: image: docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:6.1.4 container_name: elasticsearch2 environment: - cluster.name=docker-cluster - bootstrap.memory_lock=true - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m" - "discovery.zen.ping.unicast.hosts=elasticsearch" ulimits: memlock: soft: -1 hard: -1 volumes: - esdata2:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data networks: - esnet volumes: esdata1: driver: local esdata2: driver: local networks: esnet:
To stop the cluster, type docker-compose down
. Data volumes will persist, so
it’s possible to start the cluster again with the same data using
docker-compose up`. To destroy the cluster and the data volumes, just type
docker-compose down -v
.
Elasticsearch loads its configuration from files under /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/
.
These configuration files are documented in Configuring Elasticsearch and Setting JVM options.
The image offers several methods for configuring Elasticsearch settings with the
conventional approach being to provide customized files, that is to say,
elasticsearch.yml
. It’s also possible to use environment variables to set
options:
For example, to define the cluster name with docker run
you can pass
-e "cluster.name=mynewclustername"
. Double quotes are required.
Create your custom config file and mount this over the image’s corresponding file.
For example, bind-mounting a custom_elasticsearch.yml
with docker run
can be
accomplished with the parameter:
-v full_path_to/custom_elasticsearch.yml:/usr/share/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml
The container runs Elasticsearch as user elasticsearch
using uid:gid 1000:1000
.
Bind mounted host directories and files, such as custom_elasticsearch.yml
above,
need to be accessible by this user. For the data and log dirs,
such as /usr/share/elasticsearch/data
, write access is required as well.
Also see note 1 below.
In some environments, it may make more sense to prepare a custom image containing
your configuration. A Dockerfile
to achieve this may be as simple as:
FROM docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:6.1.4 COPY --chown=elasticsearch:elasticsearch elasticsearch.yml /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/
You could then build and try the image with something like:
docker build --tag=elasticsearch-custom . docker run -ti -v /usr/share/elasticsearch/data elasticsearch-custom
D. Override the image’s default CMD
Options can be passed as command-line options to the Elasticsearch process by overriding the default command for the image. For example:
docker run <various parameters> bin/elasticsearch -Ecluster.name=mynewclustername
We have collected a number of best practices for production use.
Any Docker parameters mentioned below assume the use of docker run
.
-
By default, Elasticsearch runs inside the container as user
elasticsearch
using uid:gid1000:1000
.One exception is Openshift which runs containers using an arbitrarily assigned user ID. Openshift will present persistent volumes with the gid set to
0
which will work without any adjustments.If you are bind-mounting a local directory or file, ensure it is readable by this user, while the data and log dirs additionally require write access. A good strategy is to grant group access to gid
1000
or0
for the local directory. As an example, to prepare a local directory for storing data through a bind-mount:mkdir esdatadir chmod g+rwx esdatadir chgrp 1000 esdatadir
As a last resort, you can also force the container to mutate the ownership of any bind-mounts used for the data and log dirs through the environment variable
TAKE_FILE_OWNERSHIP
; in this case they will be owned by uid:gid1000:0
providing read/write access to the Elasticsearch process as required. -
It is important to ensure increased ulimits for nofile and nproc are available for the Elasticsearch containers. Verify the init system for the Docker daemon is already setting those to acceptable values and, if needed, adjust them in the Daemon, or override them per container, for example using
docker run
:--ulimit nofile=65536:65536
One way of checking the Docker daemon defaults for the aforementioned ulimits is by running:
docker run --rm centos:7 /bin/bash -c 'ulimit -Hn && ulimit -Sn && ulimit -Hu && ulimit -Su'
-
Swapping needs to be disabled for performance and node stability. This can be achieved through any of the methods mentioned in the Elasticsearch docs. If you opt for the
bootstrap.memory_lock: true
approach, apart from defining it through any of the configuration methods, you will additionally need thememlock: true
ulimit, either defined in the Docker Daemon or specifically set for the container. This is demonstrated above in the docker-compose.yml. If usingdocker run
:-e "bootstrap.memory_lock=true" --ulimit memlock=-1:-1
-
The image exposes
TCP ports 9200 and 9300. For clusters it is recommended to randomize the
published ports with
--publish-all
, unless you are pinning one container per host. -
Use the
ES_JAVA_OPTS
environment variable to set heap size. For example, to use 16GB use-e ES_JAVA_OPTS="-Xms16g -Xmx16g"
withdocker run
. -
Pin your deployments to a specific version of the Elasticsearch Docker image. For
example,
docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:6.1.4
. -
Always use a volume bound on
/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
, as shown in the production example, for the following reasons:- The data of your elasticsearch node won’t be lost if the container is killed
- Elasticsearch is I/O sensitive and the Docker storage driver is not ideal for fast I/O
- It allows the use of advanced Docker volume plugins
-
If you are using the devicemapper storage driver, make sure you are not using
the default
loop-lvm
mode. Configure docker-engine to use direct-lvm instead. - Consider centralizing your logs by using a different logging driver. Also note that the default json-file logging driver is not ideally suited for production use.
You now have a test Elasticsearch environment set up. Before you start serious development or go into production with Elasticsearch, you must do some additional setup:
- Learn how to configure Elasticsearch.
- Configure important Elasticsearch settings.
- Configure important system settings.
On this page
- Image types
- Running Elasticsearch from the command line
- Development mode
- Production mode
- Inspect status of cluster:
- Configuring Elasticsearch with Docker
- A. Present the parameters via Docker environment variables
- B. Bind-mounted configuration
- C. Customized image
- D. Override the image’s default
- Configuring SSL/TLS with the Elasticsearch Docker image
- Notes for production use and defaults
- Next steps