Installing Watcher

The Getting Started Guide steps through a basic Watcher installation. This section provides some additional information about the installation prerequisites, deployment options, and the installation process for RPM/DEB package installations.

Watcher Installation Prerequisites

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All you need to use Watcher is:

Java 7 or later
Elasticsearch 2.2.1
Elasticsearch License plugin

For information about installing the latest Oracle JDK, see Java SE Downloads. For information about installing Elasticsearch, see Installation in the Elasticsearch Reference.

If you are using Shield, you’ve already installed the License plugin. If you haven’t, installing Shield is part of the basic installation instructions in the Getting Started guide.

Deploying Watcher on an Existing Cluster

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Deploying watcher directly to the nodes of an existing cluster is generally the easiest way to get started with Watcher. Keep in mind, however, that this requires stopping and starting all of the nodes in your cluster. For larger clusters, we recommend deploying Watcher to a separate cluster.

When you deploy Watcher on an existing cluster, you use the search input to search the cluster’s indexes and load the results into a watch’s payload.

To deploy to an existing cluster, you need to install the License and Watcher plugins on every node in the cluster. For general installation instructions, see the Getting Started guide. If you are using the Elasticsearch DEB/RPM packages, see Installing Watcher on a DEB/RPM Package Installation for more information.

Deploying Watcher as a Separate Cluster

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If you have a larger cluster, we recommend running Watcher on a separate monitoring cluster. If you’re using a separate cluster for Marvel, you can install Watcher on the nodes you’re using to store your Marvel data.

When you deploy watcher on a separate cluster, you use the HTTP input to send search requests to the cluster you are monitoring and load the results into a watch’s payload.

To deploy to a separate monitoring cluster, you need to install the License and Watcher plugins on every node in the monitoring cluster. For general installation instructions, see the Getting Started guide. If you are using the Elasticsearch DEB/RPM packages, see Installing Watcher on a DEB/RPM Package Installation for more information.

Installing Watcher on a DEB/RPM Package Installation

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If you use the DEB/RPM packages to install Elasticsearch, by default Elasticsearch is installed in /usr/share/elasticsearch and the configuration files are stored in /etc/elasticsearch. (For the complete list of default paths, see Directory Layout in the Elasticsearch Reference.)

To install the Watcher and License plugins on a DEB/RPM package installation, you need to run bin/plugin install from the /usr/share/elasticsearch directory with superuser permissions. For example:

cd /usr/share/elasticsearch
sudo bin/plugin install license
sudo bin/plugin install watcher

Installing Watcher on Offline Machines

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Elasticsearch’s bin/plugin script requires direct Internet access to download and install the License and Watcher plugins. If your server doesn’t have Internet access, you can manually download and install the plugins.

To install Watcher on a machine that doesn’t have Internet access:

Manually download the License and Watcher binaries:
- https://download.elastic.co/elasticsearch/release/org/elasticsearch/plugin/license/2.2.1/license-2.2.1.zip (sha1)
- https://download.elastic.co/elasticsearch/release/org/elasticsearch/plugin/watcher/2.2.1/watcher-2.2.1.zip (sha1)
Transfer the zip files to the offline machine.
Specify the location of the appropriate zip file when you run bin/plugin install. For example:
```
bin/plugin install file:///path/to/file/license-2.2.1.zip
bin/plugin install file:///path/to/file/watcher-2.2.1.zip
```
You must specify an absolute path to the zip file after the file:// protocol.

Upgrading Watcher

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To upgrade Watcher.

Back up all of the watches you’ve defined. You can search/scan the .watches index and save the returned watches aside.
Stop Elasticsearch on all nodes in your cluster.
Uninstall the Watcher plugin from each node:
```
bin/plugin remove watcher
```
Follow the instructions in the Getting Started guide to install the new plugin.

If you are using a DEB/RPM distribution of Elasticsearch, you need to run the installation with superuser permissions. To perform an offline installation, download the Watcher binaries.

Uninstalling Watcher

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To uninstall Watcher:

Shut down Elasticsearch.
Remove the Watcher plugin from Elasticsearch:
```
bin/plugin remove watcher
```
Restart Elasticsearch.

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