Plugins

Plugins are a way to enhance the basic elasticsearch functionality in a custom manner. They range from adding custom mapping types, custom analyzers (in a more built in fashion), native scripts, custom discovery and more.

Installing plugins

Installing plugins can either be done manually by placing them under the plugins directory, or using the plugin script. Formal “built in” plugins can be installed simply by running the command with the name of the plugin, for example:

bin/plugin -install cloud-aws

Plugins can also be automatically downloaded and installed from gitub using: user_name/repo_name structure, or, for explicit versions, using user_name/repo_name/version_number. When no version number is specified, first a version based on the elasticsearch version is tried, and if it does not work, then master is used.

Site Plugins

Plugins can have “sites” in them, any plugin that exists under the plugins directory with a _site directory, its content will be statically served when hitting /_plugin/[plugin_name]/ url. Those can be added even after the process has started.

Installed plugins that do not contain any java related content, will automatically be detected as site plugins, and their content will be moved under _site.

The ability to install plugins from github allows to easily install site plugins hosted there, for example, running:

bin/plugin -install mobz/elasticsearch-head
bin/plugin -install lukas-vlcek/bigdesk

Will install both of those site plugins, with elasticsearch-head available under http://localhost:9200/_plugin/head/ and bigdesk available under http://localhost:9200/_plugin/bigdesk/.