elasticsearch. tutorials

These instructions work on linux, but can be easily adapated for other operating systems.

Install the latest version of ElasticSearch

Check http://www.elasticsearch.org/download/ for the latest version of ElasticSearch. (Currently version 0.17.2)

Install it as follows:

curl -L -O http://cloud.github.com/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-0.17.2.zip
unzip elasticsearch-0.17.2.zip
mv elasticsearch-0.17.2 elasticsearch    # rename dir to ./elasticsearch
rm elasticsearch*.zip                    # tidy up

Optionally install the service wrapper

The service wrapper allows you to start, stop and restart elasticsearch using:

./elasticsearch/bin/service/elasticsearch start | stop | restart

If you install it, then it will be setup as a service which will start on boot, just like the other processes available in /etc/init.d. The service wrapper will also restart the ElasticSearch process if it dies for any reason.

Install the service wrapper:

curl -L http://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-servicewrapper/tarball/master | tar -xz
mv *servicewrapper*/service elasticsearch/bin/
rm -Rf *servicewrapper*                  # tidy up

# Setup ElasticSearch as a service:
elasticsearch/bin/service/elasticsearch install

# Set up rcelasticsearch as a shortcut to the service wrapper:
ln -s `readlink -f elasticsearch/bin/service/elasticsearch` /usr/local/bin/rcelasticsearch

Configuring ElasticSearch

ElasticSearch needs minimal configuration to “just work”, however there are a few things that you should set up.

Edit the file: elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml

Give your cluster a name.

This stops your cluster from trying to talk to other ElasticSearch clusters on the same network:

cluster:
    name:               MyCluster

Set the network host

ElasticSearch tries to guess which IP address it should attach to. If you have more than one IP address on your server, then it may guess the wrong one.

network:
    host:               192.168.1.10    # IP address of your server
                    OR  _en0_           # IP address of the first ethernet interface

See Node network settings for more.

Configuring service wrapper

You can tweak the settings for the service wrapper by editing the file:
elasticsearch/bin/service/elasticsearch.conf

Probably the only values that you might want to update are the three at the top of the file, ES_HOME and the minimum and maximum amounts of memory that ElasticSearch should use. The values for ES_MIN_MEM and ES_MAX_MEM depend on how much memory you have available on your machine.

set.default.ES_HOME=<Path to ElasticSearch Home>
set.default.ES_MIN_MEM=256
set.default.ES_MAX_MEM=1024

Also, see Running ElasticSearch as a non-root user

Starting and stopping ElasticSearch

Using the service wrapper

The service wrapper ensures that you have only one running instance of ElasticSearch.

rcelasticsearch start
rcelasticsearch stop

Without the service wrapper

In the foreground

./elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch -f

Press Ctrl-C to stop the server

In the background

#start, and write the PID to pidfile
./elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch -p pidfile

#stop
kill `cat pidfile`