The Open Distro project is archived. Open Distro development has moved to OpenSearch. The Open Distro plugins will continue to work with legacy versions of Elasticsearch OSS, but we recommend upgrading to OpenSearch to take advantage of the latest features and improvements.

Docker image

You can pull the Open Distro Docker image just like any other image:

docker pull amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3
docker pull amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch-kibana:latest

To check available versions, see Docker Hub.

Open Distro images use centos:7 as the base image. If you run Docker locally, we recommend allowing Docker to use at least 4 GB of RAM in Preferences > Resources.

Table of contents

1. Run the image
2. Start a cluster
3. Configure Elasticsearch
   1. (Optional) Set up Performance Analyzer
4. Bash access to containers
5. Important settings
6. Customize the Docker image

Run the image

Open Distro is no longer being developed and exists only as an archive. Please visit the OpenSearch website to get started with OpenSearch. To go directly to information about installation of OpenSearch with Docker, see Docker image.

To run the image for local development:

docker run -p 9200:9200 -p 9600:9600 -e "discovery.type=single-node" amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3

Then send requests to the server to verify that Elasticsearch is up and running:

curl -XGET https://localhost:9200 -u 'admin:admin' --insecure
curl -XGET https://localhost:9200/_cat/nodes?v -u 'admin:admin' --insecure
curl -XGET https://localhost:9200/_cat/plugins?v -u 'admin:admin' --insecure

To find the container ID:

docker ps

Then you can stop the container using:

docker stop <container-id>

Start a cluster

To deploy the image across multiple nodes and simulate a more realistic deployment, create a docker-compose.yml file appropriate for your environment and run:

docker-compose up

To stop the cluster, run:

docker-compose down

To stop the cluster and delete all data volumes, run:

docker-compose down -v

Sample Docker Compose file

This sample file starts two data nodes and Kibana.

version: '3'
services:
  odfe-node1:
    image: amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3
    container_name: odfe-node1
    environment:
      - cluster.name=odfe-cluster
      - node.name=odfe-node1
      - discovery.seed_hosts=odfe-node1,odfe-node2
      - cluster.initial_master_nodes=odfe-node1,odfe-node2
      - bootstrap.memory_lock=true # along with the memlock settings below, disables swapping
      - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m" # minimum and maximum Java heap size, recommend setting both to 50% of system RAM
    ulimits:
      memlock:
        soft: -1
        hard: -1
      nofile:
        soft: 65536 # maximum number of open files for the Elasticsearch user, set to at least 65536 on modern systems
        hard: 65536
    volumes:
      - odfe-data1:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
    ports:
      - 9200:9200
      - 9600:9600 # required for Performance Analyzer
    networks:
      - odfe-net
  odfe-node2:
    image: amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3
    container_name: odfe-node2
    environment:
      - cluster.name=odfe-cluster
      - node.name=odfe-node2
      - discovery.seed_hosts=odfe-node1,odfe-node2
      - cluster.initial_master_nodes=odfe-node1,odfe-node2
      - bootstrap.memory_lock=true
      - "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
    ulimits:
      memlock:
        soft: -1
        hard: -1
      nofile:
        soft: 65536
        hard: 65536
    volumes:
      - odfe-data2:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
    networks:
      - odfe-net
  kibana:
    image: amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch-kibana:latest
    container_name: odfe-kibana
    ports:
      - 5601:5601
    expose:
      - "5601"
    environment:
      ELASTICSEARCH_URL: https://odfe-node1:9200
      ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTS: https://odfe-node1:9200
    networks:
      - odfe-net

volumes:
  odfe-data1:
  odfe-data2:

networks:
  odfe-net:

If you override kibana.yml settings using environment variables, as seen above, use all uppercase letters and periods in place of underscores (e.g. for elasticsearch.url, specify ELASTICSEARCH_URL).

Configure Elasticsearch

You can pass a custom elasticsearch.yml file to the Docker container using the -v flag for docker run:

docker run \
-p 9200:9200 -p 9600:9600 \
-e "discovery.type=single-node" \
-v /<full-path-to>/custom-elasticsearch.yml:/usr/share/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml \
amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3

You can perform the same operation in docker-compose.yml using a relative path:

services:
  odfe-node1:
    volumes:
      - odfe-data1:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
      - ./custom-elasticsearch.yml:/usr/share/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml
  odfe-node2:
    volumes:
      - odfe-data2:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data
      - ./custom-elasticsearch.yml:/usr/share/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml
  kibana:
    volumes:
      - ./custom-kibana.yml:/usr/share/kibana/config/kibana.yml

You can also configure docker-compose.yml and elasticsearch.yml to take your own certificates for use with the Security plugin.

(Optional) Set up Performance Analyzer

1. Enable the Performance Analyzer plugin:

   curl -XPOST localhost:9200/_opendistro/_performanceanalyzer/cluster/config -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"enabled": true}'
   

   If you receive the curl: (52) Empty reply from server error, you are likely protecting your cluster with the security plugin and you need to provide credentials. Modify the following command to use your username and password:

   curl -XPOST https://localhost:9200/_opendistro/_performanceanalyzer/cluster/config -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"enabled": true}' -u 'admin:admin' -k
   

2. Enable the Root Cause Analyzer (RCA) framework

   curl -XPOST localhost:9200/_opendistro/_performanceanalyzer/rca/cluster/config -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"enabled": true}'
   

   Similar to step 1, if you run into curl: (52) Empty reply from server, run the command below to enable RCA

   curl -XPOST https://localhost:9200/_opendistro/_performanceanalyzer/rca/cluster/config -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"enabled": true}' -u 'admin:admin' -k
   

3. By default, Performance Analyzer’s endpoints are not accessible from outside the Docker container.

   To edit this behavior, open a shell session in the container and modify the configuration:

   docker ps # Look up the container id
   docker exec -it <container-id> /bin/bash
   # Inside container
   cd plugins/opendistro_performance_analyzer/pa_config/
   vi performance-analyzer.properties
   

   Uncomment the line #webservice-bind-host and set it to 0.0.0.0:

   # ======================== Elasticsearch performance analyzer plugin config =========================
   
   # NOTE: this is an example for Linux. Please modify the config accordingly if you are using it under other OS.
   
   # WebService bind host; default to all interfaces
   webservice-bind-host = 0.0.0.0
   
   # Metrics data location
   metrics-location = /dev/shm/performanceanalyzer/
   
   # Metrics deletion interval (minutes) for metrics data.
   # Interval should be between 1 to 60.
   metrics-deletion-interval = 1
   
   # If set to true, the system cleans up the files behind it. So at any point, we should expect only 2
   # metrics-db-file-prefix-path files. If set to false, no files are cleaned up. This can be useful, if you are archiving
   # the files and wouldn't like for them to be cleaned up.
   cleanup-metrics-db-files = true
   
   # WebService exposed by App's port
   webservice-listener-port = 9600
   
   # Metric DB File Prefix Path location
   metrics-db-file-prefix-path = /tmp/metricsdb_
   
   https-enabled = false
   
   #Setup the correct path for certificates
   certificate-file-path = specify_path
   
   private-key-file-path = specify_path
   
   # Plugin Stats Metadata file name, expected to be in the same location
   plugin-stats-metadata = plugin-stats-metadata
   
   # Agent Stats Metadata file name, expected to be in the same location
   agent-stats-metadata = agent-stats-metadata
   

4. Then restart the Performance Analyzer agent:

   kill $(ps aux | grep -i 'PerformanceAnalyzerApp' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}')
   

Bash access to containers

To create an interactive Bash session in a container, run docker ps to find the container ID. Then run:

docker exec -it <container-id> /bin/bash

Important settings

For production workloads, make sure the Linux setting vm.max_map_count is set to at least 262144. On the Open Distro Docker image, this setting is the default. To verify, start a Bash session in the container and run:

cat /proc/sys/vm/max_map_count

To increase this value, you have to modify the Docker image. On the RPM install, you can add this setting to the host machine’s /etc/sysctl.conf file by adding the following line:

vm.max_map_count=262144

Then run sudo sysctl -p to reload.

The docker-compose.yml file above also contains several key settings: bootstrap.memory_lock=true, ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m, nofile 65536 and port 9600. Respectively, these settings disable memory swapping (along with memlock), set the size of the Java heap (we recommend half of system RAM), set a limit of 65536 open files for the Elasticsearch user, and allow you to access Performance Analyzer on port 9600.

Customize the Docker image

To run the image with a custom plugin, first create a Dockerfile:

FROM amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3
RUN /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-plugin install --batch <plugin-name-or-url>

Then run the following commands:

docker build --tag=odfe-custom-plugin .
docker run -p 9200:9200 -p 9600:9600 -v /usr/share/elasticsearch/data odfe-custom-plugin

You can also use a Dockerfile to pass your own certificates for use with the Security plugin, similar to the -v argument in Configure Elasticsearch:

FROM amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3
COPY --chown=elasticsearch:elasticsearch elasticsearch.yml /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/
COPY --chown=elasticsearch:elasticsearch my-key-file.pem /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/
COPY --chown=elasticsearch:elasticsearch my-certificate-chain.pem /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/
COPY --chown=elasticsearch:elasticsearch my-root-cas.pem /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/

Alternately, you might want to remove a plugin. This Dockerfile removes the security plugin:

FROM amazon/opendistro-for-elasticsearch:1.13.3
RUN /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-plugin remove opendistro_security
COPY --chown=elasticsearch:elasticsearch elasticsearch.yml /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/

In this case, elasticsearch.yml is a “vanilla” version of the file with no Open Distro entries. It might look like this:

cluster.name: "docker-cluster"
network.host: 0.0.0.0