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.

SQL

Open Distro SQL lets you write queries in SQL rather than the Elasticsearch query domain-specific language (DSL). If you’re already familiar with SQL and don’t want to learn the query DSL, this feature is a great option.

Workbench

The easiest way to get familiar with the SQL plugin is to use SQL Workbench in Kibana to test various queries. To learn more, see Workbench.

REST API

To use the SQL plugin with your own applications, send requests to _opendistro/_sql:

POST _opendistro/_sql
{
  "query": "SELECT * FROM my-index LIMIT 50"
}

Here’s how core SQL concepts map to Elasticsearch:

You can query multiple indices by listing them or using wildcards:

POST _opendistro/_sql
{
  "query": "SELECT * FROM my-index1,myindex2,myindex3 LIMIT 50"
}

POST _opendistro/_sql
{
  "query": "SELECT * FROM my-index* LIMIT 50"
}

For a sample curl command, try:

curl -XPOST https://localhost:9200/_opendistro/_sql -u 'admin:admin' -k -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"query": "SELECT * FROM kibana_sample_data_flights LIMIT 10"}'

By default, queries return data in JDBC format, but you can also return data in standard Elasticsearch JSON, CSV, or raw formats:

POST _opendistro/_sql?format=json|csv|raw
{
  "query": "SELECT * FROM my-index LIMIT 50"
}

See the rest of this guide for detailed information on request parameters, settings, supported operations, tools, and more.

Contributing

To get involved and help us improve the SQL plugin, see the development guide for instructions on setting up your development environment and building the project.