Elasticsearch configuration

Most Elasticsearch configuration can take place in the cluster settings API. Certain operations require you to modify elasticsearch.yml and restart the cluster.

Whenever possible, use the cluster settings API instead; elasticsearch.yml is local to each node, whereas the API applies the setting to all nodes in the cluster.

Cluster settings API

The first step in changing a setting is to view the current settings:

GET _cluster/settings?include_defaults=true

For a more concise summary of non-default settings:

GET _cluster/settings

Three categories of setting exist in the cluster settings API: persistent, transient, and default. Persistent settings, well, persist after a cluster restart. After a restart, Elasticsearch clears transient settings.

If you specify the same setting in multiple places, Elasticsearch uses the following precedence:

Transient settings
Persistent settings
Settings from elasticsearch.yml
Default settings

To change a setting, just specify the new one as either persistent or transient. This example shows the flat settings form:

PUT /_cluster/settings
{
  "persistent" : {
    "action.auto_create_index" : false
  }
}

You can also use the expanded form, which lets you copy and paste from the GET response and change existing values:

PUT /_cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "action": {
      "auto_create_index": false
    }
  }
}

Configuration file

You can find elasticsearch.yml in /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml (Docker) or /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml (RPM) on each node. Out of the box, it contains a number of demo settings for the security plugin that you should modify before using Open Distro for Elasticsearch for a production workload. To learn more, see Security.

Sample configuration file

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

# minimum_master_nodes need to be explicitly set when bound on a public IP
# set to 1 to allow single node clusters
discovery.zen.minimum_master_nodes: 1

######## Start OpenDistro for Elasticsearch Security Demo Configuration ########
# WARNING: revise all the lines below before you go into production
opendistro_security.ssl.transport.pemcert_filepath: esnode.pem
opendistro_security.ssl.transport.pemkey_filepath: esnode-key.pem
opendistro_security.ssl.transport.pemtrustedcas_filepath: root-ca.pem
opendistro_security.ssl.transport.enforce_hostname_verification: false
opendistro_security.ssl.http.enabled: true
opendistro_security.ssl.http.pemcert_filepath: esnode.pem
opendistro_security.ssl.http.pemkey_filepath: esnode-key.pem
opendistro_security.ssl.http.pemtrustedcas_filepath: root-ca.pem
opendistro_security.allow_unsafe_democertificates: true
opendistro_security.allow_default_init_securityindex: true
opendistro_security.authcz.admin_dn:
  - CN=kirk,OU=client,O=client,L=test, C=de

opendistro_security.audit.type: internal_elasticsearch
opendistro_security.enable_snapshot_restore_privilege: true
opendistro_security.check_snapshot_restore_write_privileges: true
opendistro_security.restapi.roles_enabled: ["all_access", "security_rest_api_access"]
cluster.routing.allocation.disk.threshold_enabled: false
######## End OpenDistro for Elasticsearch Security Demo Configuration ########

Cluster settings API
Configuration file