elasticsearch

distributed search and analytics engine

TLDR

Start Elasticsearch

$ elasticsearch

Start with specific config

$ elasticsearch -Epath.conf=[/etc/elasticsearch]

Start as a background daemon

$ elasticsearch -d -p [/var/run/elasticsearch.pid]

Check cluster health

$ curl -X GET "localhost:9200/_cluster/health?pretty"

List indices

$ curl -X GET "localhost:9200/_cat/indices?v"

Create index

$ curl -X PUT "localhost:9200/[index_name]"

Elasticsearch is a distributed search and analytics engine built on Apache Lucene. It provides full-text search, structured search, and analytics capabilities through a RESTful API.Data is stored as JSON documents in indices (analogous to databases). Elasticsearch automatically distributes data across nodes for scalability and replication. It's commonly used with Kibana for visualization and as part of the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).

PARAMETERS

-d, --daemonize

Run as daemon.

-p pidfile

Write PID to file.

-E setting=value

Configure setting.

-q, --quiet

Quiet output.

-s, --silent

Silent output.

-v, --verbose

Verbose output.

-V, --version

Show version.

CONFIGURATION

/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml

Main configuration file for cluster settings, network configuration, and paths.

/etc/elasticsearch/jvm.options

JVM heap size and garbage collection settings.

config/elasticsearch.keystore

Secure storage for sensitive settings like passwords.

INSTALL

nix profile install nixpkgs#elasticsearch

CAVEATS

Requires Java runtime. Memory-intensive; configure heap size appropriately. Security disabled by default in older versions. Single-node development mode differs from production clusters. Index mappings should be defined before heavy indexing.

HISTORY

Elasticsearch was created by Shay Banon and first released in 2010. It grew from his earlier work on Compass. Elastic (the company) was founded in 2012, and the product became the foundation of the Elastic Stack used for observability and security analytics.