Setting up a node

ElasticSearch allows you to customize several parameters in an installation. In this recipe, we'll see the most used ones to define where to store our data and to improve general performances.

Getting ready

You need a working ElasticSearch installation.

How to do it...

The steps required for setting up a simple node are as follows:

1. Open the config/elasticsearch.yml file with an editor of your choice.

2. Set up the directories that store your server data:

   path.conf: /opt/data/es/conf
   path.data: /opt/data/es/data1,/opt2/data/data2
   path.work: /opt/data/work
   path.logs: /opt/data/logs
   path.plugins: /opt/data/plugins

3. Set up parameters to control the standard index creation. These parameters are:

   index.number_of_shards: 5
   index.number_of_replicas: 1

How it works...

The path.conf file defines the directory that contains your configuration: mainly elasticsearch.yml and logging.yml. The default location is $ES_HOME/config with ES_HOME your install directory.

Note

It's useful to set up the config...