Connecting
editConnecting
editThis page contains the information you need to connect and use the Client with Elasticsearch.
On this page
Authentication
editThis section contains code snippets to show you how to connect to various Elasticsearch providers.
Elastic Cloud
editYou can connect to Elastic Cloud using Basic authentication:
$client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setElasticCloudId('<cloud-id>') ->setBasicAuthentication('<username>', '<password>') ->build();
Where <cloud-id> is reported in the Deployment UI, and <username>, <password> are generated when you deploy a new cloud instance. You need to store the <username> and <password> since they will not be available via UI.
Or using an API key:
$client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setElasticCloudId('<cloud-id>') ->setApiKey('<id>', '<key>') ->build();
Where <id> and <key> are generated when you create a new API key. The API key is equivalent to Base64(<id>:<key>). You need to store the API key since it will not be available via UI.
HTTP Authentication
editIf your Elasticsearch server is protected by HTTP authentication, you need to provide the credentials to ES-PHP so that requests can be authenticated server-side. Authentication credentials are provided as part of the host array when instantiating the client:
$hosts = [ 'http://user:pass@localhost:9200', // HTTP Basic Authentication 'http://user2:[email protected]:9200' // Different credentials on different host ]; $client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setHosts($hosts) ->build();
Credentials are provided per-host, which allows each host to have their own set of credentials. All requests sent to the cluster use the appropriate credentials depending on the node being talked to.
ApiKey authentication
editIf your Elasticsearch cluster is secured by API keys as described here, you can use these values to connect the client with your cluster, as illustrated in the following code snippet.
SSL encryption
editConfiguring SSL is a little more complex. You need to identify if your certificate has been signed by a public Certificate Authority (CA), or if it is a self-signed certificate.
A note on libcurl version
If you believe the client is configured to correctly use SSL, but it simply is
not working, check your libcurl version. On certain platforms, various features
may or may not be available depending on version number of libcurl. For example,
the --cacert
option was not added to the OSX version of libcurl until version
7.37.1. The --cacert
option is equivalent to PHP’s CURLOPT_CAINFO
constant,
meaning that custom certificate paths will not work on lower versions.
If you are encountering problems, update your libcurl version and/or check the curl changelog.
Public CA Certificates
editIf your certificate has been signed by a public Certificate Authority and your
server has up-to-date root certificates, you only need to use https
in the
host path. The client automatically verifies SSL certificates:
$hosts = [ 'https://localhost:9200' ]; $client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setHosts($hosts) ->build();
If your server has out-dated root certificates, you may need to use a certificate bundle. For PHP clients, the best way is to use composer/ca-bundle. Once installed, you need to tell the client to use your certificates instead of the system-wide bundle. To do this, specify the path to verify:
$hosts = ['https://localhost:9200']; $caBundle = \Composer\CaBundle\CaBundle::getBundledCaBundlePath(); $client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setHosts($hosts) ->setSSLVerification($caBundle) ->build();
Self-signed Certificates
editSelf-signed certificates are certs that have not been signed by a public CA. They are signed by your own organization. Self-signed certificates are often used for internal purposes, when you can securely spread the root certificate yourself. It should not be used when being exposed to public consumers, since this leaves the client vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
If you are using a self-signed certificate, you need to provide the certificate to the client. This is the same syntax as specifying a new root bundle, but instead you point to your certificate:
$hosts = ['https://localhost:9200']; $myCert = 'path/to/cacert.pem'; $client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setHosts($hosts) ->setSSLVerification($myCert) ->build();
Using authentication with SSL
editIt is possible to use HTTP authentication with SSL. Simply specify https
in
the URI, configure SSL settings as required and provide authentication
credentials. For example, this snippet authenticates using Basic HTTP auth and a
self-signed certificate:
$hosts = ['https://user:pass@localhost:9200']; $myCert = 'path/to/cacert.pem'; $client = ClientBuilder::create() ->setHosts($hosts) ->setSSLVerification($myCert) ->build();
Enabling the Compatibility Mode
editThe Elasticsearch server version 8.0 is introducing a new compatibility mode that allows you a smoother upgrade experience from 7 to 8. In a nutshell, you can use the latest 7.x Elasticsearch client with an 8.x Elasticsearch server, giving more room to coordinate the upgrade of your codebase to the next major version.
If you want to leverage this functionality, please make sure that you are using the
latest 7.x client and set the environment variable ELASTIC_CLIENT_APIVERSIONING
to true
. The client is handling the rest internally. For every 8.0 and beyond
client, you’re all set! The compatibility mode is enabled by default.
Space encode in URL
editIf you use a space character in an index name, elasticsearch-php converts it into
a +
, since this space must be encoded in a URL. The same applies to the id
and type
parameters.
Starting from Elasticsearch 7.4, a +
in URL is encoded as %2B
by all the REST
API functionality. Prior versions handled a +
as a single space. If your
application requires handling +
as a single space you can return to the old
behaviour by setting the Elasticsearch system property es.rest.url_plus_as_space
to true
.
You can read the Elasticsearch release note
for mote information.
Starting from elasticsearch-php 7.17.2, we introduced an environmental variable ELASTIC_CLIENT_URL_PLUS_AS_SPACE
that can be used to encode a space using +
, setting the variable to true
.
If ELASTIC_CLIENT_URL_PLUS_AS_SPACE
is set to false
, a space is encoded using %20
as specified in RFC 3986.
For instance, if you are using a space character in an index name, this will be
encoded using a +
, default behaviour. If you set ELASTIC_CLIENT_URL_PLUS_AS_SPACE
to false
the space in the index name will be encoded with %20
.
Usage
editThis section is a crash-course overview of the client and its syntax. If you are familiar with Elasticsearch, you’ll notice that the methods are named just like REST endpoints.
You may also notice that the client is configured in a manner that facilitates
easy discovery via your IDE. All core actions are available under the $client
object (indexing, searching, getting, etc). Index and cluster management are
located under the $client->indices()
and $client->cluster()
objects,
respectively.
Indexing a document
editIn elasticsearch-php, almost everything is configured by associative arrays. The REST endpoint, document and optional parameters - everything is an associative array.
To index a document, we need to specify three pieces of information: index, id and a document body. This is done by constructing an associative array of key:value pairs. The request body is itself an associative array with key:value pairs corresponding to the data in your document:
$params = [ 'index' => 'my_index', 'id' => 'my_id', 'body' => ['testField' => 'abc'] ]; $response = $client->index($params); print_r($response);
The response that you get back indicates that the document was created in the index that you specified. The response is an associative array containing a decoded version of the JSON that Elasticsearch returns:
Array ( [_index] => my_index [_type] => _doc [_id] => my_id [_version] => 1 [created] => 1 )
Getting a document
editLet’s get the document that we just indexed. This returns the document:
$params = [ 'index' => 'my_index', 'id' => 'my_id' ]; $response = $client->get($params); print_r($response);
The response contains metadata such as index, version, and so on as well as a
_source
field, which is the original document you sent to Elasticsearch.
Array ( [_index] => my_index [_type] => _doc [_id] => my_id [_version] => 1 [found] => 1 [_source] => Array ( [testField] => abc ) )
Searching for a document
editSearching is a hallmark of Elasticsearch, so let’s perform a search. We are going to use
the match
query as a demonstration:
$params = [ 'index' => 'my_index', 'body' => [ 'query' => [ 'match' => [ 'testField' => 'abc' ] ] ] ]; $response = $client->search($params); print_r($response);
The response here is different from the previous ones. You can see metadata
(took
, timed_out
, etc.) and an array named hits
. This represents your
search results. Inside of hits
is another array named hits
, which contains
individual search results:
Array ( [took] => 1 [timed_out] => [_shards] => Array ( [total] => 5 [successful] => 5 [failed] => 0 ) [hits] => Array ( [total] => 1 [max_score] => 0.30685282 [hits] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [_index] => my_index [_type] => _doc [_id] => my_id [_score] => 0.30685282 [_source] => Array ( [testField] => abc ) ) ) ) )
Deleting a document
editAlright, let’s go ahead and delete the document that we added previously:
$params = [ 'index' => 'my_index', 'id' => 'my_id' ]; $response = $client->delete($params); print_r($response);
This syntax is identical to the get
syntax. The only difference is the
operation: delete
instead of get
. The response confirms the document is
deleted:
Array ( [found] => 1 [_index] => my_index [_type] => _doc [_id] => my_id [_version] => 2 )
Deleting an index
editDue to the dynamic nature of Elasticsearch, the first document you added automatically built an index with some default settings. Delete that index and specify your own settings later:
$deleteParams = [ 'index' => 'my_index' ]; $response = $client->indices()->delete($deleteParams); print_r($response);
The response:
Array ( [acknowledged] => 1 )
Creating an index
editNow that you are starting fresh (no data or index), add a new index with custom settings:
$params = [ 'index' => 'my_index', 'body' => [ 'settings' => [ 'number_of_shards' => 2, 'number_of_replicas' => 0 ] ] ]; $response = $client->indices()->create($params); print_r($response);
Elasticsearch now creates that index with your chosen settings and return an acknowledgement:
Array ( [acknowledged] => 1 )