WARNING: Version 2.4 of Elasticsearch has passed its EOL date.

This documentation is no longer being maintained and may be removed. If you are running this version, we strongly advise you to upgrade. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

« Delaying allocation when a node leaves Total Shards Per Node »
Elastic Docs ›Elasticsearch Guide [2.4] ›Index Modules ›Index Shard Allocation

Index recovery prioritization

edit
IMPORTANT: This documentation is no longer updated. Refer to Elastic's version policy and the latest documentation.

Index recovery prioritization

edit

Unallocated shards are recovered in order of priority, whenever possible. Indices are sorted into priority order as follows:

  • the optional index.priority setting (higher before lower)
  • the index creation date (higher before lower)
  • the index name (higher before lower)

This means that, by default, newer indices will be recovered before older indices.

Use the per-index dynamically updateable index.priority setting to customise the index prioritization order. For instance:

PUT index_1

PUT index_2

PUT index_3
{
  "settings": {
    "index.priority": 10
  }
}

PUT index_4
{
  "settings": {
    "index.priority": 5
  }
}

In the above example:

  • index_3 will be recovered first because it has the highest index.priority.
  • index_4 will be recovered next because it has the next highest priority.
  • index_2 will be recovered next because it was created more recently.
  • index_1 will be recovered last.

This setting accepts an integer, and can be updated on a live index with the update index settings API:

PUT index_4/_settings
{
  "index.priority": 1
}
« Delaying allocation when a node leaves Total Shards Per Node »