Installation

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Elasticsearch requires at least Java 8. Specifically as of this writing, it is recommended that you use the Oracle JDK version 1.8.0_131. Java installation varies from platform to platform so we won’t go into those details here. Oracle’s recommended installation documentation can be found on Oracle’s website. Suffice to say, before you install Elasticsearch, please check your Java version first by running (and then install/upgrade accordingly if needed):

java -version
echo $JAVA_HOME

Once we have Java set up, we can then download and run Elasticsearch. The binaries are available from www.elastic.co/downloads along with all the releases that have been made in the past. For each release, you have a choice among a zip or tar archive, a DEB or RPM package, or a Windows MSI installation package.

Installation example with tar

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For simplicity, let’s use the tar file.

Let’s download the Elasticsearch 5.6.16 tar as follows:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-5.6.16.tar.gz

Then extract it as follows:

tar -xvf elasticsearch-5.6.16.tar.gz

It will then create a bunch of files and folders in your current directory. We then go into the bin directory as follows:

cd elasticsearch-5.6.16/bin

And now we are ready to start our node and single cluster:

./elasticsearch

Installation with Homebrew

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On macOS, Elasticsearch can also be installed via Homebrew:

brew install elasticsearch

Installation example with MSI Windows Installer

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For Windows users, we recommend using the MSI Installer package. The package contains a graphical user interface (GUI) that guides you through the installation process.

First, download the Elasticsearch 5.6.16 MSI from https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-5.6.16.msi.

Then double-click the downloaded file to launch the GUI. Within the first screen, select the deployment directories:

msi installer locations

Then select whether to install as a service or start Elasticsearch manually as needed. To align with the tar example, choose not to install as a service:

msi installer no service

For configuration, simply leave the default values:

msi installer configuration

Again, to align with the tar example, uncheck all plugins to not install any plugins:

msi installer plugins

After clicking the install button, Elasticsearch will be installed:

msi installer success

By default, Elasticsearch will be installed at %PROGRAMFILES%\Elastic\Elasticsearch. Navigate here and go into the bin directory as follows:

with Command Prompt:

cd %PROGRAMFILES%\Elastic\Elasticsearch\bin

with PowerShell:

cd $env:PROGRAMFILES\Elastic\Elasticsearch\bin

And now we are ready to start our node and single cluster:

.\elasticsearch.exe

Successfully running node

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If everything goes well with installation, you should see a bunch of messages that look like below:

[2016-09-16T14:17:51,251][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [] initializing ...
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,329][INFO ][o.e.e.NodeEnvironment    ] [6-bjhwl] using [1] data paths, mounts [[/ (/dev/sda1)]], net usable_space [317.7gb], net total_space [453.6gb], spins? [no], types [ext4]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,330][INFO ][o.e.e.NodeEnvironment    ] [6-bjhwl] heap size [1.9gb], compressed ordinary object pointers [true]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,333][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [6-bjhwl] node name [6-bjhwl] derived from node ID; set [node.name] to override
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,334][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [6-bjhwl] version[5.6.16], pid[21261], build[f5daa16/2016-09-16T09:12:24.346Z], OS[Linux/4.4.0-36-generic/amd64], JVM[Oracle Corporation/Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM/1.8.0_60/25.60-b23]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [aggs-matrix-stats]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [ingest-common]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [lang-expression]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [lang-groovy]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [lang-mustache]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [lang-painless]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,967][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [percolator]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,968][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [reindex]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,968][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [transport-netty3]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,968][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded module [transport-netty4]
[2016-09-16T14:17:51,968][INFO ][o.e.p.PluginsService     ] [6-bjhwl] loaded plugin [mapper-murmur3]
[2016-09-16T14:17:53,521][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [6-bjhwl] initialized
[2016-09-16T14:17:53,521][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [6-bjhwl] starting ...
[2016-09-16T14:17:53,671][INFO ][o.e.t.TransportService   ] [6-bjhwl] publish_address {192.168.8.112:9300}, bound_addresses {{192.168.8.112:9300}
[2016-09-16T14:17:53,676][WARN ][o.e.b.BootstrapCheck     ] [6-bjhwl] max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] likely too low, increase to at least [262144]
[2016-09-16T14:17:56,718][INFO ][o.e.c.s.ClusterService   ] [6-bjhwl] new_master {6-bjhwl}{6-bjhwl4TkajjoD2oEipnQ}{8m3SNKoFR6yQl1I0JUfPig}{192.168.8.112}{192.168.8.112:9300}, reason: zen-disco-elected-as-master ([0] nodes joined)
[2016-09-16T14:17:56,731][INFO ][o.e.h.HttpServer         ] [6-bjhwl] publish_address {192.168.8.112:9200}, bound_addresses {[::1]:9200}, {192.168.8.112:9200}
[2016-09-16T14:17:56,732][INFO ][o.e.g.GatewayService     ] [6-bjhwl] recovered [0] indices into cluster_state
[2016-09-16T14:17:56,748][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [6-bjhwl] started

Without going too much into detail, we can see that our node named "6-bjhwl" (which will be a different set of characters in your case) has started and elected itself as a master in a single cluster. Don’t worry yet at the moment what master means. The main thing that is important here is that we have started one node within one cluster.

As mentioned previously, we can override either the cluster or node name. This can be done from the command line when starting Elasticsearch as follows:

./elasticsearch -Ecluster.name=my_cluster_name -Enode.name=my_node_name

Also note the line marked http with information about the HTTP address (192.168.8.112) and port (9200) that our node is reachable from. By default, Elasticsearch uses port 9200 to provide access to its REST API. This port is configurable if necessary.