Start and stop index lifecycle management

By default, the ILM service is in the RUNNING state and manages all indices that have lifecycle policies.

You can stop index lifecycle management to suspend management operations for all indices. For example, you might stop index lifecycle management when performing scheduled maintenance or making changes to the cluster that could impact the execution of ILM actions.

To see the current status of the ILM service, use the Get Status API:

GET _ilm/status

Under normal operation, the response shows ILM is RUNNING:

{
  "operation_mode": "RUNNING"
}

To stop the ILM service and pause execution of all lifecycle policies, use the Stop API:

POST _ilm/stop

ILM service runs all policies to a point where it is safe to stop. While the ILM service is shutting down, the status API shows ILM is in the STOPPING mode:

{
  "operation_mode": "STOPPING"
}

Once all policies are at a safe stopping point, ILM moves into the STOPPED mode:

{
  "operation_mode": "STOPPED"
}

To restart ILM and resume executing policies, use the Start API. This puts the ILM service in the RUNNING state and ILM begins executing policies from where it left off.

POST _ilm/start