Configuring indices created by Metricbeat 7 or internal collection

When monitoring using Metricbeat 7 or internal collection, data is stored in a set of indices called either:

.monitoring-{product}-7-mb-{date}, when using Metricbeat 7.
.monitoring-{product}-7-{date}, when using internal collection.

The settings and mappings for these indices are determined by legacy index templates named .monitoring-{product}. You can retrieve these templates in Kibana by navigating to Stack Management > Index Management > Index Templates, or by using the Elasticsearch _template API:

GET /_template/.monitoring-*

To change the settings of the indices, add a custom index template. You can do that in Kibana, or using the Elasticsearch API:

Set index_patterns to match the .monitoring-{product}-7-* indices.
Set the template order to 1. This ensures your template is applied after the default template, which has an order of 0.
Specify the number_of_shards and/or number_of_replicas in the settings section.

PUT /_template/custom_monitoring
{
  "index_patterns": [".monitoring-beats-7-*", ".monitoring-es-7-*", ".monitoring-kibana-7-*", ".monitoring-logstash-7-*"],
  "order": 1,
  "settings": {
    "number_of_shards": 5,
    "number_of_replicas": 2
  }
}

After changing the index template, the updated settings are only applied to new indices.

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