JpBriend

Jean-Philippe Briend,
Software Engineering
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ElasticSearch installation and configuration for Log monitoring

16 Sep 2014

Starting Point

This post has been done starting on a server with a Ubuntu 14.04 fresh install.

Step 1 : Download ELK stack

sudo apt-get install unzip

mkdir Download
cd Download
wget https://download.elasticsearch.org/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-1.3.2.zip

unzip elasticsearch-1.3.2.zip

Step 2 : Install JDK 7+

2 possibilities : OpenJDK or Oracle JDK

1st choice : OpenJDK

Example is given for Java 7. Replace 7 by 8 for OpenJDK 8.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

2nd choice : Oracle JDK

Example is given for Oracle Java 8.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

Verification

    java -version

Should return the correct JDK (OpenJDK or Oracle) and the correct version (7 or 8).

Step 3 : Add a dedicated user for Elasticsearch

Create a user for Elasticsearch (named elasticsearch) and prepare a folder for the binaries.

sudo adduser elasticsearch
su elasticsearch
cd ~

Create 2 folders : elasticsearch-1.3.2 to handle binaries and software for symbolic links (useful when upgrade will happen)

mkdir software
mkdir elasticsearch-1.3.2
exit

Copy binaries from Download folder to elasticsearch folder. Do not forget to set proper permissions and owner on Elasticsearch binaries

sudo cp -R elasticsearch-1.3.2 /home/elasticsearch/software/elasticsearch-1.3.2
sudo chown elasticsearch:elasticsearch -R /home/elasticsearch/software/

Create symbolic link in software, set permissions and create working folders for Elasticsearch (data, logs, work)

su elasticsearch
cd ~/software
ln -s elasticsearch-1.3.2 elasticsearch
chmod 770 -R *
mkdir ~/data
mkdir ~/logs
mkdir ~/work

Step 4 : Configure Elasticsearch

Edit Elasticsearch configuration file (as elasticsearch user)

cd ~/software/elasticsearch/config
vim elasticsearch.yml

Elasticsearch is configured by default for a Search usage : few indexing requests and lot of search requests. In the case of Log monitoring using Logstash / Kibana, it’s the opposite : lot of indexing requests and few search requests.

My recommandation is to change the dedicated thread pools in Elasticsearch. We will setup the search thread pool size to a fixed value of 20, the bulk thread pool (used to laod data into ES) size to 60 and the index thread pool size to 20

Edit or add the following properties :

# Disable dynamic scripting for security reasons (see http://www.elasticsearch.org/blog/scripting-security/)
script.disable_dynamic: true

node.master: true

node.data: true

# In my case, I only need 2 shards. Configure as needed for your use case
index.number_of_shards: 2

# In my case, I only need 0 replica. Configure as needed for your use case
index.number_of_replicas: 0

# ES will store all its data in this folder
path.data: /home/elasticsearch/data

# ES will store all its working stuff in this folder
path.work: /home/elasticsearch/work

# ES will store all its logs in this folder
path.logs: /home/elasticsearch/logs

bootstrap.mlockall: true

# disable multicast discovery
discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled: false

## Threadpool Settings tuned for Log monitoring activity ##
# Search pool
threadpool.search.type: fixed
threadpool.search.size: 20
threadpool.search.queue_size: 100

# Bulk pool
threadpool.bulk.type: fixed
threadpool.bulk.size: 60
threadpool.bulk.queue_size: 300

# Index pool
threadpool.index.type: fixed
threadpool.index.size: 20
threadpool.index.queue_size: 100

# Indices settings
indices.memory.index_buffer_size: 30%
indices.memory.min_shard_index_buffer_size: 12mb
indices.memory.min_index_buffer_size: 96mb

# Cache Sizes
indices.fielddata.cache.size: 15%
indices.fielddata.cache.expire: 6h
indices.cache.filter.size: 15%
indices.cache.filter.expire: 6h

# Indexing Settings for Writes
# I setup a higher flush threshold to many flushes.
# Value should be determined according to the rate of incoming documents (~50 docs/seconds in my use case)
index.refresh_interval: 30s
index.translog.flush_threshold_ops: 50000

Step 5 : Adjust Elasticsearch memory settings

Connect as elasticsearch user :

vim ~/.bashrc

export ES_HEAP_SIZE=4G

Step 6 : check if Elasticsearch is working

Connect as elasticsearch user :

cd ~/software/elasticsearch/bin
./elasticsearch

started should appear in the console.

Kill the server with Ctrl-C.

Step 7 : Fine tune OS settings

Connect as a sudoable user :

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf
# Change (or add) the following value to make max_map_count permanent :
vm.max_map_count = 262144

Step 8 : start Elasticsearch as a daemon

Connect as elasticsearch user :

cd ~/software/elasticsearch/bin
./elasticsearch -d

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