[[indices-open-close]]
== Open / Close Index API

The open and close index APIs allow to close an index, and later on
opening it.

A closed index is blocked for read/write operations and does not allow
all operations that opened indices allow. It is not possible to index
documents or to search for documents in a closed index. This allows
closed indices to not have to maintain internal data structures for
indexing or searching documents, resulting in a smaller overhead on
the cluster.

When opening or closing an index, the master is responsible for
restarting the index shards to reflect the new state of the index.
The shards will then go through the normal recovery process. The
data of opened/closed indices is automatically replicated by the
cluster to ensure that enough shard copies are safely kept around
at all times.

The REST endpoint is `/{index}/_close` and `/{index}/_open`.

The following example shows how to close an index:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
POST /my_index/_close
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST[s/^/PUT my_index\n/]

This will return the following response:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
    "acknowledged" : true,
    "shards_acknowledged" : true,
    "indices" : {
        "my_index" : {
            "closed" : true
        }
    }
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TESTRESPONSE

A closed index can be reopened like this:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
POST /my_index/_open
--------------------------------------------------
// CONSOLE
// TEST[s/^/PUT my_index\nPOST my_index\/_close\n/]

which will yield the following response:

[source,js]
--------------------------------------------------
{
    "acknowledged" : true,
    "shards_acknowledged" : true
}
--------------------------------------------------
// TESTRESPONSE

It is possible to open and close multiple indices. An error will be thrown
if the request explicitly refers to a missing index. This behaviour can be
disabled using the `ignore_unavailable=true` parameter.

All indices can be opened or closed at once using `_all` as the index name
or specifying patterns that identify them all (e.g. `*`).

Identifying indices via wildcards or `_all` can be disabled by setting the
`action.destructive_requires_name` flag in the config file to `true`.
This setting can also be changed via the cluster update settings api.

Closed indices consume a significant amount of disk-space which can cause problems in managed environments. Closing indices can be disabled via the cluster settings
API by setting `cluster.indices.close.enable` to `false`. The default is `true`.

[float]
=== Wait For Active Shards

Because opening or closing an index allocates its shards, the
<<create-index-wait-for-active-shards,`wait_for_active_shards`>> setting on
index creation applies to the `_open` and `_close` index actions as well.