[[settings]]
== Configuring Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch ships with good defaults and requires very little configuration.
Most settings can be changed on a running cluster using the
<<cluster-update-settings>> API.

The configuration files should contain settings which are node-specific (such
as `node.name` and paths), or settings which a node requires in order to be
able to join a cluster, such as `cluster.name` and `network.host`.

[[config-files-location]]
[float]
=== Config files location

Elasticsearch has three configuration files:

* `elasticsearch.yml` for configuring Elasticsearch
* `jvm.options` for configuring Elasticsearch JVM settings
* `log4j2.properties` for configuring Elasticsearch logging

These files are located in the config directory, whose default location depends
on whether or not the installation is from an archive distribution (`tar.gz` or
`zip`) or a package distribution (Debian or RPM packages).

For the archive distributions, the config directory location defaults to
`$ES_HOME/config`. The location of the config directory can be changed via the
`ES_PATH_CONF` environment variable as follows:

[source,sh]
-------------------------------
ES_PATH_CONF=/path/to/my/config ./bin/elasticsearch
-------------------------------

Alternatively, you can `export` the `ES_PATH_CONF` environment variable via the
command line or via your shell profile.

For the package distributions, the config directory location defaults to
`/etc/elasticsearch`. The location of the config directory can also be changed
via the `ES_PATH_CONF` environment variable, but note that setting this in your
shell is not sufficient. Instead, this variable is sourced from
`/etc/default/elasticsearch` (for the Debian package) and
`/etc/sysconfig/elasticsearch` (for the RPM package). You will need to edit the
`ES_PATH_CONF=/etc/elasticsearch` entry in one of these files accordingly to
change the config directory location.


[float]
=== Config file format

The configuration format is http://www.yaml.org/[YAML]. Here is an
example of changing the path of the data and logs directories:

[source,yaml]
--------------------------------------------------
path:
    data: /var/lib/elasticsearch
    logs: /var/log/elasticsearch
--------------------------------------------------

Settings can also be flattened as follows:

[source,yaml]
--------------------------------------------------
path.data: /var/lib/elasticsearch
path.logs: /var/log/elasticsearch
--------------------------------------------------

[float]
=== Environment variable substitution

Environment variables referenced with the `${...}` notation within the
configuration file will be replaced with the value of the environment
variable. For example:

[source,yaml]
--------------------------------------------------
node.name:    ${HOSTNAME}
network.host: ${ES_NETWORK_HOST}
--------------------------------------------------

Values for environment variables must be simple strings. Use a comma-separated string to provide values that Elasticsearch will parse as a list. For example, Elasticsearch will split the following string into a list of values for the `${HOSTNAME}` environment variable:

[source,yaml]
----
export HOSTNAME=“host1,host2"
----

[discrete]
[[cluster-setting-types]]
=== Cluster and node setting types

Cluster and node settings can be categorized based on how they are configured:

[[dynamic-cluster-setting]]
Dynamic::
You can configure and update dynamic settings on a running cluster using the
<<cluster-update-settings,cluster update settings API>>.
+
You can also configure dynamic settings locally on an unstarted or shut down
node using `elasticsearch.yml`.
+
TIP: It’s best to set dynamic, cluster-wide settings with the cluster update
settings API and use `elasticsearch.yml` only for local configurations. Using
the cluster update settings API ensures the setting is the same on all nodes. If
you accidentally configure different settings in `elasticsearch.yml` on
different nodes, it can be difficult to notice discrepancies.

[[static-cluster-setting]]
Static::
Static settings can only be configured on an unstarted or shut down node using
`elasticsearch.yml`.
+
Static settings must be set on every relevant node in the cluster.