[role="xpack"]
[testenv="basic"]
[[config-monitoring-indices]]
== Configuring indices for monitoring

<<indices-templates,Index templates>> are used to configure the indices
that store the monitoring data collected from a cluster.

You can retrieve the templates through the `_template` API:

[source,console]
----------------------------------
GET /_template/.monitoring-*
----------------------------------

By default, the template configures one shard and one replica for the
monitoring indices. To override the default settings, add your own template:

. Set the `template` pattern to `.monitoring-*`.
. 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.

For example, the following template increases the number of shards to five
and the number of replicas to two.

[source,console]
----------------------------------
PUT /_template/custom_monitoring
{
    "index_patterns": ".monitoring-*",
    "order": 1,
    "settings": {
        "number_of_shards": 5,
        "number_of_replicas": 2
    }
}
----------------------------------

IMPORTANT: Only set the `number_of_shards` and `number_of_replicas` in the
settings section. Overriding other monitoring template settings could cause
your monitoring dashboards to stop working correctly.