[[setup-service]]
== Running As a Service on Linux

In order to run elasticsearch as a service on your operating system, the provided packages try to make it as easy as possible for you to start and stop elasticsearch during reboot and upgrades.

=== Linux

Currently our build automatically creates a debian package and an RPM package, which is available on the download page. The package itself does not have any dependencies, but you have to make sure that you installed a JDK.

Each package features a configuration file, which allows you to set the following parameters

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`ES_USER`::               The user to run as, defaults to `elasticsearch`
`ES_GROUP`::              The group to run as, defaults to `elasticsearch`
`ES_HEAP_SIZE`::          The heap size to start with
`ES_HEAP_NEWSIZE`::       The size of the new generation heap
`ES_DIRECT_SIZE`::        The maximum size of the direct memory
`MAX_OPEN_FILES`::       Maximum number of open files, defaults to `65535`
`MAX_LOCKED_MEMORY`::     Maximum locked memory size. Set to "unlimited" if you use the bootstrap.mlockall option in elasticsearch.yml. You must also set ES_HEAP_SIZE.
`LOG_DIR`::               Log directory, defaults to `/var/log/elasticsearch`
`DATA_DIR`::              Data directory, defaults to `/var/lib/elasticsearch`
`WORK_DIR`::              Work directory, defaults to `/tmp/elasticsearch`
`CONF_DIR`::              Configuration file directory (which needs to include `elasticsearch.yml` and `logging.yml` files), defaults to `/etc/elasticsearch`
`CONF_FILE`::             Path to configuration file, defaults to `/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml`
`ES_JAVA_OPTS`::          Any additional java options you may want to apply
`RESTART_ON_UPGRADE`::    Configure restart on package upgrade, defaults to `false`. This means you will have to restart your elasticsearch instance after installing a package manually. The reason for this is to ensure, that upgrades in a cluster do not result in a continouos shard reallocation resulting in high network traffic and reducing the response times of your cluster.

==== Debian/Ubuntu

The debian package ships with everything you need as it uses standard debian tools like update `update-rc.d` to define the runlevels it runs on. The init script is placed at `/etc/init.d/elasticsearch` is you would expect it. The configuration file is placed at `/etc/default/elasticsearch`.

==== RedHat/Centos/Fedora

RedHat based distributions are using `chkconfig` to enable and disable services. The init script is at `/etc/init.d/elasticsearch`, where as the configuration file is placed at `/etc/sysconfig/elasticsearch`.

==== SuSe

SuSe does not use the `chkconfig` tool to register services, but rather `systemd` and its command `/bin/systemctl` to start and stop services. The configuration file is also placed at `/etc/sysconfig/elasticsearch`.