[[getting-started]] = Getting started with {es} [partintro] -- Ready to take {es} for a test drive and see for yourself how you can use the REST APIs to store, search, and analyze data? Step through this getting started tutorial to: . Get an {es} cluster up and running . Index some sample documents . Search for documents using the {es} query language . Analyze the results using bucket and metrics aggregations Need more context? Check out the <> to learn the lingo and understand the basics of how {es} works. If you're already familiar with {es} and want to see how it works with the rest of the stack, you might want to jump to the {stack-gs}/get-started-elastic-stack.html[Elastic Stack Tutorial] to see how to set up a system monitoring solution with {es}, {kib}, {beats}, and {ls}. TIP: The fastest way to get started with {es} is to https://www.elastic.co/cloud/elasticsearch-service/signup[start a free 14-day trial of {ess}] in the cloud. -- [[getting-started-install]] == Get {es} up and running To take {es} for a test drive, you can create a https://www.elastic.co/cloud/elasticsearch-service/signup[hosted deployment] on the {ess} or set up a multi-node {es} cluster on your own Linux, macOS, or Windows machine. [float] [[run-elasticsearch-hosted]] === Run {es} on Elastic Cloud When you create a deployment on the {es} Service, the service provisions a three-node {es} cluster along with Kibana and APM. To create a deployment: . Sign up for a https://www.elastic.co/cloud/elasticsearch-service/signup[free trial] and verify your email address. . Set a password for your account. . Click **Create Deployment**. Once you've created a deployment, you're ready to <>. [float] [[run-elasticsearch-local]] === Run {es} locally on Linux, macOS, or Windows When you create a deployment on the {ess}, a master node and two data nodes are provisioned automatically. By installing from the tar or zip archive, you can start multiple instances of {es} locally to see how a multi-node cluster behaves. To run a three-node {es} cluster locally: . Download the {es} archive for your OS: + Linux: https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-{version}-linux-x86_64.tar.gz[elasticsearch-{version}-linux-x86_64.tar.gz] + ["source","sh",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-{version}-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -------------------------------------------------- // NOTCONSOLE + macOS: https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-{version}-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz[elasticsearch-{version}-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz] + ["source","sh",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-{version}-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz -------------------------------------------------- // NOTCONSOLE + Windows: https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-{version}-windows-x86_64.zip[elasticsearch-{version}-windows-x86_64.zip] . Extract the archive: + Linux: + ["source","sh",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- tar -xvf elasticsearch-{version}-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -------------------------------------------------- + macOS: + ["source","sh",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- tar -xvf elasticsearch-{version}-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz -------------------------------------------------- + Windows PowerShell: + ["source","powershell",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- Expand-Archive elasticsearch-{version}-windows-x86_64.zip -------------------------------------------------- . Start {es} from the `bin` directory: + Linux and macOS: + ["source","sh",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- cd elasticsearch-{version}/bin ./elasticsearch -------------------------------------------------- + Windows: + ["source","powershell",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- cd elasticsearch-{version}\bin .\elasticsearch.bat -------------------------------------------------- + You now have a single-node {es} cluster up and running! . Start two more instances of {es} so you can see how a typical multi-node cluster behaves. You need to specify unique data and log paths for each node. + Linux and macOS: + ["source","sh",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- ./elasticsearch -Epath.data=data2 -Epath.logs=log2 ./elasticsearch -Epath.data=data3 -Epath.logs=log3 -------------------------------------------------- + Windows: + ["source","powershell",subs="attributes,callouts"] -------------------------------------------------- .\elasticsearch.bat -E path.data=data2 -E path.logs=log2 .\elasticsearch.bat -E path.data=data3 -E path.logs=log3 -------------------------------------------------- + The additional nodes are assigned unique IDs. Because you're running all three nodes locally, they automatically join the cluster with the first node. . Use the cat health API to verify that your three-node cluster is up running. The cat APIs return information about your cluster and indices in a format that's easier to read than raw JSON. + You can interact directly with your cluster by submitting HTTP requests to the {es} REST API. If you have Kibana installed and running, you can also open Kibana and submit requests through the Dev Console. + TIP: You'll want to check out the https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/index.html[{es} language clients] when you're ready to start using {es} in your own applications. + [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /_cat/health?v -------------------------------------------------- + The response should indicate that the status of the `elasticsearch` cluster is `green` and it has three nodes: + [source,txt] -------------------------------------------------- epoch timestamp cluster status node.total node.data shards pri relo init unassign pending_tasks max_task_wait_time active_shards_percent 1565052807 00:53:27 elasticsearch green 3 3 6 3 0 0 0 0 - 100.0% -------------------------------------------------- // TESTRESPONSE[s/1565052807 00:53:27 elasticsearch/\\d+ \\d+:\\d+:\\d+ integTest/] // TESTRESPONSE[s/3 3 6 3/\\d+ \\d+ \\d+ \\d+/] // TESTRESPONSE[s/0 0 -/0 \\d+ (-|\\d+(\.\\d+)?(micros|ms|s))/] // TESTRESPONSE[non_json] + NOTE: The cluster status will remain yellow if you are only running a single instance of {es}. A single node cluster is fully functional, but data cannot be replicated to another node to provide resiliency. Replica shards must be available for the cluster status to be green. If the cluster status is red, some data is unavailable. [discrete] [[gs-curl]] === Talking to {es} with cURL commands Most of the examples in this guide enable you to copy the appropriate cURL command and submit the request to your local {es} instance from the command line. A request to Elasticsearch consists of the same parts as any HTTP request: [source,sh] -------------------------------------------------- curl -X '://:/?' -d '' -------------------------------------------------- // NOTCONSOLE This example uses the following variables: ``:: The appropriate HTTP method or verb. For example, `GET`, `POST`, `PUT`, `HEAD`, or `DELETE`. ``:: Either `http` or `https`. Use the latter if you have an HTTPS proxy in front of {es} or you use {es} {security-features} to encrypt HTTP communications. ``:: The hostname of any node in your {es} cluster. Alternatively, use +localhost+ for a node on your local machine. ``:: The port running the {es} HTTP service, which defaults to `9200`. ``:: The API endpoint, which can contain multiple components, such as `_cluster/stats` or `_nodes/stats/jvm`. ``:: Any optional query-string parameters. For example, `?pretty` will _pretty-print_ the JSON response to make it easier to read. ``:: A JSON-encoded request body (if necessary). If the {es} {security-features} are enabled, you must also provide a valid user name (and password) that has authority to run the API. For example, use the `-u` or `--u` cURL command parameter. For details about which security privileges are required to run each API, see <>. {es} responds to each API request with an HTTP status code like `200 OK`. With the exception of `HEAD` requests, it also returns a JSON-encoded response body. [float] [[gs-other-install]] === Other installation options Installing {es} from an archive file enables you to easily install and run multiple instances locally so you can try things out. To run a single instance, you can run {es} in a Docker container, install {es} using the DEB or RPM packages on Linux, install using Homebrew on macOS, or install using the MSI package installer on Windows. See <> for more information. [[getting-started-index]] == Index some documents Once you have a cluster up and running, you're ready to index some data. There are a variety of ingest options for {es}, but in the end they all do the same thing: put JSON documents into an {es} index. You can do this directly with a simple PUT request that specifies the index you want to add the document, a unique document ID, and one or more `"field": "value"` pairs in the request body: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- PUT /customer/_doc/1 { "name": "John Doe" } -------------------------------------------------- This request automatically creates the `customer` index if it doesn't already exist, adds a new document that has an ID of `1`, and stores and indexes the `name` field. Since this is a new document, the response shows that the result of the operation was that version 1 of the document was created: [source,console-result] -------------------------------------------------- { "_index" : "customer", "_type" : "_doc", "_id" : "1", "_version" : 1, "result" : "created", "_shards" : { "total" : 2, "successful" : 2, "failed" : 0 }, "_seq_no" : 26, "_primary_term" : 4 } -------------------------------------------------- // TESTRESPONSE[s/"_seq_no" : \d+/"_seq_no" : $body._seq_no/] // TESTRESPONSE[s/"successful" : \d+/"successful" : $body._shards.successful/] // TESTRESPONSE[s/"_primary_term" : \d+/"_primary_term" : $body._primary_term/] The new document is available immediately from any node in the cluster. You can retrieve it with a GET request that specifies its document ID: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /customer/_doc/1 -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] The response indicates that a document with the specified ID was found and shows the original source fields that were indexed. [source,console-result] -------------------------------------------------- { "_index" : "customer", "_type" : "_doc", "_id" : "1", "_version" : 1, "_seq_no" : 26, "_primary_term" : 4, "found" : true, "_source" : { "name": "John Doe" } } -------------------------------------------------- // TESTRESPONSE[s/"_seq_no" : \d+/"_seq_no" : $body._seq_no/ ] // TESTRESPONSE[s/"_primary_term" : \d+/"_primary_term" : $body._primary_term/] [float] [[getting-started-batch-processing]] === Indexing documents in bulk If you have a lot of documents to index, you can submit them in batches with the {ref}/docs-bulk.html[bulk API]. Using bulk to batch document operations is significantly faster than submitting requests individually as it minimizes network roundtrips. The optimal batch size depends on a number of factors: the document size and complexity, the indexing and search load, and the resources available to your cluster. A good place to start is with batches of 1,000 to 5,000 documents and a total payload between 5MB and 15MB. From there, you can experiment to find the sweet spot. To get some data into {es} that you can start searching and analyzing: . Download the https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/blob/master/docs/src/test/resources/accounts.json?raw=true[`accounts.json`] sample data set. The documents in this randomly-generated data set represent user accounts with the following information: + [source,js] -------------------------------------------------- { "account_number": 0, "balance": 16623, "firstname": "Bradshaw", "lastname": "Mckenzie", "age": 29, "gender": "F", "address": "244 Columbus Place", "employer": "Euron", "email": "bradshawmckenzie@euron.com", "city": "Hobucken", "state": "CO" } -------------------------------------------------- // NOTCONSOLE . Index the account data into the `bank` index with the following `_bulk` request: + [source,sh] -------------------------------------------------- curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -XPOST "localhost:9200/bank/_bulk?pretty&refresh" --data-binary "@accounts.json" curl "localhost:9200/_cat/indices?v" -------------------------------------------------- // NOTCONSOLE + //// This replicates the above in a document-testing friendly way but isn't visible in the docs: + [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /_cat/indices?v -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[setup:bank] //// + The response indicates that 1,000 documents were indexed successfully. + [source,txt] -------------------------------------------------- health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size yellow open bank l7sSYV2cQXmu6_4rJWVIww 5 1 1000 0 128.6kb 128.6kb -------------------------------------------------- // TESTRESPONSE[s/128.6kb/\\d+(\\.\\d+)?[mk]?b/] // TESTRESPONSE[s/l7sSYV2cQXmu6_4rJWVIww/.+/ non_json] [[getting-started-search]] == Start searching Once you have ingested some data into an {es} index, you can search it by sending requests to the `_search` endpoint. To access the full suite of search capabilities, you use the {es} Query DSL to specify the search criteria in the request body. You specify the name of the index you want to search in the request URI. For example, the following request retrieves all documents in the `bank` index sorted by account number: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "query": { "match_all": {} }, "sort": [ { "account_number": "asc" } ] } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] By default, the `hits` section of the response includes the first 10 documents that match the search criteria: [source,console-result] -------------------------------------------------- { "took" : 63, "timed_out" : false, "_shards" : { "total" : 5, "successful" : 5, "skipped" : 0, "failed" : 0 }, "hits" : { "total" : { "value": 1000, "relation": "eq" }, "max_score" : null, "hits" : [ { "_index" : "bank", "_type" : "_doc", "_id" : "0", "sort": [0], "_score" : null, "_source" : {"account_number":0,"balance":16623,"firstname":"Bradshaw","lastname":"Mckenzie","age":29,"gender":"F","address":"244 Columbus Place","employer":"Euron","email":"bradshawmckenzie@euron.com","city":"Hobucken","state":"CO"} }, { "_index" : "bank", "_type" : "_doc", "_id" : "1", "sort": [1], "_score" : null, "_source" : {"account_number":1,"balance":39225,"firstname":"Amber","lastname":"Duke","age":32,"gender":"M","address":"880 Holmes Lane","employer":"Pyrami","email":"amberduke@pyrami.com","city":"Brogan","state":"IL"} }, ... ] } } -------------------------------------------------- // TESTRESPONSE[s/"took" : 63/"took" : $body.took/] // TESTRESPONSE[s/\.\.\./$body.hits.hits.2, $body.hits.hits.3, $body.hits.hits.4, $body.hits.hits.5, $body.hits.hits.6, $body.hits.hits.7, $body.hits.hits.8, $body.hits.hits.9/] The response also provides the following information about the search request: * `took` – how long it took {es} to run the query, in milliseconds * `timed_out` – whether or not the search request timed out * `_shards` – how many shards were searched and a breakdown of how many shards succeeded, failed, or were skipped. * `max_score` – the score of the most relevant document found * `hits.total.value` - how many matching documents were found * `hits.sort` - the document's sort position (when not sorting by relevance score) * `hits._score` - the document's relevance score (not applicable when using `match_all`) Each search request is self-contained: {es} does not maintain any state information across requests. To page through the search hits, specify the `from` and `size` parameters in your request. For example, the following request gets hits 10 through 19: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "query": { "match_all": {} }, "sort": [ { "account_number": "asc" } ], "from": 10, "size": 10 } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] Now that you've seen how to submit a basic search request, you can start to construct queries that are a bit more interesting than `match_all`. To search for specific terms within a field, you can use a `match` query. For example, the following request searches the `address` field to find customers whose addresses contain `mill` or `lane`: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "query": { "match": { "address": "mill lane" } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] To perform a phrase search rather than matching individual terms, you use `match_phrase` instead of `match`. For example, the following request only matches addresses that contain the phrase `mill lane`: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "query": { "match_phrase": { "address": "mill lane" } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] To construct more complex queries, you can use a `bool` query to combine multiple query criteria. You can designate criteria as required (must match), desirable (should match), or undesirable (must not match). For example, the following request searches the `bank` index for accounts that belong to customers who are 40 years old, but excludes anyone who lives in Idaho (ID): [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "query": { "bool": { "must": [ { "match": { "age": "40" } } ], "must_not": [ { "match": { "state": "ID" } } ] } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] Each `must`, `should`, and `must_not` element in a Boolean query is referred to as a query clause. How well a document meets the criteria in each `must` or `should` clause contributes to the document's _relevance score_. The higher the score, the better the document matches your search criteria. By default, {es} returns documents ranked by these relevance scores. The criteria in a `must_not` clause is treated as a _filter_. It affects whether or not the document is included in the results, but does not contribute to how documents are scored. You can also explicitly specify arbitrary filters to include or exclude documents based on structured data. For example, the following request uses a range filter to limit the results to accounts with a balance between $20,000 and $30,000 (inclusive). [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "query": { "bool": { "must": { "match_all": {} }, "filter": { "range": { "balance": { "gte": 20000, "lte": 30000 } } } } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] [[getting-started-aggregations]] == Analyze results with aggregations {es} aggregations enable you to get meta-information about your search results and answer questions like, "How many account holders are in Texas?" or "What's the average balance of accounts in Tennessee?" You can search documents, filter hits, and use aggregations to analyze the results all in one request. For example, the following request uses a `terms` aggregation to group all of the accounts in the `bank` index by state, and returns the ten states with the most accounts in descending order: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "size": 0, "aggs": { "group_by_state": { "terms": { "field": "state.keyword" } } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] The `buckets` in the response are the values of the `state` field. The `doc_count` shows the number of accounts in each state. For example, you can see that there are 27 accounts in `ID` (Idaho). Because the request set `size=0`, the response only contains the aggregation results. [source,console-result] -------------------------------------------------- { "took": 29, "timed_out": false, "_shards": { "total": 5, "successful": 5, "skipped" : 0, "failed": 0 }, "hits" : { "total" : { "value": 1000, "relation": "eq" }, "max_score" : null, "hits" : [ ] }, "aggregations" : { "group_by_state" : { "doc_count_error_upper_bound": 20, "sum_other_doc_count": 770, "buckets" : [ { "key" : "ID", "doc_count" : 27 }, { "key" : "TX", "doc_count" : 27 }, { "key" : "AL", "doc_count" : 25 }, { "key" : "MD", "doc_count" : 25 }, { "key" : "TN", "doc_count" : 23 }, { "key" : "MA", "doc_count" : 21 }, { "key" : "NC", "doc_count" : 21 }, { "key" : "ND", "doc_count" : 21 }, { "key" : "ME", "doc_count" : 20 }, { "key" : "MO", "doc_count" : 20 } ] } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TESTRESPONSE[s/"took": 29/"took": $body.took/] You can combine aggregations to build more complex summaries of your data. For example, the following request nests an `avg` aggregation within the previous `group_by_state` aggregation to calculate the average account balances for each state. [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "size": 0, "aggs": { "group_by_state": { "terms": { "field": "state.keyword" }, "aggs": { "average_balance": { "avg": { "field": "balance" } } } } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] Instead of sorting the results by count, you could sort using the result of the nested aggregation by specifying the order within the `terms` aggregation: [source,console] -------------------------------------------------- GET /bank/_search { "size": 0, "aggs": { "group_by_state": { "terms": { "field": "state.keyword", "order": { "average_balance": "desc" } }, "aggs": { "average_balance": { "avg": { "field": "balance" } } } } } } -------------------------------------------------- // TEST[continued] In addition to basic bucketing and metrics aggregations like these, {es} provides specialized aggregations for operating on multiple fields and analyzing particular types of data such as dates, IP addresses, and geo data. You can also feed the results of individual aggregations into pipeline aggregations for further analysis. The core analysis capabilities provided by aggregations enable advanced features such as using machine learning to detect anomalies. [[getting-started-next-steps]] == Where to go from here Now that you've set up a cluster, indexed some documents, and run some searches and aggregations, you might want to: * {stack-gs}/get-started-elastic-stack.html#install-kibana[Dive in to the Elastic Stack Tutorial] to install Kibana, Logstash, and Beats and set up a basic system monitoring solution. * {kibana-ref}/add-sample-data.html[Load one of the sample data sets into Kibana] to see how you can use {es} and Kibana together to visualize your data. * Try out one of the Elastic search solutions: ** https://swiftype.com/documentation/site-search/crawler-quick-start[Site Search] ** https://swiftype.com/documentation/app-search/getting-started[App Search] ** https://swiftype.com/documentation/enterprise-search/getting-started[Enterprise Search]