==== Running as a daemon

To run Elasticsearch as a daemon, specify `-d` on the command line, and record
the process ID in a file using the `-p` option:

[source,sh]
--------------------------------------------
./bin/elasticsearch -d -p pid
--------------------------------------------

Log messages can be found in the `$ES_HOME/logs/` directory.

To shut down Elasticsearch, kill the process ID recorded in the `pid` file:

[source,sh]
--------------------------------------------
kill `cat pid`
--------------------------------------------

NOTE: The startup scripts provided in the <<rpm,RPM>> and <<deb,Debian>>
packages take care of starting and stopping the Elasticsearch process for you.