---
title: Usage
description: Once a RestClient instance has been created as shown in Initialization, a Sniffer can be associated to it. The Sniffer will make use of the provided RestClient...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/elasticsearch/clients/java/transport/rest-client/sniffer/usage
products:
  - Elasticsearch Client
  - Elasticsearch Java Client
---

# Usage
<note>
  This is the legacy RestClient. Please migrate to [Rest5Client](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/elasticsearch/clients/java/transport/rest5-client), a drop-in replacement with an up-to-date http library.
</note>

Once a `RestClient` instance has been created as shown in [Initialization](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/elasticsearch/clients/java/transport/rest-client/usage/initialization), a `Sniffer` can be associated to it. The `Sniffer` will make use of the provided `RestClient` to periodically (every 5 minutes by default) fetch the list of current nodes from the cluster and update them by calling `RestClient#setNodes`.
```java
RestClient restClient = RestClient.builder(
    new HttpHost("localhost", 9200, "http"))
    .build();
Sniffer sniffer = Sniffer.builder(restClient).build();
```

It is important to close the `Sniffer` so that its background thread gets properly shutdown and all of its resources are released. The `Sniffer` object should have the same lifecycle as the `RestClient` and get closed right before the client:
```java
sniffer.close();
restClient.close();
```

The `Sniffer` updates the nodes by default every 5 minutes. This interval can be customized by providing it (in milliseconds) as follows:
```java
RestClient restClient = RestClient.builder(
    new HttpHost("localhost", 9200, "http"))
    .build();
Sniffer sniffer = Sniffer.builder(restClient)
    .setSniffIntervalMillis(60000).build();
```

It is also possible to enable sniffing on failure, meaning that after each failure the nodes list gets updated straightaway rather than at the following ordinary sniffing round. In this case a `SniffOnFailureListener` needs to be created at first and provided at `RestClient` creation. Also once the `Sniffer` is later created, it needs to be associated with that same `SniffOnFailureListener` instance, which will be notified at each failure and use the `Sniffer` to perform the additional sniffing round as described.
```java
SniffOnFailureListener sniffOnFailureListener =
    new SniffOnFailureListener();
RestClient restClient = RestClient.builder(
    new HttpHost("localhost", 9200))
    .setFailureListener(sniffOnFailureListener) 
    .build();
Sniffer sniffer = Sniffer.builder(restClient)
    .setSniffAfterFailureDelayMillis(30000) 
    .build();
sniffOnFailureListener.setSniffer(sniffer); 
```

The Elasticsearch Nodes Info api doesn’t return the protocol to use when connecting to the nodes but only their `host:port` key-pair, hence `http` is used by default. In case `https` should be used instead, the `ElasticsearchNodesSniffer` instance has to be manually created and provided as follows:
```java
RestClient restClient = RestClient.builder(
        new HttpHost("localhost", 9200, "http"))
        .build();
NodesSniffer nodesSniffer = new ElasticsearchNodesSniffer(
        restClient,
        ElasticsearchNodesSniffer.DEFAULT_SNIFF_REQUEST_TIMEOUT,
        ElasticsearchNodesSniffer.Scheme.HTTPS);
Sniffer sniffer = Sniffer.builder(restClient)
        .setNodesSniffer(nodesSniffer).build();
```

In the same way it is also possible to customize the `sniffRequestTimeout`, which defaults to one second. That is the `timeout` parameter provided as a query string parameter when calling the Nodes Info api, so that when the timeout expires on the server side, a valid response is still returned although it may contain only a subset of the nodes that are part of the cluster, the ones that have responded until then.
```java
RestClient restClient = RestClient.builder(
    new HttpHost("localhost", 9200, "http"))
    .build();
NodesSniffer nodesSniffer = new ElasticsearchNodesSniffer(
    restClient,
    TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(5),
    ElasticsearchNodesSniffer.Scheme.HTTP);
Sniffer sniffer = Sniffer.builder(restClient)
    .setNodesSniffer(nodesSniffer).build();
```

Also, a custom `NodesSniffer` implementation can be provided for advanced use cases that may require fetching the nodes from external sources rather than from Elasticsearch:
```java
RestClient restClient = RestClient.builder(
    new HttpHost("localhost", 9200, "http"))
    .build();
NodesSniffer nodesSniffer = new NodesSniffer() {
        @Override
        public List<Node> sniff() throws IOException {
            return null; 
        }
    };
Sniffer sniffer = Sniffer.builder(restClient)
    .setNodesSniffer(nodesSniffer).build();
```