---
title: Initial setup
description: Set up a remote cluster on both clusters.Set up bi-directional cross-cluster replication.Set up the Logstash configuration file.This example uses the...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/deploy-manage/tools/cross-cluster-replication/ccr-tutorial-initial-setup
products:
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise: Generally available
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# Initial setup
1. Set up a remote cluster on both clusters.
   ```json
   ### On cluster A ###

   {
     "persistent": {
       "cluster": {
         "remote": {
           "clusterB": {
             "mode": "proxy",
             "skip_unavailable": true,
             "server_name": "clusterb.es.region-b.gcp.elastic-cloud.com",
             "proxy_socket_connections": 18,
             "proxy_address": "clusterb.es.region-b.gcp.elastic-cloud.com:9400"
           }
         }
       }
     }
   }
   ### On cluster B ###

   {
     "persistent": {
       "cluster": {
         "remote": {
           "clusterA": {
             "mode": "proxy",
             "skip_unavailable": true,
             "server_name": "clustera.es.region-a.gcp.elastic-cloud.com",
             "proxy_socket_connections": 18,
             "proxy_address": "clustera.es.region-a.gcp.elastic-cloud.com:9400"
           }
         }
       }
     }
   }
   ```
2. Set up bi-directional cross-cluster replication.
   ```json
   ### On cluster A ###

   {
     "remote_cluster": "clusterB",
     "leader_index_patterns": [
       ".ds-logs-generic-default-20*"
     ],
     "leader_index_exclusion_patterns":"*-replicated_from_clustera",
     "follow_index_pattern": "{{leader_index}}-replicated_from_clusterb"
   }

   ### On cluster B ###

   {
     "remote_cluster": "clusterA",
     "leader_index_patterns": [
       ".ds-logs-generic-default-20*"
     ],
     "leader_index_exclusion_patterns":"*-replicated_from_clusterb",
     "follow_index_pattern": "{{leader_index}}-replicated_from_clustera"
   }
   ```
   <important>
   Existing data on the cluster will not be replicated by `_ccr/auto_follow` even though the patterns may match. This function will only replicate newly created backing indices (as part of the data stream).
   </important>
   <important>
   Use `leader_index_exclusion_patterns` to avoid recursion.
   </important>
   <tip>
   `follow_index_pattern` allows lowercase characters only.
   </tip>
   <tip>
   This step cannot be executed via the Kibana UI due to the lack of an exclusion pattern in the UI. Use the API in this step.
   </tip>
3. Set up the Logstash configuration file.
   This example uses the input generator to demonstrate the document count in the clusters. Reconfigure this section to suit your own use case.
   ```json
   ### On Logstash server ###
   ### This is a logstash config file ###
   input {
     generator{
       message => 'Hello World'
       count => 100
     }
   }
   output {
     elasticsearch {
       hosts => ["https://clustera.es.region-a.gcp.elastic-cloud.com:9243","https://clusterb.es.region-b.gcp.elastic-cloud.com:9243"]
       user => "logstash-user"
       password => "same_password_for_both_clusters"
     }
   }
   ```
   <important>
   The key point is that when `cluster A` is down, all traffic will be automatically redirected to `cluster B`. Once `cluster A` comes back, traffic is automatically redirected back to `cluster A` again. This is achieved by the option `hosts` where multiple ES cluster endpoints are specified in the array `[clusterA, clusterB]`.
   </important>
   <tip>
   Set up the same password for the same user on both clusters to use this load-balancing feature.
   </tip>
4. Start Logstash with the earlier configuration file.
   ```sh
   ### On Logstash server ###
   bin/logstash -f multiple_hosts.conf
   ```
5. Observe document counts in data streams.
   The setup creates a data stream named `logs-generic-default` on each of the clusters. Logstash will write 50% of the documents to `cluster A` and 50% of the documents to `cluster B` when both clusters are up.
   Bi-directional cross-cluster replication will create one more data stream on each of the clusters with the `-replication_from_cluster{a|b}` suffix. At the end of this step:
   - data streams on cluster A contain:
  - 50 documents in `logs-generic-default-replicated_from_clusterb`
- 50 documents in `logs-generic-default`
- data streams on cluster B contain:
  - 50 documents in `logs-generic-default-replicated_from_clustera`
- 50 documents in `logs-generic-default`
6. Queries should be set up to search across both data streams. A query on `logs*`, on either of the clusters, returns 100 hits in total.
   ```json
   ```