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Deploy an Elasticsearch cluster

Self Managed

This section includes information on how to set up Elasticsearch and get it running, including:

To quickly set up Elasticsearch and Kibana in Docker for local development or testing, jump to Local development installation (quickstart).

If you want to install and manage Elasticsearch yourself, you can:

Tip

To try out Elastic Stack on your own machine, we recommend using Docker and running both Elasticsearch and Kibana. For more information, see Local development installation (quickstart). This setup is not suitable for production use.

Use dedicated hosts

In production, we recommend you run Elasticsearch on a dedicated host or as a primary service. Several Elasticsearch features, such as automatic JVM heap sizing, assume that Elasticsearch is the only resource-intensive application on the host or container. For example, you might run Metricbeat alongside Elasticsearch for cluster statistics, but a resource-heavy Logstash deployment should be on its own host.

Elasticsearch is provided in the following package formats.

Each linked guide provides the following details:

  • Download and installation instructions
  • Information on enrolling a newly installed node in an existing cluster
  • Instructions on starting Elasticsearch manually and, if applicable, as a service or daemon
  • Instructions on connecting clients to your new cluster
  • Archive or package contents information
  • Security certificate and key information

Before you start, make sure that you configure your system.

Format Description Instructions
Linux and MacOS tar.gz archives The tar.gz archives are available for installation on any Linux distribution and MacOS. Install Elasticsearch from archive on Linux or MacOS
Windows .zip archive The zip archive is suitable for installation on Windows. Install Elasticsearch with .zip on Windows
deb The deb package is suitable for Debian, Ubuntu, and other Debian-based systems. Debian packages can be downloaded from the Elasticsearch website or from our Debian repository. Install Elasticsearch with Debian Package
rpm The rpm package is suitable for installation on Red Hat, Centos, SLES, OpenSuSE and other RPM-based systems. RPM packages can be downloaded from the Elasticsearch website or from our RPM repository. Install Elasticsearch with RPM

You can also run Elasticsearch inside a docket container image. Docker container images may be downloaded from the Elastic Docker Registry.

You can use Docker Compose to deploy multiple nodes at once.

Install Elasticsearch with Docker

When installing the Elastic Stack, you must use the same version across the entire stack. For example, if you are using Elasticsearch 9.0.0, you install Beats 9.0.0, APM Server 9.0.0, Elasticsearch Hadoop 9.0.0, Kibana 9.0.0, and Logstash 9.0.0.

If you’re upgrading an existing installation, see Upgrade for information about how to ensure compatibility with 9.0.0.

If you're deploying the Elastic Stack in a self-managed cluster, then install the Elastic Stack products you want to use in the following order:

Installing in this order ensures that the components each product depends on are in place.

The matrix of officially supported operating systems and JVMs is available in the Elastic Support Matrix. Elasticsearch is tested on the listed platforms, but it is possible that it will work on other platforms too.

Elasticsearch is built using Java, and includes a bundled version of OpenJDK within each distribution. We strongly recommend using the bundled JVM in all installations of Elasticsearch.

The bundled JVM is treated the same as any other dependency of Elasticsearch in terms of support and maintenance. This means that Elastic takes responsibility for keeping it up to date, and reacts to security issues and bug reports as needed to address vulnerabilities and other bugs in Elasticsearch. Elastic’s support of the bundled JVM is subject to Elastic’s support policy and end-of-life schedule and is independent of the support policy and end-of-life schedule offered by the original supplier of the JVM. Elastic does not support using the bundled JVM for purposes other than running Elasticsearch.

Tip

Elasticsearch uses only a subset of the features offered by the JVM. Bugs and security issues in the bundled JVM often relate to features that Elasticsearch does not use. Such issues do not apply to Elasticsearch. Elastic analyzes reports of security vulnerabilities in all its dependencies, including in the bundled JVM, and will issue an Elastic Security Advisory if such an advisory is needed.

If you decide to run Elasticsearch using a version of Java that is different from the bundled one, prefer to use the latest release of a LTS version of Java which is listed in the support matrix. Although such a configuration is supported, if you encounter a security issue or other bug in your chosen JVM then Elastic may not be able to help unless the issue is also present in the bundled JVM. Instead, you must seek assistance directly from the supplier of your chosen JVM. You must also take responsibility for reacting to security and bug announcements from the supplier of your chosen JVM. Elasticsearch may not perform optimally if using a JVM other than the bundled one. Elasticsearch is closely coupled to certain OpenJDK-specific features, so it may not work correctly with JVMs that are not OpenJDK. Elasticsearch will refuse to start if you attempt to use a known-bad JVM version.

To use your own version of Java, set the ES_JAVA_HOME environment variable to the path to your own JVM installation. The bundled JVM is located within the jdk subdirectory of the Elasticsearch home directory. You may remove this directory if using your own JVM.

Warning

Don’t use third-party Java agents that attach to the JVM. These agents can reduce Elasticsearch performance, including freezing or crashing nodes.

Refer to Elastic Stack third-party dependencies for the complete list of dependencies.