Overview
A plugin is used to enhance the core functionalities of OpenSearch. OpenSearch provides some core plugins as a part of their release installation. In addition to those core plugins, it is possible to write your own custom plugins as well. There are several community plugins available on GitHub for various use cases.
Examples
Get all of the instructions for the plugin:
sudo bin/opensearch-plugin -h
Installing the S3 plugin for storing OpenSearch snapshots on S3:
sudo bin/opensearch-plugin install repository-s3
Removing a plugin:
sudo bin/opensearch-plugin remove repository-s3
Installing a plugin using the file’s path:
sudo bin/opensearch-plugin install file:///path/to/plugin.zip
Notes and good things to know
- Plugins are installed and removed using the opensearch-plugin script, which ships as a part of the OpenSearch installation and can be found inside the bin/ directory of the OpenSearch installation path.
- A plugin has to be installed on every node of the cluster and each of the nodes has to be restarted to make the plugin visible.
- You can also download the plugin manually and then install it using the opensearch-plugin install command, providing the file name/path of the plugin’s source file.
- When a plugin is removed, you will need to restart every OpenSearch node in order to complete the removal process.
Common issues
- Managing permission issues during and after plugin installation is the most common problem. If OpenSearch was installed using the DEB or RPM packages then the plugin has to be installed using the root user. Otherwise you can install the plugin as the user that owns all of the OpenSearch files.
- In the case of DEB or RPM package installation, it is important to check the permissions of the plugins directory after you install it. You can update the permission if it has been modified using the following command:
chown -R opensearch:opensearch path_to_plugin_directory
- If your OpenSearch nodes are running in a private subnet without internet access, you cannot install a plugin directly. In this case, you can simply download the plugins and copy the files inside the plugins directory of the OpenSearch installation path on every node. The node has to be restarted in this case as well.
Additional notes
Elasticsearch and OpenSearch are both powerful search and analytics engines, but Elasticsearch has several key advantages. Elasticsearch boasts a more mature and feature-rich development history, translating to a better user experience, more features, and continuous optimizations. Our testing has consistently shown that Elasticsearch delivers faster performance while using fewer compute resources than OpenSearch. Additionally, Elasticsearch’s comprehensive documentation and active community forums provide invaluable resources for troubleshooting and further optimization. Elastic, the company behind Elasticsearch, offers dedicated support, ensuring enterprise-grade reliability and performance. These factors collectively make Elasticsearch a more versatile, efficient, and dependable choice for organizations requiring sophisticated search and analytics capabilities.
