Elasticsearch Replication

By Opster Team

Updated: Jan 28, 2024

| 1 min read

Overview

Replication refers to storing a redundant copy of the data. Starting from version 7.x, Elasticsearch creates one primary shard with a replication factor set to 1. Replicas never get assigned to the same node on which primary shards are assigned, which means you should have at least two nodes in the cluster to assign the replicas. If a primary shard goes down, the replica automatically acts as a primary shard.

What it is used for

Replicas are used to provide high availability and failover. A higher number of replicas is also helpful for faster searches.

Examples

Update replica count

PUT /api-logs/_settings?pretty
{
    "index" : {
        "number_of_replicas" : 2
    }
}

Common problems

  • By default, new replicas are not assigned to nodes with more than 85% disk usage. Instead, Elasticsearch throws a warning.
  • Creating too many replicas may cause a problem if there are not enough resources available in the cluster. 

Related log errors to this ES concept


Actual shard is not a primary
Expected allocation id but found
Expected allocation id with term but found
Shard is not in primary mode
Failed to find index as current cluster state with version
Timeout request
Unknown node nodeId

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