How to install Elasticsearch on Rocky Linux 9

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Unleash the power of search by learning how to install Elasticsearch on Rocky Linux 9! This step-by-step guide walks you through the installation process, empowering you to set up your own search engine for data analysis. #centlinux #linux #elasticsearch

What is Elasticsearch?:

Elasticsearch is an open-source, distributed search and analytics engine built on top of Apache Lucene. It’s designed to handle large volumes of data and provide lightning-fast search capabilities along with advanced data analysis and visualization features. Elasticsearch is often used for various purposes, including full-text search, log and event data analysis, monitoring, and business intelligence.

Key Features of Elasticsearch:

  • Full-Text Search: Elasticsearch excels at full-text search, allowing you to search through large volumes of text-based data quickly and accurately.
  • Distributed and Scalable: Elasticsearch is designed to be distributed and horizontally scalable. This means that you can add more machines to your Elasticsearch cluster as your data grows, ensuring that performance remains consistent.
  • Near Real-Time Search: Elasticsearch provides near real-time search capabilities. This means that data indexed into Elasticsearch is searchable almost immediately after it’s added, making it suitable for applications that require up-to-date information.
  • Document-Oriented: Elasticsearch stores data in JSON documents. Each document represents a piece of data, and these documents are organized within indices.
  • RESTful API: Elasticsearch offers a RESTful API that allows you to interact with the engine using HTTP requests. This makes it easy to integrate Elasticsearch with various programming languages and frameworks.
  • Powerful Query Language: Elasticsearch provides a rich query language that enables you to perform complex searches, aggregations, and filtering on your data.
  • Aggregations and Analytics: Alongside search, Elasticsearch offers powerful aggregation capabilities. You can perform data summarization, statistical analysis, and other advanced analytics on your indexed data.
  • Real-Time Monitoring and Analytics: Elasticsearch is often used to store and analyze log and event data for real-time monitoring and analysis of system and application behavior.
  • Integration with Kibana and Logstash: Elasticsearch is commonly used in conjunction with other tools from the Elastic Stack, including Kibana (for data visualization and dashboard creation) and Logstash (for data ingestion and processing).
  • Open Source and Active Community: Elasticsearch is open-source software with an active community of developers and users. This means there’s a wealth of documentation, tutorials, and support available.

Due to its capabilities and versatility, Elasticsearch is used by a wide range of organizations to build applications that require powerful search and analytics functionality. It’s used in domains such as e-commerce, content management, security information and event management (SIEM), monitoring, and more.

Opensearch vs Elasticsearch

OpenSearch and Elasticsearch are both powerful search engines, but they have some key differences to consider:

Origin:

  • Elasticsearch: Developed and maintained by a commercial company called Elastic.
  • OpenSearch: An open-source fork of Elasticsearch created by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Codebase:

  • Elasticsearch: Continuously innovates and adds features, resulting in a larger codebase compared to the original fork.
  • OpenSearch: Shares the core functionality of Elasticsearch from the time of the fork (version 7.10), but may have diverged slightly since then due to independent development.

Features:

  • Elasticsearch: Offers a wider range of features, including some that are commercially licensed.
  • OpenSearch: Focuses on open-source development, with some features previously available in free Elasticsearch versions potentially requiring alternative implementations.

Security:

  • Elasticsearch: May offer more advanced security features, especially in paid tiers.
  • OpenSearch: Provides essential security features like password protection and data encryption, but advanced options might require additional configuration.

Community & Support:

  • Elasticsearch: Has a well-established community and extensive documentation, along with paid support options from Elastic.
  • OpenSearch: Has a growing community driven by AWS and other contributors. Support might be more reliant on community forums and resources.

Cost:

  • Elasticsearch: Offers a free version with basic features, with paid subscriptions for additional functionality and support.
  • OpenSearch: Completely free to use and deploy, potentially reducing costs associated with running a search engine.

Choosing between them:

  • For cutting-edge features and established support: Opt for Elasticsearch, especially if you’re comfortable with potentially paid licensing.
  • For a fully open-source solution and cost-effectiveness: Choose OpenSearch, considering the trade-off in features and potential need for more community-driven support.
  • For existing AWS infrastructure: OpenSearch might integrate more seamlessly if you’re already heavily invested in AWS services.

Ultimately, the best choice depends on your specific needs, budget, and familiarity with open-source vs. commercial software models.

Read Also: How to install OpenSearch on Rocky Linux 9

Environment Specification:

We are using a minimal installed Rocky Linux 9 virtual machine with following specifications.

  • CPU – 3.4 Ghz (2 cores)
  • Memory – 4 GB
  • Storage – 40 GB
  • Operating System – Rocky Linux release 9.2 (Blue Onyx)
  • Hostname – elastic-01.centlinux.com
  • IP Address – 192.168.116.84/24

Prepare your Linux Server:

By using ssh command login to your Rocky Linux server as root user.

Set a static IP address for your Linux machine.

# nmcli c m enp0s3 ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses 192.168.18.84/24 ipv4.gateway 192.168.18.1 ipv4.dns 192.168.18.1
# nmcli c down enp0s3 ; nmcli c up enp0s3

Set a hostname for the Elasticsearch server.

# hostnamectl set-hostname elastic-01.centlinux.com
# echo "192.168.18.84 elastic-01 elastic-01.centlinux.com" >> /etc/hosts

Update software packages in your Linux OS.

# dnf update -y

If the above command updates your Linux Kernel, then you should reboot your Linux OS before moving forward with this tutorial.

# reboot

Note down the Linux OS and Linux Kernel versions of the machine, that are being used in this tutorial.

# cat /etc/rocky-release
Rocky Linux release 9.2 (Blue Onyx)

# uname -r
5.14.0-284.25.1.el9_2.x86_64

Install Elasticsearch Yum Repository:

Create a yum repository configuration file with the help of vim text editor.

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/elasticsearch.repo

Add following lines in this file to define Elasticsearch yum repository.

[elasticsearch]
name=Elasticsearch repository for 8.x packages
baseurl=https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/8.x/yum
gpgcheck=0
enabled=0
autorefresh=1
type=rpm-md

Build yum cache for newly installed yum repositories.

# dnf makecache
Elasticsearch repository for 8.x packages       1.0 MB/s |  31 MB     00:30
Rocky Linux 9 - BaseOS                          1.0 kB/s | 4.1 kB     00:03
Rocky Linux 9 - AppStream                       2.5 kB/s | 4.5 kB     00:01
Rocky Linux 9 - Extras                          1.1 kB/s | 2.9 kB     00:02
Metadata cache created.

Elasticsearch official yum repository has been installed. Now you can easily install Elasticsearch on Rocky Linux by executing dnf command.

Elasticsearch Installation on Rocky Linux:

Elasticsearch yum repository is not enabled by default. We did this to avoid the automatic update of Elasticsearch software.

Execute following command to enable Elasticsearch yum repositories and install open-source analytics software.

# dnf install --enablerepo=elasticsearch -y elasticsearch
Last metadata expiration check: 0:06:57 ago on Wed 09 Aug 2023 09:00:05 PM PKT.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package              Architecture  Version          Repository            Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 elasticsearch        x86_64        8.9.0-1          elasticsearch        578 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  1 Package

Total download size: 578 M
Installed size: 1.2 G
Downloading Packages:
elasticsearch-8.9.0-x86_64.rpm                  858 kB/s | 578 MB     11:30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                           858 kB/s | 578 MB     11:30
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
  Preparing        :                                                        1/1
  Running scriptlet: elasticsearch-8.9.0-1.x86_64                           1/1
Creating elasticsearch group... OK
Creating elasticsearch user... OK

  Installing       : elasticsearch-8.9.0-1.x86_64                           1/1
  Running scriptlet: elasticsearch-8.9.0-1.x86_64                           1/1
--------------------------- Security autoconfiguration information ------------------------------

Authentication and authorization are enabled.
TLS for the transport and HTTP layers is enabled and configured.

The generated password for the elastic built-in superuser is : lp7rCo7ODq=yPdjj712a

If this node should join an existing cluster, you can reconfigure this with
'/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-reconfigure-node --enrollment-token <token-here>'
after creating an enrollment token on your existing cluster.

You can complete the following actions at any time:

Reset the password of the elastic built-in superuser with
'/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-reset-password -u elastic'.

Generate an enrollment token for Kibana instances with
 '/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-create-enrollment-token -s kibana'.

Generate an enrollment token for Elasticsearch nodes with
'/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-create-enrollment-token -s node'.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
### NOT starting on installation, please execute the following statements to configure elasticsearch service to start automatically using systemd
 sudo systemctl daemon-reload
 sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
### You can start elasticsearch service by executing
 sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service

/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/elasticsearch.conf:1: Line references path below legacy directory /var/run/, updating /var/run/elasticsearch → /run/elasticsearch; please update the tmpfiles.d/ drop-in file accordingly.

  Verifying        : elasticsearch-8.9.0-1.x86_64                           1/1

Installed:
  elasticsearch-8.9.0-1.x86_64

Complete!

Note down the password of Elasticsearch superuser.

Enable and start Elasticsearch service.

# systemctl enable --now elasticsearch.service
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/elasticsearch.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service.

Reset the password of Elasticsearch superuser.

# /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-reset-password -u elastic
This tool will reset the password of the [elastic] user to an autogenerated value.
The password will be printed in the console.
Please confirm that you would like to continue [y/N]y


Password for the [elastic] user successfully reset.
New value: 1SbPS44BMmhb+yaw1gCl

Configure Linux Firewall:

Elasticsearch service runs on default port 9200/tcp. So, you must allow this service port in Linux firewall to make your Elasticsearch server accessible from the network.

# firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=9200/tcp
success

# firewall-cmd --reload
success

Testing Elasticsearch Server:

Query the Elasticsearch server by using following command syntax

# curl -X GET "https://elastic-01.centlinux.com:9200/_cluster/health?wait_for_status=yellow&timeout=50s&pretty" --key certificates/elasticsearch-ca.pem  -k -u elastic
Enter host password for user 'elastic':
{
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "status" : "green",
  "timed_out" : false,
  "number_of_nodes" : 1,
  "number_of_data_nodes" : 1,
  "active_primary_shards" : 1,
  "active_shards" : 1,
  "relocating_shards" : 0,
  "initializing_shards" : 0,
  "unassigned_shards" : 0,
  "delayed_unassigned_shards" : 0,
  "number_of_pending_tasks" : 0,
  "number_of_in_flight_fetch" : 0,
  "task_max_waiting_in_queue_millis" : 0,
  "active_shards_percent_as_number" : 100.0
}

Your Elasticsearch server has been installed successfully.

Video Tutorial: How to install Elasticsearch on Linux

YouTube player

Conclusion:

In this Linux tutorial, you have learned how to install Elasticsearch on Rocky Linux 9. To build a strong foundation in Data Analytics, we recommend that you should attend online training ElasticSearch, LogStash, Kibana ELK #1 – Learn ElasticSearchshow?id=oLRJ54lcVEg&bids=1060093

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