Setting up a node

Elasticsearch allows the customization of several parameters in an installation. In this recipe, we'll look at the most used ones to define where to store our data and improve the overall performance.

Getting ready

As described in the Downloading and installing Elasticsearch recipe, you need a working Elasticsearch installation and a simple text editor to change configuration files.

How to do it…

The steps required for setting up a simple node are as follows:

1. Open the config/elasticsearch.yml file with an editor of your choice.
2. Set up the directories that store your server data, as follows:
   • For Linux or macOS X, add the following path entries (using /opt/data as the base path):

     path.conf: /opt/data/es/conf
     path.data: /opt/data/es/data1,/opt2/data/data2
     path.work: /opt/data/work
     path.logs: /opt/data/logs
     path.plugins: /opt/data/plugins

   • For Windows, add the following path entries (using c:\Elasticsearch as the base...