Install Elasticsearch with Windows MSI Installer

This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

Elasticsearch can be installed on Windows using the .msi package. This can install Elasticsearch as a Windows service or allow it to be run manually using the included elasticsearch.exe executable.

Elasticsearch has historically been installed on Windows using the .zip archive. You can continue using the .zip approach if you prefer.

This package is free to use under the Elastic license. It contains open source and free commercial features and access to paid commercial features. Start a 30-day trial to try out all of the paid commercial features. See the Subscriptions page for information about Elastic license levels.

On Windows the Elasticsearch machine learning feature requires the Microsoft Universal C Runtime library. This is built into Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and more recent versions of Windows. For older versions of Windows it can be installed via Windows Update, or from a separate download. If you cannot install the Microsoft Universal C Runtime library you can still use the rest of Elasticsearch if you disable the machine learning feature.

The latest stable version of Elasticsearch can be found on the Download Elasticsearch page. Other versions can be found on the Past Releases page.

Elasticsearch includes a bundled version of OpenJDK from the JDK maintainers (GPLv2+CE). To use your own version of Java, see the JVM version requirements

Download the .msi package

Download the .msi package for Elasticsearch v7.9.1 from https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi

Install using the graphical user interface (GUI)

Double-click the downloaded .msi package to launch a GUI wizard that will guide you through the installation process. You can view help on any step by clicking the ? button, which reveals an aside panel with additional information for each input:

Within the first screen, select the directory for the installation. In addition, select directories for where data, logs and configuration will be placed or use the default locations:

Then select whether to install as a service or start Elasticsearch manually as needed. When installing as a service, you can also configure the Windows account to run the service with, whether the service should be started after installation and the Windows startup behaviour:

When selecting a Windows account to run the service with, be sure that the chosen account has sufficient privileges to access the installation and other deployment directories chosen. Also ensure the account is able to run Windows services.

Common configuration settings are exposed within the Configuration section, allowing the cluster name, node name and roles to be set, in addition to memory and network settings:

A list of common plugins that can be downloaded and installed as part of the installation, with the option to configure an HTTPS proxy through which to download these plugins.

Ensure the installation machine has access to the internet and that any corporate firewalls in place are configured to allow downloads from artifacts.elastic.co:

As of version 6.3.0, X-Pack is now bundled by default. The final step allows a choice of the type of license to install, in addition to security configuration and built-in user configuration:

X-Pack includes a choice of a Trial or Basic license. A Trial license is valid for 30 days, after which you can obtain one of the available subscriptions. The Basic license is free and perpetual. Consult the available subscriptions for further details on which features are available under which license.

After clicking the install button, the installation will begin:

…​and will indicate when it has been successfully installed:

Install using the command line

The .msi can also install Elasticsearch using the command line. The simplest installation using the same defaults as the GUI is achieved by first navigating to the download directory, then running:

msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn

By default, msiexec.exe does not wait for the installation process to complete, since it runs in the Windows subsystem. To wait on the process to finish and ensure that %ERRORLEVEL% is set accordingly, it is recommended to use start /wait to create a process and wait for it to exit

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn

As with any MSI installation package, a log file for the installation process can be found within the %TEMP% directory, with a randomly generated name adhering to the format MSI<random>.LOG. The path to a log file can be supplied using the /l command line argument

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn /l install.log

Supported Windows Installer command line arguments can be viewed using

msiexec.exe /help

…​or by consulting the Windows Installer SDK Command-Line Options.aspx).

Command line options

All settings exposed within the GUI are also available as command line arguments (referred to as properties within Windows Installer documentation) that can be passed to msiexec.exe:

To pass a value, simply append the property name and value using the format <PROPERTYNAME>="<VALUE>" to the installation command. For example, to use a different installation directory to the default one:

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn INSTALLDIR="C:\Custom Install Directory{version}"

Consult the Windows Installer SDK Command-Line Options.aspx) for additional rules related to values containing quotation marks.

Enable automatic creation of system indices

Some commercial features automatically create indices within Elasticsearch. By default, Elasticsearch is configured to allow automatic index creation, and no additional steps are required. However, if you have disabled automatic index creation in Elasticsearch, you must configure action.auto_create_index in elasticsearch.yml to allow the commercial features to create the following indices:

action.auto_create_index: .monitoring*,.watches,.triggered_watches,.watcher-history*,.ml*

If you are using Logstash or Beats then you will most likely require additional index names in your action.auto_create_index setting, and the exact value will depend on your local configuration. If you are unsure of the correct value for your environment, you may consider setting the value to * which will allow automatic creation of all indices.

Running Elasticsearch from the command line

Once installed, Elasticsearch can be started from the command line, if not installed as a service and configured to start when installation completes, as follows:

.\bin\elasticsearch.exe

The command line terminal will display output similar to the following:

By default, Elasticsearch runs in the foreground, prints its logs to STDOUT in addition to the <cluster name>.log file within LOGSDIRECTORY, and can be stopped by pressing Ctrl-C.

Configuring Elasticsearch on the command line

Elasticsearch loads its configuration from the %ES_PATH_CONF%\elasticsearch.yml file by default. The format of this config file is explained in Configuring Elasticsearch.

Any settings that can be specified in the config file can also be specified on the command line, using the -E syntax as follows:

.\bin\elasticsearch.exe -E cluster.name=my_cluster -E node.name=node_1

Values that contain spaces must be surrounded with quotes. For instance -E path.logs="C:\My Logs\logs".

Typically, any cluster-wide settings (like cluster.name) should be added to the elasticsearch.yml config file, while any node-specific settings such as node.name could be specified on the command line.

Checking that Elasticsearch is running

You can test that your Elasticsearch node is running by sending an HTTP request to port 9200 on localhost:

GET /

which should give you a response something like this:

{
  "name" : "Cp8oag6",
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "cluster_uuid" : "AT69_T_DTp-1qgIJlatQqA",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "7.9.1",
    "build_flavor" : "default",
    "build_type" : "tar",
    "build_hash" : "f27399d",
    "build_date" : "2016-03-30T09:51:41.449Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "8.6.2",
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "1.2.3",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "1.2.3"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}

Installing Elasticsearch as a Service on Windows

Elasticsearch can be installed as a service to run in the background or start automatically at boot time without any user interaction. This can be achieved upon installation using the following command line options

• INSTALLASSERVICE=true
• STARTAFTERINSTALL=true
• STARTWHENWINDOWSSTARTS=true

Once installed, Elasticsearch will appear within the Services control panel:

and can be stopped and restarted from within the control panel, or from the command line using:

with Command Prompt:

sc.exe stop Elasticsearch
sc.exe start Elasticsearch

with PowerShell:

Get-Service Elasticsearch | Stop-Service
Get-Service Elasticsearch | Start-Service

Changes can be made to jvm.options and elasticsearch.yml configuration files to configure the service after installation. Most changes (like JVM settings) will require a restart of the service in order to take effect.

Upgrade using the graphical user interface (GUI)

The .msi package supports upgrading an installed version of Elasticsearch to a newer version. The upgrade process through the GUI handles upgrading all installed plugins as well as retaining both your data and configuration.

Downloading and double-clicking on a newer version of the .msi package will launch the GUI wizard. The first step will list the read-only properties from the previous installation:

The next step allows certain configuration options to be changed:

Finally, the plugins step allows currently installed plugins to be upgraded or removed, and for plugins not currently installed, to be downloaded and installed:

Upgrade using the command line

The .msi can also upgrade Elasticsearch using the command line.

A command line upgrade requires passing the same command line properties as used at first install time; the Windows Installer does not remember these properties.

For example, if you originally installed with the command line options PLUGINS="ingest-geoip" and LOCKMEMORY="true", then you must pass these same values when performing an upgrade from the command line.

The exception to this is the INSTALLDIR parameter (if originally specified), which must be a different directory to the current installation. If setting INSTALLDIR, the final directory in the path must be the version of Elasticsearch e.g.

C:\Program Files\Elastic\Elasticsearch\7.9.1

The simplest upgrade, assuming Elasticsearch was installed using all defaults, is achieved by first navigating to the download directory, then running:

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn

Similar to the install process, a path to a log file for the upgrade process can be passed using the /l command line argument

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn /l upgrade.log

Uninstall using Add/Remove Programs

The .msi package handles uninstallation of all directories and files added as part of installation.

Uninstallation will remove all contents created as part of installation, except for data, config or logs directories. It is recommended that you make a copy of your data directory before upgrading or consider using the snapshot API.

MSI installer packages do not provide a GUI for uninstallation. An installed program can be uninstalled by pressing the Windows key and typing add or remove programs to open the system settings.

Once opened, find the Elasticsearch installation within the list of installed applications, click and choose Uninstall:

This will launch the uninstallation process.

Uninstall using the command line

Uninstallation can also be performed from the command line by navigating to the directory containing the .msi package and running:

start /wait msiexec.exe /x elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn

Similar to the install process, a path to a log file for the uninstallation process can be passed using the /l command line argument

start /wait msiexec.exe /x elasticsearch-7.9.1.msi /qn /l uninstall.log

Next steps

You now have a test Elasticsearch environment set up. Before you start serious development or go into production with Elasticsearch, you must do some additional setup:

• Learn how to configure Elasticsearch.
• Configure important Elasticsearch settings.
• Configure important system settings.