Open index API

Opens a closed index. For data streams, the API opens any closed backing indices.

POST /my-index-000001/_open

Request

POST /<target>/_open

Description

You can use the open index API to re-open closed indices. If the request targets a data stream, the request re-opens any of the stream’s closed backing indices.

A closed index is blocked for read/write operations and does not allow all operations that opened indices allow. It is not possible to index documents or to search for documents in a closed index. This allows closed indices to not have to maintain internal data structures for indexing or searching documents, resulting in a smaller overhead on the cluster.

When opening or closing an index, the master is responsible for restarting the index shards to reflect the new state of the index. The shards will then go through the normal recovery process. The data of opened/closed indices is automatically replicated by the cluster to ensure that enough shard copies are safely kept around at all times.

You can open and close multiple indices. An error is thrown if the request explicitly refers to a missing index. This behaviour can be disabled using the ignore_unavailable=true parameter.

All indices can be opened or closed at once using _all as the index name or specifying patterns that identify them all (e.g. *).

Identifying indices via wildcards or _all can be disabled by setting the action.destructive_requires_name flag in the config file to true. This setting can also be changed via the cluster update settings api.

Closed indices consume a significant amount of disk-space which can cause problems in managed environments. Closing indices can be disabled via the cluster settings API by setting cluster.indices.close.enable to false. The default is true.

The current write index on a data stream cannot be closed. In order to close the current write index, the data stream must first be rolled over so that a new write index is created and then the previous write index can be closed.

Wait for active shards

Because opening or closing an index allocates its shards, the wait_for_active_shards setting on index creation applies to the _open and _close index actions as well.

Path parameters

<target>

(Optional, string) Comma-separated list or wildcard (*) expression of data streams, indices, and index aliases used to limit the request.

To target all data streams and indices, use _all or *.

To disallow use of _all or wildcard expressions, change the action.destructive_requires_name cluster setting to true. You can update this setting in the elasticsearch.yml file or using the cluster update settings API.

Query parameters

allow_no_indices

(Optional, boolean) If true, the request does not return an error if a wildcard expression or _all value retrieves only missing or closed indices.

This parameter also applies to index aliases that point to a missing or closed index.

Defaults to true.

expand_wildcards

(Optional, string) Controls what kind of indices that wildcard expressions can expand to. Multiple values are accepted when separated by a comma, as in open,hidden. Valid values are:

• all

  Expand to open and closed indices, including hidden indices.

  open

  Expand only to open indices.

  closed

  Expand only to closed indices.

  hidden

  Expansion of wildcards will include hidden indices. Must be combined with open, closed, or both.

  none

  Wildcard expressions are not accepted.

Defaults to closed.

ignore_unavailable

(Optional, boolean) If true, missing or closed indices are not included in the response. Defaults to false.

wait_for_active_shards

(Optional, string) The number of shard copies that must be active before proceeding with the operation. Set to all or any positive integer up to the total number of shards in the index (number_of_replicas+1). Default: 1, the primary shard.

See Active shards.

master_timeout

(Optional, time units) Specifies the period of time to wait for a connection to the master node. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. Defaults to 30s.

timeout

(Optional, time units) Specifies the period of time to wait for a response. If no response is received before the timeout expires, the request fails and returns an error. Defaults to 30s.

Examples

The following request re-opens a closed index named my-index-000001.

POST /my-index-000001/_open

The API returns the following response:

{
  "acknowledged" : true,
  "shards_acknowledged" : true
}