Install Elasticsearch with .zip on Windows

Elasticsearch can be installed on Windows using the Windows .zip archive. This comes with a elasticsearch-service.bat command which will setup Elasticsearch to run as a service.

Elasticsearch has historically been installed on Windows using the .zip archive. An MSI installer package is available that provides the easiest getting started experience for Windows. 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 and install the .zip package

Download the .zip archive for Elasticsearch v7.9.1 from: https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-7.9.1-windows-x86_64.zip

Alternatively, you can download the following package, which contains only features that are available under the Apache 2.0 license: https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss-7.9.1-windows-x86_64.zip

Unzip it with your favourite unzip tool. This will create a folder called elasticsearch-7.9.1, which we will refer to as %ES_HOME%. In a terminal window, cd to the %ES_HOME% directory, for instance:

cd c:\elasticsearch-7.9.1

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

Elasticsearch can be started from the command line as follows:

.\bin\elasticsearch.bat

If you have password-protected the Elasticsearch keystore, you will be prompted to enter the keystore’s password. See Secure settings for more details.

By default, Elasticsearch runs in the foreground, prints its logs to STDOUT, and can be stopped by pressing Ctrl-C.

Configuring Elasticsearch on the command line

Elasticsearch loads its configuration from the %ES_HOME%\config\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.bat -Ecluster.name=my_cluster -Enode.name=node_1

Values that contain spaces must be surrounded with quotes. For instance -Epath.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 through the elasticsearch-service.bat script in the bin\ folder which allows one to install, remove, manage or configure the service and potentially start and stop the service, all from the command-line.

c:\elasticsearch-7.9.1\bin>elasticsearch-service.bat
Usage: elasticsearch-service.bat install|remove|start|stop|manager [SERVICE_ID]

The script requires one parameter (the command to execute) followed by an optional one indicating the service id (useful when installing multiple Elasticsearch services).

The commands available are:

The name of the service and the value of JAVA_HOME will be made available during install:

c:\elasticsearch-7.9.1\bin>elasticsearch-service.bat install
Installing service      :  "elasticsearch-service-x64"
Using JAVA_HOME (64-bit):  "c:\jvm\jdk1.8"
The service 'elasticsearch-service-x64' has been installed.

While a JRE can be used for the Elasticsearch service, due to its use of a client VM (as opposed to a server JVM which offers better performance for long-running applications) its usage is discouraged and a warning will be issued.

The system environment variable JAVA_HOME should be set to the path to the JDK installation that you want the service to use. If you upgrade the JDK, you are not required to the reinstall the service but you must set the value of the system environment variable JAVA_HOME to the path to the new JDK installation. However, upgrading across JVM types (e.g. JRE versus SE) is not supported, and does require the service to be reinstalled.

Customizing service settings

The Elasticsearch service can be configured prior to installation by setting the following environment variables (either using the set command.aspx) from the command line, or through the System Properties->Environment Variables GUI).

At its core, elasticsearch-service.bat relies on Apache Commons Daemon project to install the service. Environment variables set prior to the service installation are copied and will be used during the service lifecycle. This means any changes made to them after the installation will not be picked up unless the service is reinstalled.

On Windows, the heap size can be configured as for any other Elasticsearch installation when running Elasticsearch from the command line, or when installing Elasticsearch as a service for the first time. To adjust the heap size for an already installed service, use the service manager: bin\elasticsearch-service.bat manager.

The service automatically configures a private temporary directory for use by Elasticsearch when it is running. This private temporary directory is configured as a sub-directory of the private temporary directory for the user running the installation. If the service will run under a different user, you can configure the location of the temporary directory that the service should use by setting the environment variable ES_TMPDIR to the preferred location before you execute the service installation.

Using the Manager GUI

It is also possible to configure the service after it’s been installed using the manager GUI (elasticsearch-service-mgr.exe), which offers insight into the installed service, including its status, startup type, JVM, start and stop settings amongst other things. Simply invoking elasticsearch-service.bat manager from the command-line will open up the manager window:

Most changes (like JVM settings) made through the manager GUI will require a restart of the service in order to take affect.

Directory layout of .zip archive

The .zip package is entirely self-contained. All files and directories are, by default, contained within %ES_HOME% — the directory created when unpacking the archive.

This is very convenient because you don’t have to create any directories to start using Elasticsearch, and uninstalling Elasticsearch is as easy as removing the %ES_HOME% directory. However, it is advisable to change the default locations of the config directory, the data directory, and the logs directory so that you do not delete important data later on.

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.