Getting ready

You need an installed working ElasticSearch server.

How to do it...

ElasticSearch provides a script for automatically downloading and installing plugins in bin/directory, called plugin.

The steps required to install a plugin are:

How it works...

The plugin[.bat] script is a wrapper for ElasticSearch Plugin Manager. It can be used to install or remove a plugin with the –remove options.

To install a plugin, there are two kinds of options:

In the previous example:

During the install process, ElasticSearch Plugin Manager is able to:

There's more...

There are some hints to remember while installing plugins. The first and most important is that the plugin must be certified for your current ElasticSearch version: some releases can break your plugins. Typically on the plugin developer page, there are the ElasticSearch versions supported by this plugin.

For example, if you look at the Python language plugin page (https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-lang-python), you'll see a reference table similar to the following table:

---------------------------------------
| Python Plugin    | ElasticSearch    |
--------------------------------------- 
| master           | 0.90 -> master   |
--------------------------------------- 
| 1.2.0            | 0.90 -> master   |
--------------------------------------- 
| 1.1.0            | 0.19 -> 0.20     | 
--------------------------------------- 
| 1.0.0            | 0.18             | 
---------------------------------------

You must choose the version working with your current ElasticSearch version.

Updating some plugins in a node environment can cause malfunction due to different plugin versions in different nodes. If you have a big cluster for safety, it's better to check the update in a separate environment to prevent problems.

Note that updating an ElasticSearch server could also break your custom binary plugins due to some internal API changes.

See also