How to change Elasticsearch max memory size

Question

I have an Apache server with a default configuration of Elasticsearch and everything works perfectly  except that the default configuration has a max size of 1GB   I don t have such a large number of documents to store in Elasticsearch  so I want to reduce the memory   I have seen that I have to change the -Xmx parameter in the Java configuration  but I don t know how   I have seen I can execute this   bin ElasticSearch -Xmx 2G -Xms 2G   But when I have to restart Elasticsearch this will be lost   Is it possible to change max memory usage when Elasticsearch is installed as a service

User · Answer

For anyone looking to do this on Centos 7 or with another system running SystemD, you change it in

/etc/sysconfig/elasticsearch

Uncomment the ES_HEAP_SIZE line, and set a value, eg:

# Heap Size (defaults to 256m min, 1g max)
ES_HEAP_SIZE=16g

(Ignore the comment about 1g max - that's the default)

User · Answer

Elasticsearch will assign the entire heap specified in jvm options via the Xms  minimum heap size  and Xmx  maximum heap size  settings    -Xmx12g -Xmx12g  Set the minimum heap size  Xms  and maximum heap size  Xmx  to be equal to each other  Don   t set Xmx to above the cutoff that the JVM uses for compressed object pointers  compressed oops   the exact cutoff varies but is near 32 GB     It is also possible to set the heap size via an environment variable   ES JAVA OPTS  -Xms2g -Xmx2g    bin elasticsearch  ES JAVA OPTS  -Xms4000m -Xmx4000m    bin elasticsearch

User · Answer

In elasticsearch 2 x     vi  etc sysconfig elasticsearch    Go to the block of code     Heap size defaults to 256m min  1g max   Set ES HEAP SIZE to 50  of available RAM  but no more than 31g  ES HEAP SIZE 2g   Uncomment last line like   ES HEAP SIZE 2g

User · Answer

Previous answers were insufficient in my case  probably because I m on Debian 8  while they were referred to some previous distribution   On Debian 8 modify the service script normally place in  usr lib systemd system elasticsearch service  and add Environment ES HEAP SIZE 8G  just below the other  Environment    lines   Now reload the service script with systemctl daemon-reload and restart the service  The job should be done

User · Answer

In elasticsearch path home dir i e  typically  usr share elasticsearch  There is a config file bin elasticsearch in sh  Edit parameter ES MIN MEM  ES MAX MEM in this file to change -Xms2g  -Xmx4g respectively   And Please make sure you have restarted the node after this config change

User · Answer

Updated on Nov 24  2016  Elasticsearch 5 apparently has changed the way to configure the JVM  See this answer here  The answer below still applies to versions  lt  5    tirdadc  thank you for pointing this out in your comment below     I have a pastebin page that I share with others when wondering about memory and ES   It s worked OK for me  http   pastebin com mNUGQCLY   I ll paste the contents here as well   References   https   github com grigorescu Brownian wiki ElasticSearch-Configuration http   www elasticsearch org guide reference setup installation   Edit the following files to modify memory and file number limits  These instructions assume Ubuntu 10 04  may work on later versions and other distributions OSes   Edit  This works for Ubuntu 14 04 as well     etc security limits conf   elasticsearch - nofile 65535 elasticsearch - memlock unlimited    etc default elasticsearch  on CentOS RH   etc sysconfig elasticsearch     ES HEAP SIZE 512m MAX OPEN FILES 65535 MAX LOCKED MEMORY unlimited    etc elasticsearch elasticsearch yml   bootstrap mlockall  true

User · Answer

Instructions for ubuntu 14 04   sudo vim  etc init d elasticsearch  Set  ES HEAP SIZE 512m  then in   sudo vim  etc elasticsearch elasticsearch yml  Set   bootstrap memory lock  true  There are comments in the files for more info

User · Answer

If you use windows server  you can change Environment Variable  restart server to apply new Environment Value and start Elastic Service  More detail in Install Elastic in Windows Server

User · Answer

If you installed ES using the RPM DEB packages as provided  as you seem to have   you can adjust this by editing the init script   etc init d elasticsearch on RHEL CentOS   If you have a look in the file you ll see a block with the following   export ES HEAP SIZE export ES HEAP NEWSIZE export ES DIRECT SIZE export ES JAVA OPTS export JAVA HOME   To adjust the size  simply change the ES HEAP SIZE line to the following   export ES HEAP SIZE xM xG    where x is the number of MB GB of RAM that you would like to allocate   Example   export ES HEAP SIZE 1G   Would allocate 1GB   Once you have edited the script  save and exit  then restart the service  You can check if it has been correctly set by running the following   ps aux   grep elasticsearch   And checking for the -Xms and -Xmx flags in the java process that returns    usr bin java -Xms1G -Xmx1G   Hope this helps

User · Answer

In ElasticSearch  gt   5 the documentation has changed  which means none of the above answers worked for me  I tried changing ES HEAP SIZE in  etc default elasticsearch and in  etc init d elasticsearch  but when I ran ps aux   grep elasticsearch the output still showed   I had to make these changes in   etc elasticsearch jvm options   Xms represents the initial size of total heap space   Xmx represents the maximum size of total heap space  -Xms1g  -Xmx1g    the settings shipped with ES 5 were  -Xms2g   the settings shipped with ES 5 were  -Xmx2g

User · Answer

If you use the service wrapper provided in Elasticsearch s Github repository  found at https   github com elasticsearch elasticsearch-servicewrapper  then the conf file at  elasticsearch-servicewrapper   service   elasticsearch conf controls memory settings  At the top of elasticsearch conf is a parameter    set default ES HEAP SIZE 1024   Just reduce this parameter  say to  set default ES HEAP SIZE 512   to reduce Elasticsearch s allotted memory   Note that if you use the elasticsearch-wrapper  the ES HEAP SIZE provided in elasticsearch conf OVERRIDES ALL OTHER SETTINGS  This took me a bit to figure out  since from the documentation  it seemed that heap memory could be set from elasticsearch yml    If your service wrapper settings are set somewhere else  such as at  etc default elasticsearch as in James s example  then set the ES HEAP SIZE there

[elasticsearch] How to change Elasticsearch max memory size

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