Diagnostic tool or _cat API needs to be modified in order to ignore unavailable indices in an alias

[evanvolgas]

The diagnostic tool breaks when you have aliases that point at closed indices. Per the decision to keep the default behavior and use workarounds (eg elastic/elasticsearch#14982 (comment) and elastic/elasticsearch#15730 (comment)), it seems like the diagnostic tool needs to pass an additional parameter to ignore unavailable (if that is possible) or the _cat API needs to have an option to ignore unavailable.... or both.

to replicate on your end, create an alias that points at a handful of indices. Close one of them. Don't update the alias. Then run the diagnostic tool. You'll see a lot of this kind of thing.

Trying REST Endpoint.
Currently running the following query:alias
Diagnostic query: alias was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:allocation
Diagnostic query: allocation was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_master
Diagnostic query: cat_master was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_nodes
Diagnostic query: cat_nodes was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_indices
Diagnostic query: cat_indices was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_count
cat_count query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: cat_count was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_segments
cat_segments query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: cat_segments was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_health
Diagnostic query: cat_health was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_pending_tasks
Diagnostic query: cat_pending_tasks was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_aliases
Diagnostic query: cat_aliases was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_thread_pool
Diagnostic query: cat_thread_pool was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_fielddata
Diagnostic query: cat_fielddata was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_shards
cat_shards query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: cat_shards was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cluster_health
Diagnostic query: cluster_health was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cluster_pending_tasks
Diagnostic query: cluster_pending_tasks was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cluster_settings
Diagnostic query: cluster_settings was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cluster_state
Diagnostic query: cluster_state was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cluster_stats
Diagnostic query: cluster_stats was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:count
count query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: count was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:indices_stats
indices_stats query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: indices_stats was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:licenses
Diagnostic query: licenses was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:mapping
Diagnostic query: mapping was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:nodes_hot_threads
Diagnostic query: nodes_hot_threads was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:nodes_stats
Diagnostic query: nodes_stats was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:fielddata_stats
Diagnostic query: fielddata_stats was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:plugins
Diagnostic query: plugins was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:cat_recovery
cat_recovery query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: cat_recovery was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:recovery
recovery query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: recovery was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:shards
shards query returned: 403/Forbidden
Diagnostic query: shards was retrieved and saved to disk.
Currently running the following query:segments
segments query returned: 403/Forbidden

[nemonster]

to replicate on your end, create an alias that points at a handful of indices. Close one of them. Don't update the alias. Then run the diagnostic tool. You'll see a lot of this kind of thing.

I'm not seeing this and I did exactly that. At least as closely as I could with the information provided. I can investigate further but I'll need a bit more info.

• Please specify the Elasticsearch version and the diag version.
• Was Shield was installed?
• If so, what level of authority was the user account used for the diagnostic assigned?
• Was anonymous access also enabled (there are some possible issues here).
• Feel free to attach a script that replicates exactly with a small amount of test data. It will expedite things since I don't see the same behavior.

[evanvolgas]

Please specify the Elasticsearch version and the diag version.

2.3; 2.0.8

Was Shield was installed?

Yes

If so, what level of authority was the user account used for the diagnostic assigned?

Admin

Was anonymous access also enabled (there are some possible issues here).

No

Feel free to attach a script that replicates exactly with a small amount of test data. It will expedite things since I don't see the same behavior.

At a conference this weekend but I'll get back to you with that next week.

[evanvolgas]

Just tested this on ES 2.2 without Shield and I'm not seeing any issues either. Next week, I'll double check and make sure I wasn't doing anything stupid and, if nothing obviously is, I'll put together a script to replicate this. If this is a false alarm, I apologize in advance.... but I won't be able to dig in further until I get back next week