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Index aliases |
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An alias is a virtual index name that can point to one or more indexes.
If your data is spread across multiple indexes, rather than keeping track of which indexes to query, you can create an alias and query it instead.
For example, if you’re storing logs into indexes based on the month and you frequently query the logs for the previous two months, you can create a last_2_months alias and update the indexes it points to each month.
Because you can change the indexes an alias points to at any time, referring to indexes using aliases in your applications allows you to reindex your data without any downtime.
To create an alias, use a POST request:
POST _aliases{% include copy-curl.html %}
Use the actions method to specify the list of actions that you want to perform. This command creates an alias named alias1 and adds index-1 to this alias:
POST _aliases
{
"actions": [
{
"add": {
"index": "index-1",
"alias": "alias1"
}
}
]
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
The following response is returned:
{
"acknowledged": true
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
If the request fails, make sure the index that you're adding to the alias already exists.
You can also create an alias using one of the following requests:
PUT <index>/_aliases/<alias name>
POST <index>/_aliases/<alias name>
PUT <index>/_alias/<alias name>
POST <index>/_alias/<alias name>{% include copy-curl.html %}
The <index> in the above requests can be an index name, a comma-separated list of index names, or a wildcard expression. Use _all to refer to all indexes.
To check if alias1 refers to index-1, run one of the following commands:
GET /_alias/alias1
GET /index-1/_alias/alias1{% include copy-curl.html %}
To get the indexes' mappings and settings information referenced by the alias, run the following command:
GET alias1{% include copy-curl.html %}
You can perform multiple actions using the same _aliases operation. For example, the following command removes index-1 and adds index-2 to alias1:
POST _aliases
{
"actions": [
{
"remove": {
"index": "index-1",
"alias": "alias1"
}
},
{
"add": {
"index": "index-2",
"alias": "alias1"
}
}
]
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
The add and remove actions occur atomically, which means that at no point will alias1 point to both index-1 and index-2. You can also add indexes based on an index pattern, as shown in the following POST request:
POST _aliases
{
"actions": [
{
"add": {
"index": "index*",
"alias": "alias1"
}
}
]
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
The remove action also supports the must_exist parameter. If the parameter is set to true and the specified alias does not exist, an exception is thrown. If the parameter is set to false, then no action is taken if the specified alias does not exist. The default value for must_exist is null. An exception will be thrown only if none of the specified aliases exist.
The following POST request uses the remove action with the must_exist parameter set to true:
POST _aliases
{
"actions": [
{
"remove": {
"index": "index-1",
"alias": "alias1",
"must_exist": true
}
}
]
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
To list the mapping of aliases to indexes, run the following command:
GET _cat/aliases?v{% include copy-curl.html %}
alias index filter routing.index routing.search
alias1 index-1 * - -{% include copy-curl.html %}
To check which indexes an alias points to, run the following command:
GET _alias/alias1{% include copy-curl.html %}
{
"index-2": {
"aliases": {
"alias1": {}
}
}
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
Conversely, to find which alias points to a specific index, run the following command:
GET /index-2/_alias/*{% include copy-curl.html %}
To get all index names and their aliases, run the following command:
GET /_alias{% include copy-curl.html %}
To check if an alias exists, run one of the following commands:
HEAD /alias1/_alias/
HEAD /_alias/alias1/
HEAD index-1/_alias/alias1/{% include copy-curl.html %}
You can add an index to an alias as you create the index, as shown in the following PUT request:
PUT index-1
{
"aliases": {
"alias1": {}
}
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
You can create a filtered alias to access a subset of documents or fields in the underlying indexes. This command adds only a specific timestamp field to alias1. The following shows an example POST request:
POST _aliases
{
"actions": [
{
"add": {
"index": "index-1",
"alias": "alias1",
"filter": {
"term": {
"timestamp": "1574641891142"
}
}
}
}
]
}{% include copy-curl.html %}
You can specify the options shown in the following table.
Option | Valid values | Description | Required
:--- | :--- | :---
index | String | The name of the index that the alias points to. | Yes
alias | String | The name of the alias. | No
filter | Object | Add a filter to the alias. | No
routing | String | Limit search to an associated shard value. You can specify search_routing and index_routing independently. | No
is_write_index | String | Specify the index that accepts any write operations to the alias. If this value is not specified, then no write operations are allowed. | No
To delete one or more aliases from an index, use the following request:
DELETE <index>/_alias/<alias>
DELETE <index>/_aliases/<alias>{% include copy-curl.html %}
Both <index> and <alias> in the above request support comma-separated lists and wildcard expressions. Use _all in place of <alias> to delete all aliases for the indexes listed in <index>.
For example, if alias1 refers to index-1 and index-2, you can run the following command to remove alias1 from index-1:
DELETE index-1/_alias/alias1{% include copy-curl.html %}
After running the request, alias1 no longer refers to index-1 but still refers to index-2.