=== Installing Elasticsearch

The easiest way to understand what Elasticsearch can do for you is to play with it, so let's get started!((("Elasticsearch", "installing")))

The only requirement for installing Elasticsearch is a recent version of Java. Preferably, you should install the latest version of the((("Java", "installing"))) official Java from http://www.java.com[_www.java.com_].

You can download the latest version of Elasticsearch from http://www.elasticsearch.org/download/[_elasticsearch.org/download_].

[source,sh]

curl -L -O http://download.elasticsearch.org/PATH/TO/VERSION.zip <1> unzip elasticsearch-$VERSION.zip

cd elasticsearch-$VERSION

<1> Fill in the URL for the latest version available on http://www.elasticsearch.org/download/[_elasticsearch.org/download_].

[TIP]

When installing Elasticsearch in production, you can use the method described previously, or the Debian or RPM packages provided on the http://www.elasticsearch.org/downloads[downloads page]. You can also use the officially supported https://github.com/elasticsearch/puppet-elasticsearch[Puppet module] or

https://github.com/elasticsearch/cookbook-elasticsearch[Chef cookbook].

[[marvel]] ==== Installing Marvel

http://www.elasticsearch.com/products/marvel[Marvel] is a management((("Marvel", "defined"))) and monitoring tool for Elasticsearch, which is free for development use. It comes with an interactive console called Sense,((("Sense console (Marvel plugin)"))) which makes it easy to talk to Elasticsearch directly from your browser.

Many of the code examples in the online version of this book include a View in Sense link. When clicked, it will open up a working example of the code in the Sense console. You do not have to install Marvel, but it will make this book much more interactive by allowing you to experiment with the code samples on your local Elasticsearch cluster.

Marvel is available as a plug-in.((("Marvel", "downloading and installing"))) To download and install it, run this command in the Elasticsearch directory:

[source,sh]

./bin/plugin -i elasticsearch/marvel/latest

You probably don't want Marvel to monitor your local cluster, so you can disable data collection with this command:

[source,sh]

echo 'marvel.agent.enabled: false' >> ./config/elasticsearch.yml

[[running-elasticsearch]] === Running Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch is now ready to run. ((("Elasticsearch", "running")))You can start it up in the foreground with this:

[source,sh]

./bin/elasticsearch

Add -d if you want to run it in the background as a daemon.

Test it out by opening another terminal window and running the following:

[source,sh]

curl 'http://localhost:9200/?pretty'

You should see a response like this:

[source,js]

{ "status": 200, "name": "Shrunken Bones", "version": { "number": "1.4.0", "lucene_version": "4.10" }, "tagline": "You Know, for Search"

}

// SENSE: 010_Intro/10_Info.json

This means that your Elasticsearch cluster is up and running, and we can start experimenting with it.

NOTE: A node is a running instance of Elasticsearch.((("nodes", "defined"))) A cluster is ((("clusters", "defined")))a group of nodes with the same cluster.name that are working together to share data and to provide failover and scale, although a single node can form a cluster all by itself.

You should change the default cluster.name to something appropriate to you, like your own name, to stop ((("clusters", "changing default name")))your nodes from trying to join another cluster on the same network with the same name!

You can do this by editing the elasticsearch.yml file in the config/ directory and then restarting Elasticsearch. When Elasticsearch is running in the foreground, you can stop it by pressing Ctrl-C; otherwise, you can shut it down with the shutdown API:

[source,sh]

curl -XPOST 'http://localhost:9200/_shutdown'

==== Viewing Marvel and Sense

If you installed the <> management ((("Marvel", "viewing")))and monitoring tool, you can view it in a web browser by visiting http://localhost:9200/_plugin/marvel/.

You can reach the Sense developer((("Sense console (Marvel plugin)", "viewing"))) console either by clicking the ``Marvel dashboards'' drop-down in Marvel, or by visiting http://localhost:9200/_plugin/marvel/sense/.