# Absolute beginner in elasticsearch **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 31, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763 "2021-01-31T20:07:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Werner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Werner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Werner)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 8:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/1 "2021-01-31T20:07:54Z")
Hallo ! 🙂 I am an absolute beginner in elasticsearch and after some hours of reading and watching tutorial-videos I got the impression, that it needs a lot of knowledge and preparation, before I can make a fast search in certain data. I understand that I need indices for the data in which I want to make fast searches. I seems to me that it is a hard work to build these indices. The data in which I can search with elasticsearch must be reachable over http(s). Is that correct? The data in which I can search with elasticsearch must be located in a area where the data is which can be published/sent by the http-webserver. Is that correct? Or is there a way to search in huge data amounts which are located in certain directories on my harddisk? Can i search in arbitrary structured data (pdf files , xls-files, txt-files , doc-files, html-files, xml-files) or do i need the data in a certain structure like .csv-files Thank you for helping me: ---
**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/2 "2021-01-31T20:28:44Z")
Welcome to our community! 😃 Can you please edit your post and remote the quote blocks, it makes your topic very difficult to read. ---
**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 8:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/3 "2021-01-31T20:43:05Z")
You can use [FSCrawler](https://fscrawler.readthedocs.io). There's [a tutorial](https://fscrawler.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/tutorial.html) to help you getting started. ---
**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/4 "2021-01-31T22:57:17Z")
> [@Werner](#): > > The data in which I can search with elasticsearch must be reachable over http(s). Is that correct? Yes, Elasticsearch exposes things via APIs. > [@Werner](#): > > The data in which I can search with elasticsearch must be located in a area where the data is which can be published/sent by the http-webserver. Is that correct? Elasticsearch has a built in webserver. ---
**Author:** ![Werner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Werner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Werner)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 11:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/5 "2021-01-31T23:05:21Z")
Hello! Thank you for the message and the welcoming! 🙂 Sorry, but the system told me to use something like backticks quotation marks to wrap my post. (To make it readable, make sure to wrap your code in backticks) ---
**Author:** ![Werner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Werner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Werner)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/6 "2021-01-31T23:14:50Z")
Thank you. What have i to do, when I want to search in a directory of my harddisk. How do I prepare the data (which are thousends of different files) of a certain directory? ---
**Author:** ![Werner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Werner](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Werner)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2021, 11:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/7 "2021-01-31T23:36:43Z")
Hello, and Thank you! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/absolute-beginner-in-elasticsearch/262763/8 "2021-02-28T23:37:37Z")
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