# All shards remain unassigned
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [June 17, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145 "2016-06-17T10:54:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Daan\_Aerts](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Daan_Aerts)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145/1 "2016-06-17T10:54:21Z")
why are none of my shards being assigned? (ES 2.3)
Create index:
```
PUT 'host:9200/entities?pretty' -d ' {
"mappings": {
x
}
},
"settings" : {
"index" : {
"number_of_shards" : 6,
"number_of_replicas" : 1
}
}
}'
```
Cluster Settings:
```
GET 'host:9200/_cluster/settings?pretty'
{
"persistent" : {
"cluster" : {
"routing" : {
"allocation" : {
"enable" : "all"
}
}
}
},
"transient" : {
"cluster" : {
"routing" : {
"allocation" : {
"enable" : "all"
}
}
}
}
}
```
Cluster:
```
host master
node3 m
node2 m
node1 *
```
Shards
```
GET 'host:9200/_cat/shards?v'
index shard prirep state docs store ip node
entities 5 p UNASSIGNED
entities 5 r UNASSIGNED
entities 1 p UNASSIGNED
entities 1 r UNASSIGNED
entities 4 p UNASSIGNED
entities 4 r UNASSIGNED
entities 2 p UNASSIGNED
entities 2 r UNASSIGNED
entities 3 p UNASSIGNED
entities 3 r UNASSIGNED
entities 0 p UNASSIGNED
entities 0 r UNASSIGNED
```
I'm able to assign nodes directly through the routing API, but that doesn't seem to be the wait to go.
If I setup the cluster differently, with 1 master node and 2 data nodes, the problem doesn't occur.
---
### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145/2 "2016-06-17T12:37:46Z")
Hey,
does that setup allow for data nodes, I am a bit worried about your last sentence that it works with 1 master node and two data nodes. In the setup where it does not work, are there data nodes? You can check via `GET _cat/nodes?h=name,master,role&v` to the if each node has the `d` data role in the last column. Note, that a master node, without data role cannot hold any data.
Can you check if allocation is also enabled for the index itself? I guess so (as it is just being created, but would like to make sure). You can check via `GET _all/_settings`
If all is correct, you can check the allocation decider output
```auto
PUT /_cluster/settings
{
"transient" : {
"logger.cluster.routing.allocation.decider": "TRACE",
"logger.cluster.routing.allocation": "TRACE"
}
}
```
**Note** : This generates a lot of logs, so leave that turned on in production.
--Alex
---
### Author:  [@Daan\_Aerts](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Daan_Aerts)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145/3 "2016-06-17T13:08:20Z")
Hi Alexander,
Thanks for the help.
```
/_cat/nodes?v&h=name,master,role'
name master role
ec2-52-58-254-182.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com-node1 m -
ec2-52-58-19-123.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com-node1 * -
ec2-52-58-249-131.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com-node1 m -
```
with those logging settings, creating the index logs only this line.
`[2016-06-17 13:03:42,335][INFO][cluster.metadata] [xx] [entities] creating index, cause [api], templates [], shards [6]/[1], mappings [csi, entity]`
I suspect I'm doing something very basic wrong with master/data nodes or shard setup.
---
### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145/4 "2016-06-17T14:19:28Z")
Looks to me, as if in your one setup you only configured `node.master: true`, but none of your nodes is configured as `node.data: true` - which means, not a single node can hold any data. Only nodes which are configured to have the `node.data: true` setting will hold any data. Three master-only nodes will never be able to hold any data.
---
### Author:  [@Daan\_Aerts](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Daan_Aerts)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145/5 "2016-06-17T14:38:03Z")
stupid me. Kind a found out by your previous answer already. Thanks
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/all-shards-remain-unassigned/53145/6 "2017-07-05T22:42:42Z")