Can you set ES node name to same as the machine hostname?

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch
1

Is it possible to use environment variables or similar to automatically set an Elasticsearch node name to the hostname of the machine?

i.e. if a machine is called ES1, the ES node name would also be ES1 without having to configure it in elasticsearch.yml manually?

1 Like
2

Yes, you can substitute any environment variable in elasticsearch.yml by using ${...} notation, such as:

node.name: ${HOSTNAME}
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3

Perfect - thank you. I tried to find something about this in the documentation but clearly wasn't looking in the right place!

5

I found that I had to add the following line to /etc/init.d/elasticsearch script (on Ubuntu):

export NODENAME=`hostname`

N.B. Important that you use back ticks for this

and then update elasticsearch.yml to:

node.name: ${NODENAME}
6

I wouldn't edit the init script, this can change between versions and you might find an upgrade will break it.

7

Thanks for the advice @warkolm - I'll look into alternative ways of setting the env variable!