# Clustering Docs

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 16, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242 "2011-04-16T17:41:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tsuraan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@tsuraan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tsuraan)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242/1 "2011-04-16T17:41:04Z")

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I'm having trouble finding any documentation on how to configure  
ElasticSearch clustering. In Guide/API, there are some pages on how  
to query the cluster state and health, but I can't find anything on  
how to assign nodes to a cluster. Where are those docs?

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**Author:** ![Clinton\_Gormley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Clinton\_Gormley](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Clinton_Gormley)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242/2 "2011-04-16T17:53:56Z")

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On Sat, 2011-04-16 at 10:41 -0700, tsuraan wrote:

> I'm having trouble finding any documentation on how to configure  
> Elasticsearch clustering. In Guide/API, there are some pages on how  
> to query the cluster state and health, but I can't find anything on  
> how to assign nodes to a cluster. Where are those docs?

Typically, you just give each node the same cluster name and start them  
up. They discover each other using multicast.

For more, see

- [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery)
- [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/zen.html)

or for EC2

- [Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/ec2.html)

clint

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**Author:** ![tsuraan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@tsuraan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/tsuraan)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242/3 "2011-04-16T18:09:23Z")

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> Typically, you just give each node the same cluster name and start them  
> up. They discover each other using multicast.
> 
> For more, see  
> -[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery)  
> -[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/zen.html)
> 
> or for EC2  
> -[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/ec2.html)

Ok, cool. So without a multicast network in place, I can just have a  
config file entry like this:

{ 'discovery' :  
{ 'zen' :  
{ 'ping' :  
{ 'unicast' :  
{ 'hosts' : ['host1:port1', 'host2:port2', ...] }}}}}

Is the port here just the normal Elasticsearch client port (9200 in my  
case)? In the multicast docs, it says the port is typically 54328,  
but I'm guessing maybe multicast works completely differently.

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**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242/4 "2011-04-16T18:10:43Z")

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The port is the internal transport port: 9300. You don't have to set it explicitly, it will automatically use the default port chosen for hte transport, so you can just go with the host.  
On Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 9:09 PM, tsuraan wrote:

> Typically, you just give each node the same cluster name and start them
> 
> > up. They discover each other using multicast.
> > 
> > For more, see  
> > -[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery)  
> > -[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/zen.html)
> > 
> > or for EC2  
> > -[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale | Elastic](http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/modules/discovery/ec2.html)
> 
> Ok, cool. So without a multicast network in place, I can just have a  
> config file entry like this:
> 
> { 'discovery' :  
> { 'zen' :  
> { 'ping' :  
> { 'unicast' :  
> { 'hosts' : ['host1:port1', 'host2:port2', ...] }}}}}
> 
> Is the port here just the normal Elasticsearch client port (9200 in my  
> case)? In the multicast docs, it says the port is typically 54328,  
> but I'm guessing maybe multicast works completely differently.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 4:08am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/clustering-docs/4242/5 "2017-07-06T04:08:14Z")

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