# Cross cluster search fails depending on characters used in index name and alias
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cross-cluster-search-fails-depending-on-characters-used-in-index-name-and-alias/126515
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [April 3, 2018, 7:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cross-cluster-search-fails-depending-on-characters-used-in-index-name-and-alias/126515 "2018-04-03T07:50:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@YuWatanabe](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/YuWatanabe)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2018, 7:50am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cross-cluster-search-fails-depending-on-characters-used-in-index-name-and-alias/126515/1 "2018-04-03T07:50:36Z")
Hello .
Is there any characters that may not be used in index name (or alias name) when using cross cluster search ?
I was not able to use hyphen on remote index.
### Environment
1.2 clusters
_asia-northeast1-a_
_asia-northeast1-b_
2.1node for _asia-northeast1-a_ and 3 nodes for _asia-northeast1-b_
For _asia-northeast1-a_
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-a-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/_cat/nodes -s | sort -k10
10.146.0.2 11 54 0 0.00 0.01 0.05 mdi * es-asia-northeast1-a-1
```
For _asia-northeast1-b_
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-b-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/_cat/nodes -s | sort -k10
10.146.0.3 15 55 0 0.04 0.03 0.17 mdi - es-asia-northeast1-b-1
10.146.0.5 15 57 0 0.00 0.01 0.10 mdi - es-asia-northeast1-b-2
10.146.0.6 12 61 0 0.00 0.02 0.12 mdi * es-asia-northeast1-b-3
```
3.es version
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-a-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200
{
"name" : "es-asia-northeast1-a-1",
"cluster_name" : "asia-northeast1-a",
"cluster_uuid" : "GWXxdPkUTUe0_rXBAyWv9Q",
"version" : {
"number" : "6.2.3",
"build_hash" : "c59ff00",
"build_date" : "2018-03-13T10:06:29.741383Z",
"build_snapshot" : false,
"lucene_version" : "7.2.1",
"minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "5.6.0",
"minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "5.0.0"
},
"tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}
```
### Situation
I have an index on _asia-northeast1-b_ with a single document.
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-b-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/_cat/indices?v
health status index uuid pri rep docs.count docs.deleted store.size pri.store.size
green open new-index DLpyOaM8Rh-T5aW5L-I-zg 5 1 1 0 8.8kb 4.4kb
```
I also have an alias defined to it.
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-b-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/_alias?pretty
{
"new-index" : {
"aliases" : {
"asia-northeast1-b:new" : { }
}
}
}
```
Search works fine when searched locally.
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-b-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/asia-northeast1-b:new/_search?pretty
{
"took" : 3,
"timed_out" : false,
"_shards" : {
"total" : 5,
"successful" : 5,
"skipped" : 0,
"failed" : 0
},
"hits" : {
"total" : 1,
"max_score" : 1.0,
"hits" : [
{
"_index" : "new-index",
"_type" : "newtype",
"_id" : "4PlsimIBUF0WWWbrxHf7",
"_score" : 1.0,
"_source" : {
"newfield" : "hello"
}
}
]
}
}
```
However, search fails when cross cluster search is used.
In this case , **from** _asia-northeast1-a_ **to** _asia-northeast1-b_
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-a-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/asia-northeast1-b:new/_search?pretty
{
"error" : {
"root_cause" : [
{
"type" : "index_not_found_exception",
"reason" : "no such index",
"index_uuid" : "_na_",
"resource.type" : "index_or_alias",
"resource.id" : "new",
"index" : "new"
}
],
"type" : "transport_exception",
"reason" : "unable to communicate with remote cluster [asia-northeast1-b]",
"caused_by" : {
"type" : "index_not_found_exception",
"reason" : "no such index",
"index_uuid" : "_na_",
"resource.type" : "index_or_alias",
"resource.id" : "new",
"index" : "new"
}
},
"status" : 500
}
```
Remote cluster is registered properly on _asia-northeast1-a_ .
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-a-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/_remote/info?pretty
{
"asia-northeast1-b" : {
"seeds" : [
"10.146.0.3:9300"
],
"http_addresses" : [
"10.146.0.3:9200",
"10.146.0.6:9200",
"10.146.0.5:9200"
],
"connected" : true,
"num_nodes_connected" : 2,
"max_connections_per_cluster" : 3,
"initial_connect_timeout" : "30s",
"skip_unavailable" : false
}
}
```
---
### Author:  [@YuWatanabe](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/YuWatanabe)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2018, 8:09am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cross-cluster-search-fails-depending-on-characters-used-in-index-name-and-alias/126515/2 "2018-04-03T08:09:35Z")
## UPDATE
Below case worked.
### Index name : newindex , alias : asia-northeast1-b:newindex
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-b-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/_alias?pretty
{
"new-index" : {
"aliases" : {
"asia-northeast1-b:new" : { }
}
},
"newindex" : {
"aliases" : {
"asia-northeast1-b:new2" : { },
"asia-northeast1-b:newindex" : { }
}
}
}
```
Cross cluster search result,
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-a-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/asia-northeast1-b:newindex/_search?pretty -d '{ "size" : 1 }'
{
"took" : 22,
"timed_out" : false,
"_shards" : {
"total" : 3,
"successful" : 3,
"skipped" : 0,
"failed" : 0
},
"_clusters" : {
"total" : 1,
"successful" : 1,
"skipped" : 0
},
"hits" : {
"total" : 7,
"max_score" : 1.0,
"hits" : [
{
"_index" : "asia-northeast1-b:newindex",
"_type" : "newtype",
"_id" : "WxcUimIB01qZ7AJhPXCS",
"_score" : 1.0,
"_source" : {
"newfield" : "Creationline3"
}
}
]
}
}
```
However, when alias name is a mixture of alphanumeric , it fails.
### Index name : newindex , alias : asia-northeast1-b:new2
```
[xxx@es-asia-northeast1-a-1 ~]$ curl -XGET -H 'Content-Type: application/json' localhost:9200/asia-northeast1-b:new2/_search?pretty -d '{ "size" : 1 }'
{
"error" : {
"root_cause" : [
{
"type" : "index_not_found_exception",
"reason" : "no such index",
"index_uuid" : "_na_",
"resource.type" : "index_or_alias",
"resource.id" : "new2",
"index" : "new2"
}
],
"type" : "transport_exception",
"reason" : "unable to communicate with remote cluster [asia-northeast1-b]",
"caused_by" : {
"type" : "index_not_found_exception",
"reason" : "no such index",
"index_uuid" : "_na_",
"resource.type" : "index_or_alias",
"resource.id" : "new2",
"index" : "new2"
}
},
"status" : 500
}
```
---
### Author:  [@YuWatanabe](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/YuWatanabe)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2018, 7:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cross-cluster-search-fails-depending-on-characters-used-in-index-name-and-alias/126515/3 "2018-04-05T07:57:05Z")
I was misunderstanding the index naming concept of cross cluster search. I thought that actual index name needs to have the _cluster alias_ included. **However , this is not necessary**.
> To search the twitter index on remote cluster cluster\_one the index name must be prefixed with the cluster alias separated by a : character:
Removing all the alias and now it works.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2018, 7:57am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cross-cluster-search-fails-depending-on-characters-used-in-index-name-and-alias/126515/4 "2018-05-03T07:57:35Z")
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