Curator and Elasticsearch 8

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I noticed today that Version Compatibility | Curator Reference [5.8] | Elastic does not list Elasticsearch 8.

Elasticsearch curator & ES version 8.x confirms it doesn't work with Elasticsearch 8.

So my questions are:

  • Why, 10 months after the release of Elasticsearch 8, is there not a version of Curator which works with Elasticsearch 8?

  • Is there going to be a version of Curator which works Elasticsearch 8?

  • Does Curator have a future or has it been abandoned or… ?

I haven't found anything in Curator documentation which says that it is being discontinued and everyone using it must switch to Index Life Management. Curator has been working just fine with Elasticsearch 2 through 7 and I'm afraid I can't see anything about ILM which makes me at all enthusiastic about embarking on the work which would be needed to use it instead of Curator.

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Thanks for asking!

  • Curator has been semi-deprecated in favor of ILM and SLM. For use cases where these aren't meeting your needs, Curator can be used.
  • Yes, but there were so many changes and improvements to the elasticsearch python client that the code has to undergo a massive refactoring (which is still ongoing).
  • Curator will continue to exist, but as I am no longer a full-time developer at Elastic, my coding time is sporadic at best.

That being said, ILM and SLM are still preferred. As ILM and SLM are policy based, they are much more resilient than a cron-executed Python script. You can find lots of help here to help get those working for you, if you're interested, and if your Curator actions can be translated to ILM/SLM.

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That's very informative, thanks. It's great that you are still working on Curator despite no longer being a full-time developer. It's a shame Curator is now semi-deprecated maintained sporadically by (the sounds of it) one guy rather than something Elastic has a real commitment to , but I suppose when a whole new way to manage index lifecycles has been invented why bother to maintain the old one as well. Whilst I believe you when you say ILM and SLM are more resilient, I've never found Curator to be insufficiently resilient. :wink:

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Thank you for that. I appreciate the sentiment.

The truth is, I have always been the sole developer and maintainer of Curator. There have been many contributions from inside and outside Elastic over the years, but the bulk has been me all along. Curator is my baby. I can't leave it, even though I can't maintain it the same way I did in the past.

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