# Does elasticsearch gets clustered by default?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 19, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535 "2016-01-19T11:48:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![chinmoyd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e495f1/32.png) [@chinmoyd](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/chinmoyd)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535/1 "2016-01-19T11:48:45Z")

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I have two elastic search instances in two different machines in a LAN. I have also installed plugin-head in the two machines. Each of the plugins shows that the two elasticsearch instances are in cluster, one as master and one as worker. I have not changed the elastic search yml. Can you please confirm whether such installations creates a cluster by default?

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**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535/2 "2016-01-19T11:54:37Z")

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Prior to ES 2.0, multicast discovery was enabled by default so any ES nodes in the same network and with the same cluster name would form a cluster. This practice isn't recommended anymore, i.e. you should use unicast discovery and explicitly set which nodes should be part of any cluster.

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**Author:** ![chinmoyd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e495f1/32.png) [@chinmoyd](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/chinmoyd)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535/3 "2016-01-19T12:18:57Z")

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So, if I want to disable this default clustering, what should I do? Shall I upgrade to Elasticsearch 2.1.1 or there is some parameter in the elasticsearch.yml that will disable the default clustering?

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**Author:** ![dadoonet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dadoonet/32/137187_2.png) [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535/4 "2016-01-19T14:41:20Z")

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You can disable multicast.

```auto
discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled: false

```

And change your cluster name:

```auto
cluster.name: mycluster

```

Also you can bind only to localhost:

```auto
network.host: 127.0.0.1

```

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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 5, 2017, 11:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-elasticsearch-gets-clustered-by-default/39535/5 "2017-07-05T23:23:27Z")

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