# Error when trying to add a snapshot policy on ELK ECE

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-when-trying-to-add-a-snapshot-policy-on-elk-ece/230463>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [April 30, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-when-trying-to-add-a-snapshot-policy-on-elk-ece/230463 "2020-04-30T05:35:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zerobot](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/zerobot/32/48977_2.png) [@Zerobot](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Zerobot)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-when-trying-to-add-a-snapshot-policy-on-elk-ece/230463/1 "2020-04-30T05:35:11Z")

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Hello!  
I've encountered this error when I tried to add a snapshot policy to my ELK cluster (on ECE):

```
{
  "error" : {
    "root_cause" : [
      {
        "type" : "invalid_index_name_exception",
        "reason" : "Invalid index name [_slm], must not start with '_', '-', or '+'",
        "index_uuid" : "_na_",
        "index" : "_slm"
      }
    ],
    "type" : "invalid_index_name_exception",
    "reason" : "Invalid index name [_slm], must not start with '_', '-', or '+'",
    "index_uuid" : "_na_",
    "index" : "_slm"
  },
  "status" : 400
}

```

The API call:

```
PUT /_slm/policy/daily-snapshots
{
  "schedule": "0 15,30,45 * ? * *", 
  "name": "<custom-index-hourly-snap-{now/d}>", 
  "repository": "my_custom_repo", 
  "config": { 
    "indices": ["filebeat-custom-index-name*"], 
    "ignore_unavailable": false,
    "include_global_state": false
  },
  "retention": { 
    "expire_after": "30d", 
    "min_count": 5, 
    "max_count": 50 
  }
}

```

It seems system index \_slm is not existing at all. I've managed to add a custom Repository to my ELK cluster and it's verification is going okay but sadly I can't create any policy via Kibana UI or an API which returns an error as show above.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 5:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/error-when-trying-to-add-a-snapshot-policy-on-elk-ece/230463/2 "2020-05-28T05:35:14Z")

</div>

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