# How to set total\_shards\_per\_node in version 1.3

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 22, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589 "2016-06-22T00:32:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dany](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dany/32/8131_2.png) [@dany](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dany)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589/1 "2016-06-22T00:32:30Z")

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I would like to set the total shards per node in version 1.3. But the setting is not working. I am using the following lines.

index.routing.allocation.total\_shards\_per\_node: 7

Could someone help me on this? Any suggestion would be really helpful.  
Thanks.

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589/2 "2016-06-22T23:08:00Z")

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You cannot as that did not exist in 1.3

Also, you should **really** upgrade, 1.3 is super old.

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**Author:** ![dany](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dany/32/8131_2.png) [@dany](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dany)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 10:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589/3 "2016-06-23T22:12:53Z")

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ah ok Thanks @warkolm. Yeah we are planning to upgrade. But it takes at least 3 months to upgrade our systems. So I thought we can try this setting in 1.3.

In the documentation it says  
[https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/1.3/index-modules-allocation.html#\_total\_shards\_per\_node](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/1.3/index-modules-allocation.html#_total_shards_per_node)

we can set this settings. Also I went through the 1.3 release code,

./src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/cluster/routing/allocation/decider/ShardsLimitAllocationDecider.java

the above file use this setting to allocate shards. will it not have the actual 'total\_shards\_per\_node' setting?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589/4 "2016-06-23T22:34:53Z")

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Oh, my mistake then (the docs have obviously changed since 1.3).

Then that setting looks correct. Does it not work?

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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, 10:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-total-shards-per-node-in-version-1-3/53589/5 "2017-07-05T22:40:57Z")

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