# ILM Policy name without beat version number in it

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policy-name-without-beat-version-number-in-it/183353>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Created:** [May 29, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policy-name-without-beat-version-number-in-it/183353 "2019-05-29T14:04:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![msproact](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@msproact](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/msproact)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policy-name-without-beat-version-number-in-it/183353/1 "2019-05-29T14:04:38Z")

</div>

I do logfile analysis trainings which include the Elastic Stack.

I set `setup.ilm.policy_name: metricbeat` in `/etc/metricbeat/metricbeat.yml` in order to have a single ILM policy for different Metricbeat versions. Otherwise I'd have a new ILM policy with standard 50 GiB setting for each (even minor) release of the beat. I simply do not get why I would like to set up a different policy for each version. I know I could tell it to load my own policy, but I'd rather just change it in Kibana, rollover manually if needed, and be done with it.

This partly works:

- The Beat creates the new ILM policy.
- It creates a policy with the name.
- It creates a new index (I removed the old one, training demo environment)
- But it applies the wrong policy which leads to `illegal_argument_exception: policy [metricbeat-7.1.1] does not exist` error message in Kibana

So I used:

```
setup.template.settings.index.lifecycle.name: "metricbeat"                                                                                                  
setup.ilm.policy_name: "metricbeat"

```

but it still gives the same error in Kibana, despite Metricbeat having overrode the index template as I told it to:

```
2019-05-29T15:31:17.736+0200 INFO template/load.go:84 Existing template will be overwritten, as overwrite is enabled.

```

Is that a bug?

What is the reasoning behind cluttering Elasticsearch with one ILM policy per beat version? Is this complexity really required?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![msproact](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@msproact](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/msproact)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policy-name-without-beat-version-number-in-it/183353/2 "2019-06-11T09:00:06Z")

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No feedback about this?

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<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:** [July 9, 2019, 11:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ilm-policy-name-without-beat-version-number-in-it/183353/3 "2019-07-09T11:10:30Z")

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