# Is there a way to ask ES what settings it's using? **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [July 29, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-ask-es-what-settings-its-using/26531 "2015-07-29T23:07:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zakmagnus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f475e1/32.png) [@zakmagnus](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/zakmagnus)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-ask-es-what-settings-its-using/26531/1 "2015-07-29T23:07:18Z")
I'm trying to figure out if there is any programmatic way to tell what settings an ES cluster is using. In particular, I can't seem to get at the settings it gets from elasticsearch.yml. I'm looking at cluster-level and index-level settings and I don't see what I expect. Is there any way to get ES to tell me this stuff? I ultimately want to use the java API, but I can't even find a way to do it through the REST API. The background here is that I need my program to behave differently depending on the cluster's shard allocation settings. For example, if I want to make a new index, I need it to do something different if allocation is turned off. I have shard allocation turned off in my elasticsearch.yml, but nothing in cluster settings or index settings seems to say anything about that, so I can't tell programmatically whether allocation is allowed or not. ---
**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:** [July 29, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-ask-es-what-settings-its-using/26531/2 "2015-07-29T23:29:45Z")
Some of this was asked in [Update settings on cluster level](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/update-settings-on-cluster-level/26445) But you want to avoid setting shard allocation to off in your .yml, otherwise the only way to change this is to restart your cluster ☹ ---
**Author:** ![zakmagnus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f475e1/32.png) [@zakmagnus](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/zakmagnus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-ask-es-what-settings-its-using/26531/3 "2015-07-30T16:43:20Z")
Okay, so it sounds like what I want is currently impossible, since it's basically the same thing this open issue is asking for: [https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/10713](https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/issues/10713) Good to know. ---
**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, 11:58pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-there-a-way-to-ask-es-what-settings-its-using/26531/4 "2017-07-05T23:58:06Z")