# Objective C client for ElasticSearch ( iphone, ipad etc.) **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [April 15, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/objective-c-client-for-elasticsearch-iphone-ipad-etc/7334 "2012-04-15T01:35:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pulkitsinghal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pulkitsinghal/32/802_2.png) [@pulkitsinghal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pulkitsinghal)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/objective-c-client-for-elasticsearch-iphone-ipad-etc/7334/1 "2012-04-15T01:35:50Z")
Is there a client implementation for ElasticSearch written for Objective-C (iPhone) users out there? I'm trying to roll my own but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. ---
**Author:** ![AEvar\_Arnfjord\_Bjarm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/aevar_arnfjord_bjarm/32/2746_2.png) [@AEvar\_Arnfjord\_Bjarm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/AEvar_Arnfjord_Bjarm)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/objective-c-client-for-elasticsearch-iphone-ipad-etc/7334/2 "2012-04-15T14:59:44Z")
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 03:35, pulkitsinghal [pulkitsinghal@gmail.com](mailto:pulkitsinghal@gmail.com) wrote: > Is there a client implementation for Elasticsearch written for Objective-C > (iPhone) users out there? I'm trying to roll my own but I don't want to > reinvent the wheel. Unless you plan to actually run Elasticsearch on the iOS device (which is probably not such a good idea, since it's fairly resource hungry for a phone/tablet) application this sounds like an inherently bad idea unless this is an application distributed internally to your organization. Anyone could trivially discover the hostname that you're making requests to and make arbitrary requests of their own, so if you wanted to secure this you'd have to also write some really complex server-side filtering layer that only accepted certain queries (even GET queries could be troublesome, if they take a lot of resources). I maintain the server-side of a system that amongst other things has iOS applications making search requests, but they do so through a custom JSON API. I.e. the iOS device will request /search\_for?name=Whatever, the server-side will make the actual ES query, and a minimal custom response will be returned to the iOS device. Not only is that more secure, but it also relieves the mobile device from having to do round-robin requests to the cluster and other things that are needlessly expensive on network/CPU on a mobile device. ---
**Author:** ![pulkitsinghal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pulkitsinghal/32/802_2.png) [@pulkitsinghal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pulkitsinghal)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/objective-c-client-for-elasticsearch-iphone-ipad-etc/7334/3 "2012-04-15T16:18:07Z")
@avarab - Thank you for the "bigger picture," let me see if I can convince you that the question is still relevant: 1. In my question, I am approaching an ES client from the perspective of building out at least the "Query DSL" piece, there may be more that a full fledged client can do but this is the part I think is immediately useful on iOS (Objective-C) apps. 2. I was under the impression that multiple solutions exist to secure the connection to an ES server: 1. nginx 2. sTunnel 3. elasticsearch-jetty 4. Am I mistaken about this? 3. CPU wise, mobile phones today are powerful devices and I'd like to think that I can count on them. 4. I understand the point about round trips but if user interaction is required than there is simply no way around getting results, then showing them and letting the user choose where to go next anyway. 5. So, is there a client implementation for ElasticSearch written for Objective-C (iPhone) users out there? I'm trying to roll my own but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. Let me know. ---
**Author:** ![AEvar\_Arnfjord\_Bjarm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/aevar_arnfjord_bjarm/32/2746_2.png) [@AEvar\_Arnfjord\_Bjarm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/AEvar_Arnfjord_Bjarm)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/objective-c-client-for-elasticsearch-iphone-ipad-etc/7334/4 "2012-04-15T16:36:19Z")
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 18:18, Pulkit Singhal [pulkitsinghal@gmail.com](mailto:pulkitsinghal@gmail.com) wrote: > I was under the impression that multiple solutions exist to secure the > connection to an ES server: > > nginx > sTunnel > elasticsearch-jetty nginx would give you something like a http proxy, which you could use to enforce that you can only make e.g. GET queries, but you could still make harmful GET queries. sTunnel wouldn't give you anything since the attack vector here is a harmful client making bad requests, they can obviously use your tunnel too since they can make requests in the first place. I haven't looked much into elasticsearch-jetty, you might be able to get it to do what you want. But in the end I think this idea is about as bright as having an iOS device connect to a remote SQL server. Sure you can _maybe_ mitigate the problem with grants and whatnot, but why not avoid the whole issue in the first place and just make the iOS device make requests to a limited custom API. > CPU wise, mobile phones today are powerful devices and I'd like to think > that I can count on them. Sure, but needing overly smart clients might result in higher battery use / latency if you have to make multiple requests etc. > So, is there a client implementation for Elasticsearch written for > Objective-C (iPhone) users out there? I'm trying to roll my own but I don't > want to reinvent the wheel. Let me know. I have no idea, probably not. But I thought it was more useful to point out that what you're looking to is very hard if not almost impossible to do securely, and if you do manage to do it securely it's probably going to be a lot more work than just having a custom API you make requests to. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/objective-c-client-for-elasticsearch-iphone-ipad-etc/7334/5 "2017-07-06T03:32:30Z")