# Permanent Node identifier?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/permanent-node-identifier/6526>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 27, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/permanent-node-identifier/6526 "2012-01-27T16:50:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![otisg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/otisg/32/492_2.png) [@otisg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/otisg)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/permanent-node-identifier/6526/1 "2012-01-27T16:50:08Z")

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Hi,

I'm trying to collect ES Node statistics and I'm wondering how best to  
handle the fact that neither Node UUIDs or names are static/fixed/  
constant. They change after the process is restarted, so it's hard  
for a tool to keep track of a specific Node.

And here is why I'd like to be able to be identify a specific Node.  
I'd like to collect stats for the whole Cluster (all Nodes and all  
Shards) and I'd like to be able to filter any Node-specific metric by  
Node. That way I could, for instance, see metric X for 2 or more  
Nodes over time on the same graph. If Node identifiers change over  
time, then I can't "permanently identify" any Node, which makes it  
impossible to compare 2 Nodes over time.

What is the best approach one should take with this?  
Should I think of ES node as purely (host+port) combination?

## Thanks, Otis

> **[Sematext – Solr / Elasticsearch Experts – Search & Big Data Analytics](https://sematext.com/)**
>
> Building innovative Cloud and On Premise solutions for performance monitoring, alerting and anomaly detection (SPM), and log management and analytics (Logsene)

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**Author:** ![drewr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/drewr/32/7803_2.png) [@drewr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/drewr)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/permanent-node-identifier/6526/2 "2012-01-27T17:15:58Z")

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Otis Gospodnetic wrote:

> I'm trying to collect ES Node statistics and I'm wondering how best to  
> handle the fact that neither Node UUIDs or names are static/fixed/  
> constant. They change after the process is restarted, so it's hard  
> for a tool to keep track of a specific Node.

Set node.name in config/elasticsearch.{json,yml}.

-Drew

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**Author:** ![phobos182](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/phobos182/32/3011_2.png) [@phobos182](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/phobos182)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/permanent-node-identifier/6526/3 "2012-01-29T13:43:28Z")

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We do this with puppet. We set the node/name in the config. Much easier to troubleshoot IMHO.

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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 6, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/permanent-node-identifier/6526/4 "2017-07-06T03:41:08Z")

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