# Question about aliases

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-aliases/3174>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [July 30, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-aliases/3174 "2010-07-30T12:21:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Stephen\_2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stephen_2/32/3274_2.png) [@Stephen\_2](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Stephen_2)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-aliases/3174/1 "2010-07-30T12:21:47Z")

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Hey guys,

I was looking to build in some automatic re-index logic into my  
system, and was planning to use aliases to keep the old index around  
while I'm rebuilding the new one. Now, I could find a way to keep  
track of the indexes that I've aliased in a database, but I figured  
that since ES knows what its aliases are, it would probably make sense  
to ask the search service what index its alias is pointing to.

Trouble is, I can't find such an API. Am I missing something? Or is  
it just something nobody's ever asked for?

Anyway, thanks again for all the hard work. Can't wait to get started  
using this thing in a real production system!

Stephen.

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**Author:** ![kimchy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/kimchy/32/44952_2.png) [@kimchy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/kimchy)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-aliases/3174/2 "2010-07-30T15:56:19Z")

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Both the index status and cluster state provide information on the aliases  
of each index.

-shay.banon

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 3:21 PM, Stephen [scstarkey@gmail.com](mailto:scstarkey@gmail.com) wrote:

> Hey guys,
> 
> I was looking to build in some automatic re-index logic into my  
> system, and was planning to use aliases to keep the old index around  
> while I'm rebuilding the new one. Now, I could find a way to keep  
> track of the indexes that I've aliased in a database, but I figured  
> that since ES knows what its aliases are, it would probably make sense  
> to ask the search service what index its alias is pointing to.
> 
> Trouble is, I can't find such an API. Am I missing something? Or is  
> it just something nobody's ever asked for?
> 
> Anyway, thanks again for all the hard work. Can't wait to get started  
> using this thing in a real production system!
> 
> Stephen.

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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, 4:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/question-about-aliases/3174/3 "2017-07-06T04:21:21Z")

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