Questions about gaps in configuration documentation

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch
1

I'm setting up Elasticsearch for the first time and the configuration documentation has left me with way more questions than answers. Here they are in order:

Most times it is better to leave the default JAVA_OPTS as they are, and use the ES_JAVA_OPTS environment variable in order to set / change JVM settings or arguments.

How do I do this?

It is recommended to set the min and max memory to the same value, and enable mlockall.

How do I set the min/max memory?

In order to test how many open files the process can open, start it with -Des.max-open-files set to true.

Which process, and is this a command, or do I need to edit a config file? If it's a config file, which config file?

Alternatively, you can retrieve the max_file_descriptors for each node using the Nodes Info API, with:
curl localhost:9200/_nodes/stats/process?pretty

I receive "failed to connect to localhost port 9200" on this command. What configuration needs to be done to get this to work?

2

Directory layout | Elasticsearch Guide [8.11] | Elastic might help answer a lot of these.

Is ES running?

If you can link to the page you are reading, we will review it and see if we can make it clearer :slight_smile:

3

Thanks Mark.

I'm using this page:

ES was not running, because when I tried to start per the instructions on this page:

I get the error that I posted on this page: