Unassigned shards and recovery

I am fairly new to elasticsearch but was amazed at how great it was to get data flowing, indexed and displayed in kibana. Unfortunately managing disk space and recovery is much harder. I will frequently check my plugin/head site to view the capacity of the nodes (http://192.168.23.131:9200/_plugin/head/) and when it is read will manually flush each index. But I do not see any change, so I went and manually deleted stuff which was a bad idea (/mnt/data/elasticsearch/nodes/1/indices). What then happened was that some were recovered but kibana cannot recover my dashboards as i deleted the kibana-int index. Now my main issue is that I find unassigned shards all the time and do not know how to get rid of them. Is there a way to set a configuration or something that will delete stored data after a certain time period to avoid manual intervention? Or is there at least someway of ensuring disk space is kept below a certain threshold. Here is my elasticsearch conf file:
Would someone be able to check this and recommend best settings.

##################### ElasticSearch Configuration Example #####################

This file contains an overview of various configuration settings,

targeted at operations staff. Application developers should

consult the guide at http://elasticsearch.org/guide.

The installation procedure is covered at

http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/setup.html.

ElasticSearch comes with reasonable defaults for most settings,

so you can try it out without bothering with configuration.

Most of the time, these defaults are just fine for running a production

cluster. If you're fine-tuning your cluster, or wondering about the

effect of certain configuration option, please do ask on the

mailing list or IRC channel [http://elasticsearch.org/community].

Any element in the configuration can be replaced with environment variables

by placing them in ${...} notation. For example:

node.rack: ${RACK_ENV_VAR}

For information on supported formats and syntax for the config file, see

http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/setup-configuration.html

################################### Cluster ###################################

Cluster name identifies your cluster for auto-discovery. If you're running

multiple clusters on the same network, make sure you're using unique names.

cluster.name: elasticsearch

#################################### Node #####################################

Node names are generated dynamically on startup, so you're relieved

from configuring them manually. You can tie this node to a specific name:

node.name: "Franz Kafka"

Every node can be configured to allow or deny being eligible as the master,

and to allow or deny to store the data.

Allow this node to be eligible as a master node (enabled by default):

node.master: true

Allow this node to store data (enabled by default):

node.data: true

You can exploit these settings to design advanced cluster topologies.

1. You want this node to never become a master node, only to hold data.

This will be the "workhorse" of your cluster.

node.master: false

node.data: true

2. You want this node to only serve as a master: to not store any data and

to have free resources. This will be the "coordinator" of your cluster.

node.master: true

node.data: false

3. You want this node to be neither master nor data node, but

to act as a "search load balancer" (fetching data from nodes,

aggregating results, etc.)

node.master: false

node.data: false

Use the Cluster Health API [http://localhost:9200/_cluster/health], the

Node Info API [http://localhost:9200/_cluster/nodes] or GUI tools

such as http://github.com/lukas-vlcek/bigdesk and

http://mobz.github.com/elasticsearch-head to inspect the cluster state.

A node can have generic attributes associated with it, which can later be used

for customized shard allocation filtering, or allocation awareness. An attribute

is a simple key value pair, similar to node.key: value, here is an example:

node.rack: rack314

By default, multiple nodes are allowed to start from the same installation location

to disable it, set the following:

node.max_local_storage_nodes: 1

#################################### Index ####################################

You can set a number of options (such as shard/replica options, mapping

or analyzer definitions, translog settings, ...) for indices globally,

in this file.

Note, that it makes more sense to configure index settings specifically for

a certain index, either when creating it or by using the index templates API.

See http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/index-modules.html and

http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/indices-create-index.html

for more information.

Set the number of shards (splits) of an index (5 by default):

index.number_of_shards: 5

Set the number of replicas (additional copies) of an index (1 by default):

index.number_of_replicas: 1

Note, that for development on a local machine, with small indices, it usually

makes sense to "disable" the distributed features:

index.number_of_shards: 1

index.number_of_replicas: 0

These settings directly affect the performance of index and search operations

in your cluster. Assuming you have enough machines to hold shards and

replicas, the rule of thumb is:

1. Having more shards enhances the indexing performance and allows to

distribute a big index across machines.

2. Having more replicas enhances the search performance and improves the

cluster availability.

The "number_of_shards" is a one-time setting for an index.

The "number_of_replicas" can be increased or decreased anytime,

by using the Index Update Settings API.

ElasticSearch takes care about load balancing, relocating, gathering the

results from nodes, etc. Experiment with different settings to fine-tune

your setup.

Use the Index Status API (http://localhost:9200/A/_status) to inspect

the index status.

#################################### Paths ####################################

Path to directory containing configuration (this file and logging.yml):

path.conf: /path/to/conf

Path to directory where to store index data allocated for this node.

path.data: /mnt/data/elasticsearch/elasticsearch, /mnt/data/elasticsearchII

Can optionally include more than one location, causing data to be striped across

the locations (a la RAID 0) on a file level, favouring locations with most free

space on creation. For example:

path.data: /path/to/data1,/path/to/data2

Path to temporary files:

path.work: /path/to/work

Path to log files:

path.logs: /path/to/logs

Path to where plugins are installed:

path.plugins: /path/to/plugins

#################################### Plugin ###################################

If a plugin listed here is not installed for current node, the node will not start.

plugin.mandatory: mapper-attachments,lang-groovy

################################### Memory ####################################

ElasticSearch performs poorly when JVM starts swapping: you should ensure that

it never swaps.

bootstrap.mlockall: true

Make sure that the ES_MIN_MEM and ES_MAX_MEM environment variables are set

to the same value, and that the machine has enough memory to allocate

for ElasticSearch, leaving enough memory for the operating system itself.

You should also make sure that the ElasticSearch process is allowed to lock

the memory, eg. by using ulimit -l unlimited.

############################## Network And HTTP ###############################

ElasticSearch, by default, binds itself to the 0.0.0.0 address, and listens

on port [9200-9300] for HTTP traffic and on port [9300-9400] for node-to-node

communication. (the range means that if the port is busy, it will automatically

try the next port).

Set the bind address specifically (IPv4 or IPv6):

network.bind_host: 192.168.0.1

Set the address other nodes will use to communicate with this node. If not

set, it is automatically derived. It must point to an actual IP address.

network.publish_host: 192.168.0.1

Set both 'bind_host' and 'publish_host':

network.host: 192.168.0.1

Set a custom port for the node to node communication (9300 by default):

transport.tcp.port: 9300

Enable compression for all communication between nodes (disabled by default):

transport.tcp.compress: true

Set a custom port to listen for HTTP traffic:

http.port: 9200

Set a custom allowed content length:

http.max_content_length: 100mb

Disable HTTP completely:

http.enabled: false

################################### Gateway ###################################

The gateway allows for persisting the cluster state between full cluster

restarts. Every change to the state (such as adding an index) will be stored

in the gateway, and when the cluster starts up for the first time,

it will read its state from the gateway.

There are several types of gateway implementations. For more information, see

http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-gateway.html.

The default gateway type is the "local" gateway (recommended):

gateway.type: local

Settings below control how and when to start the initial recovery process on

a full cluster restart (to reuse as much local data as possible when using shared

gateway).

Allow recovery process after N nodes in a cluster are up:

gateway.recover_after_nodes: 1

Set the timeout to initiate the recovery process, once the N nodes

from previous setting are up (accepts time value):

gateway.recover_after_time: 5m

Set how many nodes are expected in this cluster. Once these N nodes

are up (and recover_after_nodes is met), begin recovery process immediately

(without waiting for recover_after_time to expire):

gateway.expected_nodes: 2

############################# Recovery Throttling #############################

These settings allow to control the process of shards allocation between

nodes during initial recovery, replica allocation, rebalancing,

or when adding and removing nodes.

Set the number of concurrent recoveries happening on a node:

1. During the initial recovery

cluster.routing.allocation.node_initial_primaries_recoveries: 4

2. During adding/removing nodes, rebalancing, etc

cluster.routing.allocation.node_concurrent_recoveries: 2

Set to throttle throughput when recovering (eg. 100mb, by default 20mb):

indices.recovery.max_bytes_per_sec: 20mb

Set to limit the number of open concurrent streams when

recovering a shard from a peer:

indices.recovery.concurrent_streams: 5

################################## Discovery ##################################

Discovery infrastructure ensures nodes can be found within a cluster

and master node is elected. Multicast discovery is the default.

Set the time to wait for ping responses from other nodes when discovering.

Set this option to a higher value on a slow or congested network

to minimize discovery failures:

discovery.zen.ping.timeout: 3s

For more information, see

http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-discovery-zen.html

Unicast discovery allows to explicitly control which nodes will be used

to discover the cluster. It can be used when multicast is not present,

or to restrict the cluster communication-wise.

1. Disable multicast discovery (enabled by default):

discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled: false

2. Configure an initial list of master nodes in the cluster

to perform discovery when new nodes (master or data) are started:

discovery.zen.ping.unicast.hosts: ["host1", "host2:port"]

EC2 discovery allows to use AWS EC2 API in order to perform discovery.

You have to install the cloud-aws plugin for enabling the EC2 discovery.

For more information, see

http://elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-discovery-ec2.html

See http://elasticsearch.org/tutorials/elasticsearch-on-ec2/

for a step-by-step tutorial.

################################## Slow Log ##################################

Shard level query and fetch threshold logging.

#index.search.slowlog.threshold.query.warn: 10s
#index.search.slowlog.threshold.query.info: 5s
#index.search.slowlog.threshold.query.debug: 2s
#index.search.slowlog.threshold.query.trace: 500ms

#index.search.slowlog.threshold.fetch.warn: 1s
#index.search.slowlog.threshold.fetch.info: 800ms
#index.search.slowlog.threshold.fetch.debug: 500ms
#index.search.slowlog.threshold.fetch.trace: 200ms

#index.indexing.slowlog.threshold.index.warn: 10s
#index.indexing.slowlog.threshold.index.info: 5s
#index.indexing.slowlog.threshold.index.debug: 2s
#index.indexing.slowlog.threshold.index.trace: 500ms

################################## GC Logging ################################

#monitor.jvm.gc.young.warn: 1000ms
#monitor.jvm.gc.young.info: 700ms
#monitor.jvm.gc.young.debug: 400ms
#monitor.jvm.gc.old.warn: 10s