Updating default ttl value in elasticsearch?

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch
1

I know that when creating the mapping we can give something like,

        "_ttl" : {
          "enabled" : true,
          "default" : 900000
        }

to enable _ttl with a default value. I would like to know whether can be update this default _ttl value by updating the mapping ?

Thanks. Any help is highly appreciated.

2

Hi @Rajind_Ruparathna,

let me start by pointing out that _ttl is deprecated in Elasticsearch 2.x.

Did you try to update the mapping?

Here is a complete example that worked fine for me (tested with Elasticsearch 2.3.4):

DELETE /my_index

PUT /my_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "my_type": {
      "_ttl": {
        "enabled": true,
        "default": "1m"
      }
    }
  }
}

PUT /my_index/my_type/1
{
  "text": "Will expire in 1 minute"
}

GET /my_index/my_type/1


PUT /my_index/_mapping/my_type
{
      "_ttl": {
         "enabled": true,
         "default": "24h"
      }
}

PUT /my_index/my_type/2
{
  "text": "Will expire in a day"
}

GET /my_index/my_type/2

Daniel

2 Likes
3

Thanks. I will try that. I did try to update the mapping but got indexAlreadyExistsException. I was doing something wrong back then.

4

If you get that it is usually because you are using the create index API to
update the mapping. They look fairly similar and I've mixed them up a few
times so I know the error message well.

1 Like
5

yes. that was the issue. thanks.

6

@nik9000, @danielmitterdorfer One small question, say I have set a default _ttl value and now i want to update the mapping so that there is no such default ttl value. I've tried with,
{
"_ttl": {
"enabled": true,
}
}

but doesn't seem to remove the default _ttl value.

7

Hi @Rajind_Ruparathna,

that's correct. This is not possible. Issuing:

PUT /my_index/_mapping/my_type
{
      "_ttl": {
         "enabled": false
      }
}

throws an error:

{
   "error": {
      "root_cause": [
         {
            "type": "illegal_argument_exception",
            "reason": "_ttl cannot be disabled once it was enabled."
         }
      ],
      "type": "illegal_argument_exception",
      "reason": "_ttl cannot be disabled once it was enabled."
   },
   "status": 400
}

You have to create a new index if you need to disable it.

Daniel

1 Like
8

Yes. I tried and got the same result. Thanks. cheers.

9

You're welcome. Glad that I could help you.