# Watch-history-ilm-policy - out of the box ILM incorrectly set up?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watch-history-ilm-policy-out-of-the-box-ilm-incorrectly-set-up/259606>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** elastic-stack-alerting, ilm-index-lifecycle-management\
**Created:** [December 24, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watch-history-ilm-policy-out-of-the-box-ilm-incorrectly-set-up/259606 "2020-12-24T20:00:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mgevans](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mgevans/32/66790_2.png) [@mgevans](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/mgevans)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watch-history-ilm-policy-out-of-the-box-ilm-incorrectly-set-up/259606/1 "2020-12-24T20:00:37Z")

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Hi there  
we're going through our own ILM components and noticed there are a number of built-in ILMs. One of these is for the watcher history indexes such as ".watcher-history-12-2020.12.23".  
I'm thinking these are mis-configured? or there is some type of configuration I'm not understanding.

we are running 7.10.1

Here is what I see:

- ILM Policy: watch-history-ilm-policy
  - this policy is connected to zero (0) index templates
  - I had edited the default ILM policy to execute a Delete after the index was 30 days old.

- There are no index templates (managed or legacy) for \*watch\* indexes
- The watch index itself contains the following setting
  - "settings": { "index": { "lifecycle": { "name": "watch-history-ilm-policy"

- But the rollover\_alias setting for that index is blank ("")

I'm not sure what connects this index to the lifecycle management policy other than the name above - but this is what were getting in our logs:

```
[elasticsearch.server][INFO] policy [watch-history-ilm-policy] for index [.watcher-history-12-2020.12.24] on an error step due to a transient error, moving back to the failed step [check-rollover-ready] for execution. retry attempt [59]

[elasticsearch.server][ERROR] policy [watch-history-ilm-policy] for index [.watcher-history-12-2020.12.24] failed on step [{"phase":"hot","action":"rollover","name":"check-rollover-ready"}]. Moving to ERROR step

```

Perhaps i'm not understanding how ILM works with out-of-the-box indexes? Or perhaps the ILM policy connection to the index isn't really there but since there is a policy name linked then ILM execution components think it should do 'something'.  
I'm also wondering if they failure is because of the additional delete i put into the policy?  
Thoughts?

thanks,  
Michael

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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:** [January 21, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/watch-history-ilm-policy-out-of-the-box-ilm-incorrectly-set-up/259606/2 "2021-01-21T20:00:41Z")

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