# What are .monitoring indices?

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [August 17, 2018, 8:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855 "2018-08-17T08:59:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![cawoodm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/cawoodm/32/14083_2.png) [@cawoodm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/cawoodm)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 8:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855/1 "2018-08-17T08:59:22Z")

</div>

We are using ELK but **NOT** X-Pack and recently upgraded to 6.3. We have noticed the following indices appearing:  
monitoring-es-6-2018.08.12  
monitoring-es-6-2018.08.11  
monitoring-es-6-2018.08.17  
monitoring-kibana-6-2018.08.11  
monitoring-kibana-6-2018.08.13  
monitoring-kibana-6-2018.08.16  
...

What are these?  
Can we delete them?  
How best to manage them (periodic deletion mechanism)?

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Bernt\_Rostad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@Bernt\_Rostad](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Bernt_Rostad)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 9:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855/2 "2018-08-17T09:11:54Z")

</div>

Those are system indices created by Elasticsearch and Kibana, they're usually small and gets deleted after seven days so i wouldn't worry.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![spinscale](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/spinscale/32/25011_2.png) [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 9:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855/3 "2018-08-17T09:14:21Z")

</div>

In addition to what Bernt said: With 6.3 x-pack ships with any distribution by default and monitoring is enabled by default. If you really want to disable it, you can, see [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/monitoring-settings.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/monitoring-settings.html)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![cawoodm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/cawoodm/32/14083_2.png) [@cawoodm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/cawoodm)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2018, 9:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855/4 "2018-08-17T09:26:24Z")

</div>

Thanks guys!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2018, 9:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/what-are-monitoring-indices/144855/5 "2018-09-14T09:26:29Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.