Master Elasticsearch 7.10 on CentOS: Complete Install & Config Guide

Environment

Download the CentOS 7 DVD ISO and the Elasticsearch 7.10 tarball from the official mirrors:

https://mirrors.aliyun.com/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-DVD-2009.iso

https://www.elastic.co/cn/downloads/past-releases/elasticsearch-7-10-0

https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-7.10.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

Installation

# mkdir -p /usr/local/elasticsearch
# chown esuser:esuser /usr/local/elasticsearch
# useradd esuser
# passwd esuser
# su - esuser
$ mv elasticsearch-7.10.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz /usr/local/elasticsearch/
$ cd /usr/local/elasticsearch/
$ tar -xvzf elasticsearch-7.10.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
$ cd elasticsearch-7.10.0
$ ls

Do not run Elasticsearch as root; it will fail with a runtime exception.

Foreground Run

$ ./bin/elasticsearch

Verify the node is up with: $ curl localhost:9200/ The address must match the network.host setting in config/elasticsearch.yml.

Background Run

Run as a daemon using the -d flag and record the PID with -p: $ ./bin/elasticsearch -d -p pid Stop the daemon by killing the PID stored in the pid file:

$ pkill -F pid

Configuration

Important Elasticsearch Settings

Path Settings

Data is written to the data directory and logs to the logs directory under $ES_HOME. In production, move path.data and path.logs outside $ES_HOME:

path:
  data: /var/data/elasticsearch
  logs: /var/log/elasticsearch

Multiple data paths can be defined for Unix‑style systems:

path:
  data:
    - /mnt/elasticsearch_1
    - /mnt/elasticsearch_2
    - /mnt/elasticsearch_3

Cluster Name

Set a descriptive cluster.name (default is elasticsearch) in elasticsearch.yml:

cluster.name: logging-prod

Node Name

Define node.name for easier identification. By default it uses the host name:

node.name: prod-data-2

Network Host

Bind to a non‑loopback address for clustering. Example: network.host: 192.168.1.10 Special values like _local_, _site_, and _global_ are also supported.

Discovery Settings

Configure seed hosts and initial master nodes for cluster bootstrapping:

discovery.seed_hosts:
  - 192.168.1.10:9300
  - 192.168.1.11
  - seeds.mydomain.com
  - [0:0:0:0:0:ffff:c0a8:10c]:9301

cluster.initial_master_nodes:
  - master-node-a
  - master-node-b
  - master-node-c

Heap Size

Set Xms and Xmx to the same value, typically 50% of physical RAM, in config/jvm.options.d/ or via ES_JAVA_OPTS:

-Xms2g
-Xmx2g

JVM Heap Dump Path

Configure -XX:HeapDumpPath=… in jvm.options if the default location is unsuitable.

GC Logging

Default GC logs are enabled in jvm.options. To customize, use JEP 158 options, e.g.:

-Xlog:disable
-Xlog:all=warning:stderr:utctime,level,tags
-Xlog:gc*,gc+age=trace,safepoint:file=/opt/my-app/gc.log:utctime,pid,tags:filecount=32,filesize=64m

Temporary Directory

Elasticsearch creates a private temp directory under /tmp. For long‑running services, set $ES_TMPDIR to a dedicated location.

Memory Lock

Enable bootstrap.memory_lock: true in elasticsearch.yml and grant the user unlimited memlock via ulimit -l unlimited or MAX_LOCKED_MEMORY=unlimited in system config.

Swap Disable

Disable swap on Linux with sudo swapoff -a and comment out swap lines in /etc/fstab. Set vm.swappiness=1 for minimal swapping.

File Descriptors

Increase the limit to at least 65535 for the Elasticsearch user using ulimit -n 65535 or esuser - nofile 65535 in /etc/security/limits.conf.

Thread Limits

Ensure the user can create at least 4096 threads ( ulimit -u 4096 or nproc 4096 in limits.conf).

Virtual Memory

Set vm.max_map_count=262144 (permanent via /etc/sysctl.conf) to avoid mmap failures.

TCP Retransmission

Reduce Linux TCP retransmission attempts to speed up failure detection: sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_reres2=5 Make it permanent by adding net.ipv4.tcp_reres2=5 to /etc/sysctl.conf.

Reference Links

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/install-elasticsearch.html

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/targz.html#install-linux

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/important-settings.html

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/setup-configuration-memory.html

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/file-descriptors.html

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/vm-max-map-count.html

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/networkaddress-cache-ttl.html

https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.10/executable-jna-tmpdir.html