Elasticsearch Puppet Module

Table of Contents

1. Module description - What the module does and why it is useful
2. Setup - The basics of getting started with Elasticsearch

• The module manages the following
• Requirements

3. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
4. Advanced features - Extra information on advanced usage
5. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
6. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
7. Development - Guide for contributing to the module
8. Support - When you need help with this module

Module description

This module sets up Elasticsearch instances with additional resource for plugins, templates, and more.

This module is actively tested against Elasticsearch 2.x, 5.x, and 6.x.

Setup

The module manages the following

• Elasticsearch repository files.
• Elasticsearch package.
• Elasticsearch configuration file.
• Elasticsearch service.
• Elasticsearch plugins.
• Elasticsearch snapshot repositories.
• Elasticsearch templates.
• Elasticsearch ingest pipelines.
• Elasticsearch index settings.
• Elasticsearch Shield/X-Pack users, roles, and certificates.
• Elasticsearch licenses.
• Elasticsearch keystores.

Requirements

• The stdlib Puppet library.
• richardc/datacat
• Augeas
• puppetlabs-java_ks for Shield/X-Pack certificate management (optional).

In addition, remember that Elasticsearch requires Java to be installed. We recommend managing your Java installation with the puppetlabs-java module.

Repository management

When using the repository management, the following module dependencies are required:

• General: Elastic/elastic_stack
• Debian/Ubuntu: Puppetlabs/apt
• OpenSuSE/SLES: puppet/zypprepo

Beginning with Elasticsearch

Declare the top-level elasticsearch class (managing repositories) and set up an instance:

include ::java

class { 'elasticsearch': }
elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01': }

Note: Elasticsearch 6.x requires a recent version of the JVM.

Usage

Main class

Most top-level parameters in the elasticsearch class are set to reasonable defaults. The following are some parameters that may be useful to override:

Install a specific version

class { 'elasticsearch':
  version => '6.0.0'
}

Note: This will only work when using the repository.

Automatically restarting the service (default set to false)

By default, the module will not restart Elasticsearch when the configuration file, package, or plugins change. This can be overridden globally with the following option:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  restart_on_change => true
}

Or controlled with the more granular options: restart_config_change, restart_package_change, and restart_plugin_change.

Automatic upgrades (default set to false)

class { 'elasticsearch':
  autoupgrade => true
}

Removal/Decommissioning

class { 'elasticsearch':
  ensure => 'absent'
}

Install everything but disable service(s) afterwards

class { 'elasticsearch':
  status => 'disabled'
}

API Settings

Some resources, such as elasticsearch::template, require communicating with the Elasticsearch REST API. By default, these API settings are set to:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  api_protocol            => 'http',
  api_host                => 'localhost',
  api_port                => 9200,
  api_timeout             => 10,
  api_basic_auth_username => undef,
  api_basic_auth_password => undef,
  api_ca_file             => undef,
  api_ca_path             => undef,
  validate_tls            => true,
}

Each of these can be set at the top-level elasticsearch class and inherited for each resource or overridden on a per-resource basis.

Dynamically Created Resources

This module supports managing all of its defined types through top-level parameters to better support Hiera and Puppet Enterprise. For example, to manage an instance and index template directly from the elasticsearch class:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  instances => {
    'es-01' => {
      'config' => {
        'network.host' => '0.0.0.0'
      }
    }
  },
  templates => {
    'logstash' => {
      'content' => {
        'template' => 'logstash-*',
        'settings' => {
          'number_of_replicas' => 0
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Instances

This module works with the concept of instances. For service to start you need to specify at least one instance.

Quick setup

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01': }

This will set up its own data directory and set the node name to $hostname-$instance_name

Advanced options

Instance specific options can be given:

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  config        => { }, # Configuration hash
  init_defaults => { }, # Init defaults hash
  datadir       => [ ], # Data directory
}

See Advanced features for more information.

Plugins

This module can help manage a variety of plugins. Note that module_dir is where the plugin will install itself to and must match that published by the plugin author; it is not where you would like to install it yourself.

From an official repository

elasticsearch::plugin { 'x-pack':
  instances => 'instance_name'
}

From a custom url

elasticsearch::plugin { 'jetty':
  url        => 'https://oss-es-plugins.s3.amazonaws.com/elasticsearch-jetty/elasticsearch-jetty-1.2.1.zip',
  instances  => 'instance_name'
}

Using a proxy

You can also use a proxy if required by setting the proxy_host and proxy_port options:

elasticsearch::plugin { 'lmenezes/elasticsearch-kopf',
  instances  => 'instance_name',
  proxy_host => 'proxy.host.com',
  proxy_port => 3128
}

Proxies that require usernames and passwords are similarly supported with the proxy_username and proxy_password parameters.

Plugin name formats that are supported include:

• elasticsearch/plugin/version (for official elasticsearch plugins downloaded from download.elastic.co)
• groupId/artifactId/version (for community plugins downloaded from maven central or OSS Sonatype)
• username/repository (for site plugins downloaded from github master)

Upgrading plugins

When you specify a certain plugin version, you can upgrade that plugin by specifying the new version.

elasticsearch::plugin { 'elasticsearch/elasticsearch-cloud-aws/2.1.1': }

And to upgrade, you would simply change it to

elasticsearch::plugin { 'elasticsearch/elasticsearch-cloud-aws/2.4.1': }

Please note that this does not work when you specify 'latest' as a version number.

ES 2.x, 5.x, and 6.x official plugins

For the Elasticsearch commercial plugins you can refer them to the simple name.

See Plugin installation for more details.

Scripts

Installs scripts to be used by Elasticsearch. These scripts are shared across all defined instances on the same host.

elasticsearch::script { 'myscript':
  ensure => 'present',
  source => 'puppet:///path/to/my/script.groovy'
}

Script directories can also be recursively managed for large collections of scripts:

elasticsearch::script { 'myscripts_dir':
  ensure  => 'directory,
  source  => 'puppet:///path/to/myscripts_dir'
  recurse => 'remote',
}

Templates

By default templates use the top-level elasticsearch::api_* settings to communicate with Elasticsearch. The following is an example of how to override these settings:

elasticsearch::template { 'templatename':
  api_protocol            => 'https',
  api_host                => $::ipaddress,
  api_port                => 9201,
  api_timeout             => 60,
  api_basic_auth_username => 'admin',
  api_basic_auth_password => 'adminpassword',
  api_ca_file             => '/etc/ssl/certs',
  api_ca_path             => '/etc/pki/certs',
  validate_tls            => false,
  source                  => 'puppet:///path/to/template.json',
}

Add a new template using a file

This will install and/or replace the template in Elasticsearch:

elasticsearch::template { 'templatename':
  source => 'puppet:///path/to/template.json',
}

Add a new template using content

This will install and/or replace the template in Elasticsearch:

elasticsearch::template { 'templatename':
  content => {
    'template' => "*",
    'settings' => {
      'number_of_replicas' => 0
    }
  }
}

Plain JSON strings are also supported.

elasticsearch::template { 'templatename':
  content => '{"template":"*","settings":{"number_of_replicas":0}}'
}

Delete a template

elasticsearch::template { 'templatename':
  ensure => 'absent'
}

Ingestion Pipelines

Pipelines behave similar to templates in that their contents can be controlled over the Elasticsearch REST API with a custom Puppet resource. API parameters follow the same rules as templates (those settings can either be controlled at the top-level in the elasticsearch class or set per-resource).

Adding a new pipeline

This will install and/or replace an ingestion pipeline in Elasticsearch (ingestion settings are compared against the present configuration):

elasticsearch::pipeline { 'addfoo':
  content => {
    'description' => 'Add the foo field',
    'processors' => [{
      'set' => {
        'field' => 'foo',
        'value' => 'bar'
      }
    }]
  }
}

Delete a pipeline

elasticsearch::pipeline { 'addfoo':
  ensure => 'absent'
}

Index Settings

This module includes basic support for ensuring an index is present or absent with optional index settings. API access settings follow the pattern previously mentioned for templates.

Creating an index

At the time of this writing, only index settings are supported. Note that some settings (such as number_of_shards) can only be set at index creation time.

elasticsearch::index { 'foo':
  settings => {
    'index' => {
      'number_of_replicas' => 0
    }
  }
}

Delete an index

elasticsearch::index { 'foo':
  ensure => 'absent'
}

Snapshot Repositories

By default snapshot_repositories use the top-level elasticsearch::api_* settings to communicate with Elasticsearch. The following is an example of how to override these settings:

elasticsearch::snapshot_repository { 'backups':
  api_protocol            => 'https',
  api_host                => $::ipaddress,
  api_port                => 9201,
  api_timeout             => 60,
  api_basic_auth_username => 'admin',
  api_basic_auth_password => 'adminpassword',
  api_ca_file             => '/etc/ssl/certs',
  api_ca_path             => '/etc/pki/certs',
  validate_tls            => false,
  location                => '/backups',
}

Delete a snapshot repository

elasticsearch::snapshot_repository { 'backups':
  ensure   => 'absent',
  location => '/backup'
}

Connection Validator

This module offers a way to make sure an instance has been started and is up and running before doing a next action. This is done via the use of the es_instance_conn_validator resource.

es_instance_conn_validator { 'myinstance' :
  server => 'es.example.com',
  port   => '9200',
}

A common use would be for example :

class { 'kibana4' :
  require => Es_Instance_Conn_Validator['myinstance'],
}

Package installation

There are two different ways of installing Elasticsearch:

Repository

Choosing an Elasticsearch major version

This module uses the elastic/elastic_stack module to manage package repositories. Because there is a separate repository for each major version of the Elastic stack, selecting which version to configure is necessary to change the default repository value, like this:

class { 'elastic_stack::repo':
  version => 5,
}

class { 'elasticsearch':
  version => '5.6.4',
}

This module defaults to the upstream package repositories, which as of Elasticsearch 6.3, includes X-Pack. In order to use the purely OSS (open source) package and repository, the appropriate oss flag must be set on the elastic_stack::repo and elasticsearch classes:

class { 'elastic_stack::repo':
  oss => true,
}

class { 'elasticsearch':
  oss => true,
}

Manual repository management

You may want to manage repositories manually. You can disable automatic repository management like this:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  manage_repo => false,
}

Remote package source

When a repository is not available or preferred you can install the packages from a remote source:

http/https/ftp

class { 'elasticsearch':
  package_url => 'https://download.elasticsearch.org/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-1.4.2.deb',
  proxy_url   => 'http://proxy.example.com:8080/',
}

Setting proxy_url to a location will enable download using the provided proxy server. This parameter is also used by elasticsearch::plugin. Setting the port in the proxy_url is mandatory. proxy_url defaults to undef (proxy disabled).

puppet://

class { 'elasticsearch':
  package_url => 'puppet:///path/to/elasticsearch-1.4.2.deb'
}

Local file

class { 'elasticsearch':
  package_url => 'file:/path/to/elasticsearch-1.4.2.deb'
}

JVM Configuration

When configuring Elasticsearch's memory usage, you can do so by either changing init defaults for Elasticsearch 1.x/2.x (see the following example), or modify it globally in 5.x using jvm.options:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  jvm_options => [
    '-Xms4g',
    '-Xmx4g'
  ]
}

jvm.options can also be controlled per-instance:

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  jvm_options => [
    '-Xms4g',
    '-Xmx4g'
  ]
}

Service management

Currently only the basic SysV-style init and Systemd service providers are supported, but other systems could be implemented as necessary (pull requests welcome).

Defaults File

The defaults file (/etc/defaults/elasticsearch or /etc/sysconfig/elasticsearch) for the Elasticsearch service can be populated as necessary. This can either be a static file resource or a simple key value-style hash object, the latter being particularly well-suited to pulling out of a data source such as Hiera.

File source

class { 'elasticsearch':
  init_defaults_file => 'puppet:///path/to/defaults'
}

Hash representation

$config_hash = {
  'ES_HEAP_SIZE' => '30g',
}

class { 'elasticsearch':
  init_defaults => $config_hash
}

Note: init_defaults hash can be passed to the main class and to the instance.

Advanced features

X-Pack/Shield

X-Pack and Shield file-based users, roles, and certificates can be managed by this module.

Note: If you are planning to use these features, it is highly recommended you read the following documentation to understand the caveats and extent of the resources available to you.

Getting Started

Although this module can handle several types of Shield/X-Pack resources, you are expected to manage the plugin installation and versions for your deployment. For example, the following manifest will install Elasticseach with a single instance running X-Pack:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  security_plugin => 'x-pack',
}

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01': }
elasticsearch::plugin { 'x-pack': instances => 'es-01' }

The following manifest will do the same, but with Shield:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  security_plugin => 'shield',
}

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01': }

Elasticsearch::Plugin { instances => ['es-01'], }
elasticsearch::plugin { 'license': }
elasticsearch::plugin { 'shield': }

The following examples will assume the preceding resources are part of your puppet manifest.

Roles

Roles in the file realm (the esusers realm in Shield) can be managed using the elasticsearch::role type. For example, to create a role called myrole, you could use the following resource in X-Pack:

elasticsearch::role { 'myrole':
  privileges => {
    'cluster' => [ 'monitor' ],
    'indices' => [{
      'names'      => [ '*' ],
      'privileges' => [ 'read' ],
    }]
  }
}

And in Shield:

elasticsearch::role { 'myrole':
  privileges => {
    'cluster' => 'monitor',
    'indices' => {
      '*' => 'read'
    }
  }
}

This role would grant users access to cluster monitoring and read access to all indices. See the Shield or X-Pack documentation for your version to determine what privileges to use and how to format them (the Puppet hash representation will simply be translated into yaml.)

Note: The Puppet provider for esusers/users has fine-grained control over the roles.yml file and thus will leave the default roles Shield installs in-place. If you would like to explicitly purge the default roles (leaving only roles managed by puppet), you can do so by including the following in your manifest:

resources { 'elasticsearch_role':
  purge => true,
}

Mappings

Associating mappings with a role for file-based management is done by passing an array of strings to the mappings parameter of the elasticsearch::role type. For example, to define a role with mappings:

elasticsearch::role { 'logstash':
  mappings   => [
    'cn=group,ou=devteam',
  ],
  privileges => {
    'cluster' => 'manage_index_templates',
    'indices' => [{
      'names'      => ['logstash-*'],
      'privileges' => [
        'write',
        'delete',
        'create_index',
      ],
    }],
  },
}

Note: Observe the brackets around indices in the preceding role definition; which is an array of hashes per the format in Shield 2.3.x. Follow the documentation to determine the correct formatting for your version of Shield or X-Pack.

If you'd like to keep the mappings file purged of entries not under Puppet's control, you should use the following resources declaration because mappings are a separate low-level type:

resources { 'elasticsearch_role_mapping':
  purge => true,
}

Users

Users can be managed using the elasticsearch::user type. For example, to create a user mysuser with membership in myrole:

elasticsearch::user { 'myuser':
  password => 'mypassword',
  roles    => ['myrole'],
}

The password parameter will also accept password hashes generated from the esusers/users utility and ensure the password is kept in-sync with the Shield users file for all Elasticsearch instances.

elasticsearch::user { 'myuser':
  password => '$2a$10$IZMnq6DF4DtQ9c4sVovgDubCbdeH62XncmcyD1sZ4WClzFuAdqspy',
  roles    => ['myrole'],
}

Note: When using the esusers/users provider (the default for plaintext passwords), Puppet has no way to determine whether the given password is in-sync with the password hashed by Shield/X-Pack. In order to work around this, the elasticsearch::user resource has been designed to accept refresh events in order to update password values. This is not ideal, but allows you to instruct the resource to change the password when needed. For example, to update the aforementioned user's password, you could include the following your manifest:

notify { 'update password': } ~>
elasticsearch::user { 'myuser':
  password => 'mynewpassword',
  roles    => ['myrole'],
}

Certificates

SSL/TLS can be enabled by providing an elasticsearch::instance type with paths to the certificate and private key files, and a password for the keystore.

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  ssl                  => true,
  ca_certificate       => '/path/to/ca.pem',
  certificate          => '/path/to/cert.pem',
  private_key          => '/path/to/key.pem',
  keystore_password    => 'keystorepassword',
}

Note: Setting up a proper CA and certificate infrastructure is outside the scope of this documentation, see the aforementioned Shield or X-Pack guide for more information regarding the generation of these certificate files.

The module will set up a keystore file for the node to use and set the relevant options in elasticsearch.yml to enable TLS/SSL using the certificates and key provided.

System Keys

Shield/X-Pack system keys can be passed to the module, where they will be placed into individual instance configuration directories. This can be set at the elasticsearch class and inherited across all instances:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  system_key => 'puppet:///path/to/key',
}

Or set on a per-instance basis:

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  system_key => '/local/path/to/key',
}

Licensing

If you use the aforementioned Shield/X-Pack plugins, you may need to install a user license to leverage particular features outside of a trial license. This module can handle installation of licenses without the need to write custom exec or curl code to install license data.

You may instruct the module to install a license through the elasticsearch::license parameter:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  license => $license,
  security_plugin => 'x-pack',
}

The license parameter will accept either a Puppet hash representation of the license file json or a plain json string that will be parsed into a native Puppet hash. Although dependencies are automatically created to ensure that any elasticsearch::instance resources are listening and ready before API calls are made, you may need to set the appropriate api_* parameters to ensure that the module can interact with the Elasticsearch API over the appropriate port, protocol, and with sufficient user rights to install the license.

The native provider for licenses will not print license signatures as part of Puppet's changelog to ensure that sensitive values are not included in console output or Puppet reports. Any fields present in the license parameter that differ from the license installed in a cluster will trigger a flush of the resource and new POST to the Elasticsearch API with the license content, though the sensitive signature field is not compared as it is not returned from the Elasticsearch licensing APIs.

Data directories

There are several different ways of setting data directories for Elasticsearch. In every case the required configuration options are placed in the elasticsearch.yml file.

Default

By default we use:

/usr/share/elasticsearch/data/$instance_name

Which provides a data directory per instance.

Single global data directory

class { 'elasticsearch':
  datadir => '/var/lib/elasticsearch-data'
}

Creates the following for each instance:

/var/lib/elasticsearch-data/$instance_name

Multiple Global data directories

class { 'elasticsearch':
  datadir => [ '/var/lib/es-data1', '/var/lib/es-data2']
}

Creates the following for each instance: /var/lib/es-data1/$instance_name and /var/lib/es-data2/$instance_name.

Single instance data directory

class { 'elasticsearch': }

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  datadir => '/var/lib/es-data-es01'
}

Creates the following for this instance:

/var/lib/es-data-es01

Multiple instance data directories

class { 'elasticsearch': }

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  datadir => ['/var/lib/es-data1-es01', '/var/lib/es-data2-es01']
}

Creates the following for this instance: /var/lib/es-data1-es01 and /var/lib/es-data2-es01.

Shared global data directories

In some cases, you may want to share a top-level data directory among multiple instances.

class { 'elasticsearch':
  datadir_instance_directories => false,
  config => {
    'node.max_local_storage_nodes' => 2
  }
}

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01': }
elasticsearch::instance { 'es-02': }

Will result in the following directories created by Elasticsearch at runtime:

/var/lib/elasticsearch/nodes/0
/var/lib/elasticsearch/nodes/1

See the Elasticsearch documentation for additional information regarding this configuration.

Main and instance configurations

The config option in both the main class and the instances can be configured to work together.

The options in the instance config hash will merged with the ones from the main class and override any duplicates.

Simple merging

class { 'elasticsearch':
  config => { 'cluster.name' => 'clustername' }
}

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  config => { 'node.name' => 'nodename' }
}
elasticsearch::instance { 'es-02':
  config => { 'node.name' => 'nodename2' }
}

This example merges the cluster.name together with the node.name option.

Overriding

When duplicate options are provided, the option in the instance config overrides the ones from the main class.

class { 'elasticsearch':
  config => { 'cluster.name' => 'clustername' }
}

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  config => { 'node.name' => 'nodename', 'cluster.name' => 'otherclustername' }
}

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-02':
  config => { 'node.name' => 'nodename2' }
}

This will set the cluster name to otherclustername for the instance es-01 but will keep it to clustername for instance es-02

Configuration writeup

The config hash can be written in 2 different ways:

Full hash writeup

Instead of writing the full hash representation:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  config                 => {
   'cluster'             => {
     'name'              => 'ClusterName',
     'routing'           => {
        'allocation'     => {
          'awareness'    => {
            'attributes' => 'rack'
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Short hash writeup

class { 'elasticsearch':
  config => {
    'cluster' => {
      'name' => 'ClusterName',
      'routing.allocation.awareness.attributes' => 'rack'
    }
  }
}

Keystore Settings

Recent versions of Elasticsearch include the elasticsearch-keystore utility to create and manage the elasticsearch.keystore file which can store sensitive values for certain settings. The settings and values for this file can be controlled by this module. Settings follow the behavior of the config parameter for the top-level Elasticsearch class and elasticsearch::instance defined types. That is, you may define keystore settings globally, and all values will be merged with instance-specific settings for final inclusion in the elasticsearch.keystore file. Note that each hash key is passed to the elasticsearch-keystore utility in a straightforward manner, so you should specify the hash passed to secrets in flattened form (that is, without full nested hash representation).

For example, to define cloud plugin credentials for all instances:

class { 'elasticsearch':
  secrets => {
    'cloud.aws.access_key' => 'AKIA....',
    'cloud.aws.secret_key' => 'AKIA....',
  }
}

Or, to instead control these settings for a single instance:

elasticsearch::instance { 'es-01':
  secrets => {
    'cloud.aws.access_key' => 'AKIA....',
    'cloud.aws.secret_key' => 'AKIA....',
  }
}

Purging Secrets

By default, if a secret setting exists on-disk that is not present in the secrets hash, this module will leave it intact. If you prefer to keep only secrets in the keystore that are specified in the secrets hash, use the purge_secrets boolean parameter either on the elasticsearch class to set it globally or per-instance.

Notifying Services

Any changes to keystore secrets will notify running elasticsearch services by respecting the restart_on_change and restart_config_change parameters.

Reference

Class parameters are available in the auto-generated documentation pages. Autogenerated documentation for types, providers, and ruby helpers is also available on the same documentation site.

Limitations

This module is built upon and tested against the versions of Puppet listed in the metadata.json file (i.e. the listed compatible versions on the Puppet Forge).

The module has been tested on:

• Debian 7/8
• CentOS 6/7
• OracleLinux 6/7
• Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04
• OpenSuSE 42.x
• SLES 12

Other distro's that have been reported to work:

• RHEL 6
• Scientific 6

Testing on other platforms has been light and cannot be guaranteed.

Development

Please see the CONTRIBUTING.md file for instructions regarding development environments and testing.

Support

Need help? Join us in #elasticsearch on Freenode IRC or on the discussion forum.