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Diagnose and Repair Elasticsearch Clusters

When configured correctly, Elasticsearch clusters are highly available and fault tolerant. That doesn't necessarily mean they are impervious to failure. Human error and hardware failure are always a possibility. Troubleshooting data availability issues on a distributed system can be a challenge so let's take some time to demystify some basic troubleshooting routines when you notice yellow or even red indexes in your Elasticsearch cluster. In this hands-on lab, you are given the opportunity to: * Use the `_cat` APIs to quickly get vital information about your cluster * Use the `_cluster/allocation/explain` API to find out why and index is or is not allocated * Use the `_settings` API to quickly update index settings

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Lab platform
Lab Info
Level
Advanced
Last updated
Sep 19, 2025
Duration
3h 0m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Troubleshoot the "accounts-1" index.

    Using the Secure Shell (SSH), log in to the data-2 and data-3 nodes as cloud_user via the public IP address.

    Become the elastic user with:

    sudo su - elastic
    

    Start the elasticsearch node with:

    /home/elastic/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch -d -p pid
    

    Use the Kibana console tool to execute the following:

    PUT accounts-1/_settings
    {
      "number_of_replicas": 3
    }
    
  2. Challenge

    Troubleshoot the "accounts-2" index.

    Use the Kibana console tool to execute the following:

    PUT accounts-2/_settings
    {
      "number_of_replicas": 3
    }
    
  3. Challenge

    Troubleshoot the "accounts-3" index.

    Use the Kibana console tool to execute the following:

    PUT accounts-3/_settings
    {
      "index.routing.allocation.exclude._name": null
    }
    
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