Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch attempts to update settings for an index but fails due to issues with upgrading some primary shards. This could be due to insufficient resources, network issues, or disk space problems. To resolve this, you can try increasing system resources, checking network connectivity, ensuring there’s enough disk space, or manually relocating the shards. If the issue persists, consider reindexing your data into a new index with the updated settings.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Not updating settings for the index [{}] because upgraded of some primary shards failed – ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: index, settings, admin, indices, upgrade, shards.
Overview
In Elasticsearch, an index (plural: indices) contains a schema and can have one or more shards and replicas. An Elasticsearch index is divided into shards and each shard is an instance of a Lucene index.
Indices are used to store the documents in dedicated data structures corresponding to the data type of fields. For example, text fields are stored inside an inverted index whereas numeric and geo fields are stored inside BKD trees.
Examples
Create index
The following example is based on Elasticsearch version 5.x onwards. An index with two shards, each having one replica will be created with the name test_index1
PUT /test_index1?pretty
{
"settings" : {
"number_of_shards" : 2,
"number_of_replicas" : 1
},
"mappings" : {
"properties" : {
"tags" : { "type" : "keyword" },
"updated_at" : { "type" : "date" }
}
}
}List indices
All the index names and their basic information can be retrieved using the following command:
GET _cat/indices?v
Index a document
Let’s add a document in the index with the command below:
PUT test_index1/_doc/1
{
"tags": [
"opster",
"elasticsearch"
],
"date": "01-01-2020"
}Query an index
GET test_index1/_search
{
"query": {
"match_all": {}
}
}Query multiple indices
It is possible to search multiple indices with a single request. If it is a raw HTTP request, index names should be sent in comma-separated format, as shown in the example below, and in the case of a query via a programming language client such as python or Java, index names are to be sent in a list format.
GET test_index1,test_index2/_search
Delete indices
DELETE test_index1
Common problems
- It is good practice to define the settings and mapping of an Index wherever possible because if this is not done, Elasticsearch tries to automatically guess the data type of fields at the time of indexing. This automatic process may have disadvantages, such as mapping conflicts, duplicate data and incorrect data types being set in the index. If the fields are not known in advance, it’s better to use dynamic index templates.
- Elasticsearch supports wildcard patterns in Index names, which sometimes aids with querying multiple indices, but can also be very destructive too. For example, It is possible to delete all the indices in a single command using the following commands:
DELETE /*
To disable this, you can add the following lines in the elasticsearch.yml:
action.destructive_requires_name: true
Settings in Elasticsearch
In Elasticsearch, you can configure cluster-level settings, node-level settings and index level settings. Here is a quick rundown of each level.
A. Cluster settings
These settings can either be:
- Persistent, meaning they apply across restarts, or
- Transient, meaning they won’t survive a full cluster restart.
If a transient setting is reset, the first one of these values that is defined is applied:
- The persistent setting
- The setting in the configuration file
- The default value
The order of precedence for cluster settings is:
- Transient cluster settings
- Persistent cluster settings
- Settings in the elasticsearch.yml configuration file
Examples
An example of persistent cluster settings update:
PUT /_cluster/settings
{
"persistent" : {
"indices.recovery.max_bytes_per_sec" : "500mb"
}
}An example of a transient update:
PUT /_cluster/settings
{
"transient" : {
"indices.recovery.max_bytes_per_sec" : "40mb"
}
}B. Index settings
These are the settings that are applied to individual indices. There is an API to update index level settings.
Examples
The following API call will set the number of replica shards to 5 for my_index index.
PUT /my_index/_settings
{
"index" : {
"number_of_replicas" : 5
}
}To revert a setting to the default value, use null.
PUT /my_index/_settings
{
"index" : {
"refresh_interval" : null
}
}C. Node settings
These settings apply to nodes. Nodes can fulfill different roles. These include the master, data, and coordination roles. Node settings are set through the elasticsearch.yml file for each node.
Examples
Setting a node to be a data node (in the elasticsearch.yml file):
node.data: true
Disabling the ingest role for the node (which is enabled by default):
node.ingest: false
For production clusters, you will need to run each type of node on a dedicated machine with two or more instances of each, for HA (minimum three for master nodes).
Notes and good things to know
- Learning more about the cluster settings and index settings is important – it can spare you a lot of trouble. For example, if you are going to ingest huge amounts of data into an index and the number of replica shards is set to say, 5, the indexing process will be super slow because the data will be replicated at the same time it is indexed. What you can do to speed up indexing is to set the replica shards to 0 by updating the settings, and set it back to the original number when indexing is done, using the settings API.
- Another useful example of using cluster-level settings is when a node has just joined the cluster and the cluster is not assigning any shards to the node. Although shard allocation is enabled by default on all nodes, someone may have disabled shard allocation at some point (for example, in order to perform a rolling restart), and forgot to re-enable it later. To enable shard allocation, you can update the Cluster Settings API:
PUT /_cluster/settings{"transient":{"cluster.routing.allocation.enable":"all"}}- It’s better to set cluster-wide settings with Settings API instead of with the elasticsearch.yml file and to use the file only for local changes. This will keep the same setting on all nodes. However, if you define different settings on different nodes by accident using the elasticsearch.yml configuration file, it is hard to notice these discrepancies.
- See also: Recovery
Log Context
Log “Not updating settings for the index [{}] because upgraded of some primary shards failed – ” classname is TransportUpgradeAction.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
Integer primaryCount = successfulPrimaryShards.get(index);
int expectedPrimaryCount = metadata.index(index).getNumberOfShards();
if (primaryCount == metadata.index(index).getNumberOfShards()) {
updatedVersions.put(index; new Tuple(versionEntry.getValue().v1(); versionEntry.getValue().v2().toString()));
} else {
logger.warn("Not updating settings for the index [{}] because upgraded of some primary shards failed - " +
"expected[{}]; received[{}]"; index; expectedPrimaryCount; primaryCount == null ? 0 : primaryCount);
}
}
return new UpgradeResponse(updatedVersions; totalShards; successfulShards; failedShards; shardFailures);
