Briefly, this error occurs when the metadata for a repository in Elasticsearch exceeds the default limit of 5MB. This could be due to a large number of snapshots or indices. To resolve this issue, you can either reduce the number of snapshots or indices in the repository, or increase the limit by adjusting the ‘http.max_content_length’ setting in the Elasticsearch configuration file. However, increasing the limit should be done with caution as it may impact the performance of your Elasticsearch cluster.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” The repository metadata for repository [{}] has size [{}B] which is larger than 5MB. Consider ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: metadata, repositories, blobstore, repository.
Overview
Metadata in Elasticsearch refers to additional information stored for each document. This is achieved using the specific metadata fields available in Elasticsearch. The default behavior of some of these metadata fields can be customized during mapping creation.
Examples
Using _meta meta-field for storing application-specific information with the mapping:
PUT /my_index?pretty
{
"mappings": {
"_meta": {
"domain": "security",
"release_information": {
"date": "18-01-2020",
"version": "7.5"
}
}
}
}Notes
- In version 2.x, Elasticsearch had a total 13 meta fields available, which are: _index, _uid, _type, _id, _source, _size, _all, _field_names, _timestamp, _ttl, _parent, _routing, _meta
- In version 5.x, _timestamp and _ttl meta fields were removed.
- In version 6.x, the _parent meta field was removed.
- In version 7.x, _uid and _all meta fields were removed.
Overview
An Elasticsearch snapshot provides a backup mechanism that takes the current state and data in the cluster and saves it to a repository (read snapshot for more information). The backup process requires a repository to be created first. The repository needs to be registered using the _snapshot endpoint, and multiple repositories can be created per cluster. The following repository types are supported:
Repository types
| Repository type | Configuration type |
|---|---|
| Shared file system | Type: “fs” |
| S3 | Type : “s3” |
| HDFS | Type :“hdfs” |
| Azure | Type: “azure” |
| Google Cloud Storage | Type : “gcs” |
Examples
To register an “fs” repository:
PUT _snapshot/my_repo_01
{
"type": "fs",
"settings": {
"location": "/mnt/my_repo_dir"
}
}Notes and good things to know
- S3, HDFS, Azure and Google Cloud require a relevant plugin to be installed before it can be used for a snapshot.
- The setting, path.repo: /mnt/my_repo_dir needs to be added to elasticsearch.yml on all the nodes if you are planning to use the repo type of file system. Otherwise, it will fail.
- When using remote repositories, the network bandwidth and repository storage throughput should be high enough to complete the snapshot operations normally, otherwise you will end up with partial snapshots.
Log Context
Log “The repository metadata for repository [{}] has size [{}B] which is larger than 5MB. Consider ” classname is BlobStoreRepository.java.
We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
final int len = serialized.length();
if (len > ByteSizeUnit.KB.toBytes(500)) {
logger.debug("Not caching repository data of size [{}] for repository [{}] because it is larger than 500KB in" +
" serialized size"; len; metadata.name());
if (len > ByteSizeUnit.MB.toBytes(5)) {
logger.warn("The repository metadata for repository [{}] has size [{}B] which is larger than 5MB. Consider " +
"moving to a fresh repository for new snapshots or deleting unneeded snapshots from this repository to " +
"ensure stable repository behavior going forward."; metadata.name(); len);
}
return null;
}
