Installing Elasticsearch

Install Elasticsearch on your dedicated Elasticsearch server using the elasticsearch.bat command.

When you start Elasticsearch for the first time, the following security configuration occurs automatically:

  • Certificates and keys for TLS are generated for the transport and HTTP layers.
  • The TLS configuration settings are written to elasticsearch.yml.
  • A password is generated for the elastic user.
  • An enrollment token is generated for Kibana.
  1. Open an Administrator command-line shell (Command Prompt or PowerShell) and navigate to your Elasticsearch install folder.
  2. Run the following command to start Elasticsearch: 
    .\bin\elasticsearch.bat
  3. Leave this command window open. After installing, Elasticsearch will continue to run in the foreground. Later, you will configure Elasticsearch to run as a Windows service, but until that stage of the setup process, it must continue running manually in this command window.

    The password for the elastic user and the Kibana enrolment token (highlighted in the example screenshot below) are output to the command window. Copy both of these into a text file now, as you will need to enter them later at different stages of the setup process. Note that this enrollment token is valid for 30 minutes.

  4. Install the International Components for Unicode (ICU) plugin for Elasticsearch, which provides enhanced internationalization support.
    1. Open a new Administrator command-line shell and navigate to your Elasticsearch install folder.
    2. Run the following command to install the plugin. 
      .\bin\elasticsearch-plugin install analysis-icu
    You can close this 2nd command window after installing the plugin. You don't need to restart Elasticsearch at this point, as you will have to restart it later in the setup process, after changing other configuration settings.