To ensure data security, Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch clusters are isolated from each
other by default. You can connect clusters to enable cross-cluster searches. This
topic describes how to connect Elasticsearch clusters and configure the cross-cluster
search feature.
Precautions
Due to the adjustment made to the Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch network architecture,
clusters created after October 2020 do not support some features. These features include
X-Pack Watcher, LDAP authentication, cross-cluster reindexing, cross-cluster searches,
and cluster interconnection. The features will be available soon.
Prerequisites
The Elasticsearch clusters that you want to connect meet the following requirements:
- They are of the same Elasticsearch version.
- They belong to the same Alibaba Cloud account.
- They reside in the same virtual private cloud (VPC).
- They use the same deployment method.
Connect Elasticsearch clusters
- Log on to the Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch console.
- In the left-side navigation pane, click Elasticsearch Clusters.
- In the top navigation bar, select a resource group and a region. On the Clusters page, click the ID of the desired cluster.
- In the left-side navigation pane of the Basic Information page, click Security.
- On the page that appears, click Edit next to Cluster Interconnection.
- In the Edit Configuration panel, click Add Cluster.
- In the Add Cluster dialog box, select the IDs of the remote Elasticsearch clusters that you want to
connect.

Notice
- The RAM users of an Alibaba Cloud account can query all Elasticsearch clusters that
belong to the account only after the ListInstance permission is granted to the RAM
users. For more information, see Types of resources that can be authorized.
- After you connect the current Elasticsearch cluster to a remote cluster, you can view
the ID of the current cluster in the Edit Configuration panel of the remote cluster. This indicates that the communication between the two
clusters is bidirectional.
- Click OK.
After you add a cluster, you can find the cluster in the Connected Clusters section
of the
Edit Configuration panel.

Note If you no longer require the added cluster, click Remove in the Actions column to remove the cluster.
After you complete the configuration, you must also perform the operations described
in Configure the cross-cluster search feature. This way, you can search for data in the remote Elasticsearch cluster from the current
Elasticsearch cluster.
Configure the cross-cluster search feature
- Log on to the Kibana console of the remote Elasticsearch cluster.
- Create an index, add a document to the index, and insert data into the document in
the remote Elasticsearch cluster.
- Create an index
PUT /twitter
{
"settings" : {
"index" : {
"number_of_shards" : 3,
"number_of_replicas" : 2
}
}
}
- Create a document and insert data into the document
POST twitter/_doc/
{
"user" : "kimchy",
"post_date" : "2009-11-15T14:12:12",
"message" : "trying out Elasticsearch"
}
Note The index and document are used to test the cross-cluster search feature.
- Log on to the Kibana console of the current Elasticsearch cluster.
- Use one of the following methods to configure the cross-cluster search feature in
the current Elasticsearch cluster.
In the following methods, an Elasticsearch V6.7.0 cluster is used. The methods that
are used to configure the cross-cluster search feature in other Elasticsearch versions
are similar. For more information, see
Cross-cluster search in Elasticsearch V7.X,
Cross-cluster search in Elasticsearch V6.3, and
Cross-cluster search in Elasticsearch V5.5.
- Method 1: Use the internal endpoint of the remote Elasticsearch cluster
PUT _cluster/settings
{
"persistent": {
"cluster": {
"remote": {
"cluster_one": {
"seeds": [
"es-cn-o4xxxxxxxxxxxx4f1.elasticsearch.aliyuncs.com:9300"
]
}
}
}
}
}
- Method 2: Use the IP addresses of the nodes in the remote Elasticsearch cluster
PUT _cluster/settings
{
"persistent": {
"cluster": {
"remote": {
"cluster_one": {
"seeds": [
"10.8.xx.xx:9300",
"10.8.xx.xx:9300",
"10.8.xx.xx:9300"
]
}
}
}
}
}
Notice
- If the current Elasticsearch cluster is a single-zone cluster, you can use Method
1 or Method 2. If the current Elasticsearch cluster is a multi-zone cluster, you can
use only Method 2. Both methods can be used to connect multiple remote Elasticsearch
clusters to the current Elasticsearch cluster.
- You can query the index data in the remote Elasticsearch cluster from the current
Elasticsearch cluster. This applies only if you have configured the domain name or
node IP addresses of the remote Elasticsearch cluster in the current Elasticsearch
cluster for cross-cluster searches. You cannot run similar commands in the remote
Elasticsearch cluster to search for data in the current Elasticsearch cluster. To
search for data in the current Elasticsearch cluster from the remote Elasticsearch
cluster, you must add the domain name or node IP addresses of the current cluster
to the remote cluster.
- Run the following command to check whether the cross-cluster search feature is correctly
configured:
POST /cluster_one:twitter/doc/_search
{
"query": {
"match_all": {}
}
}
If the cross-cluster search feature is correctly configured, the following result
is returned:
{
"took" : 78,
"timed_out" : false,
"_shards" : {
"total" : 3,
"successful" : 3,
"skipped" : 0,
"failed" : 0
},
"_clusters" : {
"total" : 1,
"successful" : 1,
"skipped" : 0
},
"hits" : {
"total" : 1,
"max_score" : 1.0,
"hits" : [
{
"_index" : "cluster_one:twitter",
"_type" : "doc",
"_id" : "qudxxxxxxxxxx_7ie6J",
"_score" : 1.0,
"_source" : {
"user" : "kimchy",
"post_date" : "2009-11-15T14:12:12",
"message" : "trying out Elasticsearch"
}
}
]
}
}