How to change data location for Elasticsearch

Summary

This guide will help you change the location for the logs and data for the Elasticsearch instance that is bundled with Bitbucket.

Solution

If you have installed your instance on:

Windows

With a Windows service

If you installed Windows as a service using our installer, the following actions were taken:

- System Variables called:

- During the service configuration, these variables were hardcoded in the Windows Service as the following JVM parameters:

So, if you're running a service on Windows, you need to first update the following system variables to:

From here, you can choose to apply one of the alternatives below.

Update the JVM parameters directly on the service

To do that in Bitbucket version up to 4.14.x:

• Open the command window from Start >> Run >> type in 'cmd' >> Enter

• cd to the bin directory <Bitbucket Server installation directory>\bin

• Run from there:

  • tomcat8w //ES//AtlassianBitbucketElasticsearch

    • where AtlassianBitbucketElasticsearch is the service name (you should be able to correctly identify the service name by "right-clicking" on Find the service whose name begins with Atlassian Stash in the list, then right-click on the "Search" service and selecting "Properties". The resulting window have a field "Service Name" right on top that you could use to substitute the AtlassianBitbucketElasticsearch above - this is the default name the installer uses.

• A window will pop up. Click on the Java tab to see the list of current start-up options. Under "Java Options:" form, do you see any of the following JVM parameters. Update them to point to the directory you want them to be stored:

  • -Des.path.logs

  • -Des.path.data

To do that in Bitbucket version 5.x+:

• Open the command window from Start >> Run >> type in 'cmd' >> Enter

• cd to the bin directory <Bitbucket Server installation directory>\elasticsearch\bin

• Run from there:

  • elasticsearch-service-mgr.exe //ES//AtlassianBitbucketElasticsearch

    • where AtlassianBitbucketElasticsearch is the service name (you should be able to correctly identify the service name by "right-clicking" on Find the service whose name begins with Atlassian Stash in the list, then right-click on the "Search" service and selecting "Properties". The resulting window have a field "Service Name" right on top that you could use to substitute the AtlassianBitbucketElasticsearch above - this is the default name the installer uses.

• A window will pop up. Click on the Java tab to see the list of current start-up options. Under "Java Options:" form, do you see any of the following JVM parameters. Update them to point to the directory you want them to be stored:

  • -Des.path.logs

  • -Des.path.data

Remove the previous service and install a new one

Because you've now updated the system variables LOG_DIR and DATA_DIR, you could uninstall the old service and install a new one. Because the system variables are now set to the right values, the service will be installed correctly as the script uses the values of those variables.

In order to do that, run:

Without a Windows service

Update the following system variables (if they exist). Don't worry about them otherwise.

For Bitbucket version up to 4.14.x

• Change the script below and set the paths where you want your Elasticsearch data/log to be stored:

  <Bitbucket Server Installation>\bin\start-search.bat

  set _ES_LOG_PATH=%BITBUCKET_HOME%\log\search set _ES_DATA_PATH=%BITBUCKET_HOME%\shared\search\data

• Start your application manually: Starting and stopping Bitbucket Server

  cd <Bitbucket Server installation directory> bin\stop-search.bat bin\start-search.bat

For Bitbucket version 5.x+

• Change the script below and set the paths where you want your Elasticsearch data/log to be stored:

  <Bitbucket Server Installation>\bin\_start-search.bat

  set _ES_LOG_PATH=%BITBUCKET_HOME%\log\search set _ES_DATA_PATH=%BITBUCKET_HOME%\shared\search\data

• Start your application manually: Starting and stopping Bitbucket Server

  cd <Bitbucket Server installation directory> bin\stop-bitbucket.bat bin\start-bitbucket.bat

Linux

Bitbucket version up to 4.14.x

• Simply change the script below and adapt the variables to the directory where you want Elasticsearch to store log/data:

  <Bitbucket_Installation_Dir>/bin/start-search.sh

  ES_LOG_PATH="$BITBUCKET_HOME/log/search" ES_DATA_PATH="$BITBUCKET_HOME/shared/search/data"

• Restart your Elasticsearch service

  service atlbitbucket_search status service atlbitbucket_search stop service atlbitbucket_search start

Bitbucket version 5.x+

• Simply change the script below and adapt the variables to the directory where you want Elasticsearch to store log/data:

  <Bitbucket_Installation_Dir>/bin/_start-search.sh

  ES_LOG_PATH="$BITBUCKET_HOME/log/search" ES_DATA_PATH="$BITBUCKET_HOME/shared/search/data"

• Restart the Bitbucket Server service to restart Elasticsearch as well

  service atlbitbucket status service atlbitbucket stop service atlbitbucket start