How to Install Elasticsearch 8 on Debian 11

Elasticsearch is a highly scalable and distributed open-source full-text search and analytics engine tool. It is designed to store, search, and analyze large volumes of data in real-time, making it a popular tool for a variety of use cases such as log analytics, e-commerce product search, and security analytics.

Elasticsearch uses a document-oriented data model, which means that it stores data in JSON documents that can be easily searched and analyzed. It also provides a powerful query language called Elasticsearch Query DSL, which allows users to perform complex queries on the data stored in the engine.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Elasticsearch on Debian 11.

Step 1: Update Operating System

Update your Debian 11 operating system to make sure all existing packages are up to date:

# apt update && apt upgrade

Also, install:

# apt install curl wget gnupg apt-transport-https

Step 2: Add Elasticsearch Repository

By default, Elasticsearch is not included in the Debian 11 default repository. So you will need to add the Elasticsearch repository to APT.

First, import the Elasticsearch GPG key.

# wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/elasticsearch-keyring.gpg

Then add the Elasticsearch repository.

# echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/elasticsearch-keyring.gpg] https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/8.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-8.x.list

Once you are done, update the repository with the following command:

# apt update

Step 3: Install and Configure Elasticsearch

Now, you can install the Elasticsearch using the following command:

# apt install elasticsearch

After installation is completed, edit Elasticsearch configuration file “/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml”:

# nano /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml

Add the following content:

cluster.name: LinuxTuto
node.name: Debian 11
path.data: /var/lib/elasticsearch
network.host: 127.0.0.1 
xpack.security.enabled: false

Then start and enable the service.

# systemctl start elasticsearch

# systemctl enable elasticsearch

To confirm the status of the service of Elasticsearch, run the command:

$ sudo systemctl status elasticsearch.service

● elasticsearch.service - Elasticsearch
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running)
Docs: https://www.elastic.co
Main PID: 73979 (java)
Tasks: 100 (limit: 2301)
Memory: 1.3G
CPU: 53.939s
CGroup: /system.slice/elasticsearch.service
├─73979 /usr/share/elasticsearch/jdk/bin/java -Xms4m -Xmx64m -XX:+UseSerialGC -Dcli.name=server -Dcli.script=/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elast>
├─74040 /usr/share/elasticsearch/jdk/bin/java -Des.networkaddress.cache.ttl=60 -Des.networkaddress.cache.negative.ttl=10 -Djava.security.manage>
└─74063 /usr/share/elasticsearch/modules/x-pack-ml/platform/linux-x86_64/bin/controller

Step 4: Test Elasticsearch

To verify that Elasticsearch is running correctly, you can use the curl command:

# curl -X GET "localhost:9200/"

If Elasticsearch is working properly, the result should be like this:

{
  "name" : "Debian 11",
  "cluster_name" : "LinuxTuto",
  "cluster_uuid" : "ezWPhn_fQLS5dcSiexroQA",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "8.7.0",
    "build_flavor" : "default",
    "build_type" : "deb",
    "build_hash" : "09520b59b6bc1057340b55750186466ea715e30e",
    "build_date" : "2023-03-27T16:31:09.816451435Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "9.5.0",
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "7.17.0",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "7.0.0"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}

This means that Elasticsearch is active and running on your server.

Step 5: Uninstall Elasticsearch

Run the following script to remove Elasticsearch from your system.

# apt remove elasticsearch

Comments and Conclusion

In this tutorial we have installed the free version which is released under the Elastic license. You can check the Subscriptions page for more information about Elastic license levels.

For additional help or useful information, you can check the official Elasticsearch Documentation.

If you have any questions please leave a comment below.