setting up elasticsearch on your mac with brew

how-to-setup-mac-elasticsearch.md

Install va homebrew

If you don't have homebrew installed - get homebrew here

Then run: brew install elasticsearch

Configuration

Update the elasticsearch configuration file in /usr/local/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml.

Set the value below to false:

discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled: false #(it's true by default)

How to start it

Other sources say to use a removed brew services command. You get it via brew tap gapple/services. Then you're supposed to run brew services start <package-to-start>.

If brew services start elasticsearch doesn't work for you, check the instructions when you run brew info elasticsearch.

Mine says:

To have launchd start elasticsearch at login:
  ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/elasticsearch/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents
Then to load elasticsearch now:
  launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.elasticsearch.plist
Or, if you don't want/need launchctl, you can just run:
  elasticsearch --config=/usr/local/opt/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml

Sources

• Quick Elasticsearch / Kibana / Logstash (ELK stack) Install (for your local mac dev box) - gist.github.com
• Important Configuration Changes - www.elastic.co

When I simply ran "elasticsearch" (instead of running it as a background service), it bombed due to this error:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: unknown setting [discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled] please check that any required plugins are installed, or check the breaking changes documentation for removed settings

The official documentation told me to put this line in the "/usr/local/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml" file:

discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled: false

As it turns out, apparently that line is causing elasticsearch to fail to load.

I simply commented it out, and what do you know, everything started working!

Hi @JayRizzo, maybe the outdated elasticsearch plugin you have installed caused this problem.

Thanks for your guide to checkout the error.
I also got the Connection Refused Issue in brew services start elasticsearch.

Then I follow your way, simply ran elasticsearch, also got the Cannot open file logs/gc.log error (never mind this),
and when I continue to look through the error message, there is another error exception:

[WARN ][o.e.b.ElasticsearchUncaughtExceptionHandler] [z0qDgIg] uncaught exception in thread [main]
org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.StartupException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Plugin [analysis-smartcn] was built for Elasticsearch version 6.2.4 but version 6.5.4 is running
	at xxx
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Plugin [analysis-smartcn] was built for Elasticsearch version 6.2.4 but version 6.5.4 is running
	at xxx

It seems like that I have upgraded elasticsearch by brew upgrade, but I nerver upgrade the analysis-smartcn plugin.
Then I upgrade the plugin by reinstall it:

sudo elasticsearch-plugin remove analysis-smartcn
sudo elasticsearch-plugin install analysis-smartcn

After that, not only simply run elasticsearch but also run brew services start elasticsearch can start elasticsearch successfully.

Hi @JayRizzo and All,

I had the same issue, but I wanted to run the service instead of the downloaded package. Your writeup really helped, and I managed to run ES after editing jvm.options:
/usr/local/etc/elasticsearch/jvm.options

#8:-Xloggc:logs/gc.log
8:-Xloggc:/tmp/logs_gc.log

Thank you to @JayRizzo and @demiurg for helping me debug this!

I had the same issue and it was resolved by the steps suggested by @nyaapass

Hi @JayRizzo, maybe the outdated elasticsearch plugin you have installed caused this problem.

Thanks for your guide to checkout the error.
I also got the Connection Refused Issue in brew services start elasticsearch.

Then I follow your way, simply ran elasticsearch, also got the Cannot open file logs/gc.log error (never mind this),
and when I continue to look through the error message, there is another error exception:

[WARN ][o.e.b.ElasticsearchUncaughtExceptionHandler] [z0qDgIg] uncaught exception in thread [main]
org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.StartupException: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Plugin [analysis-smartcn] was built for Elasticsearch version 6.2.4 but version 6.5.4 is running
	at xxx
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Plugin [analysis-smartcn] was built for Elasticsearch version 6.2.4 but version 6.5.4 is running
	at xxx

It seems like that I have upgraded elasticsearch by brew upgrade, but I nerver upgrade the analysis-smartcn plugin.
Then I upgrade the plugin by reinstall it:

sudo elasticsearch-plugin remove analysis-smartcn
sudo elasticsearch-plugin install analysis-smartcn

After that, not only simply run elasticsearch but also run brew services start elasticsearch can start elasticsearch successfully.

Thanks. This helped me.

Just in case this helps anyone, you should make sure to update the correct JVM logging line depending on what version you have locally.

Most of the examples mention the JVM8 line but I had to modify the JVM9 line.

I also noticed that the jvm.properties.default file actually has the correct locally correct directories listed, I wonder why...

Incorrect in jvm.options
jvm.options:8:-Xloggc:/tmp/logs_gc.log
jvm.options:9-:-Xlog:gc*,gc+age=trace,safepoint:file=/tmp/logs_gc.log:utctime,pid,tags:filecount=32,filesize=64m

Correct in jvm.properties.default!
jvm.options.default:8:-Xloggc:/usr/local/var/log/elasticsearch/gc.log
jvm.options.default:9-:-Xlog:gc*,gc+age=trace,safepoint:file=/usr/local/var/log/elasticsearch/gc.log:utctime,pid,tags:filecount=32,filesize=64m

If you add line discovery.zen.ping.multicast.enabled you won't be able to start the server so don't add that line

Hah someone mentioned that back in 2017 - " FanaHOVA commented on Feb 6, 2017" - but worth repeating :)