You can connect a local cluster to other Elasticsearch clusters, known as remote clusters. Once connected, you can search remote clusters using cross-cluster search. You can also sync data between clusters using cross-cluster replication.

To register a remote cluster, connect the local cluster to nodes in the remote cluster using one of two connection modes:

Your local cluster uses the transport layer to establish communication with remote clusters. The coordinating nodes in the local cluster establish long-lived TCP connections with specific nodes in the remote cluster. Elasticsearch requires these connections to remain open, even if the connections are idle for an extended period.

You can use the remote cluster info API to get information about registered remote clusters.

Sniff modeedit

In sniff mode, a cluster is created using a name and a list of seed nodes. When a remote cluster is registered, its cluster state is retrieved from one of the seed nodes and up to three gateway nodes are selected as part of remote cluster requests. This mode requires that the gateway node’s publish addresses are accessible by the local cluster.

Sniff mode is the default connection mode.

The gateway nodes selection depends on the following criteria:

Proxy modeedit

In proxy mode, a cluster is created using a name and a single proxy address. When you register a remote cluster, a configurable number of socket connections are opened to the proxy address. The proxy is required to route those connections to the remote cluster. Proxy mode does not require remote cluster nodes to have accessible publish addresses.

The proxy mode is not the default connection mode and must be configured. Similar to the sniff gateway nodes, the remote connections are subject to the same version compatibility rules as Rolling upgrades.

Configuring remote clustersedit

You can configure remote clusters settings globally, or configure settings on individual nodes in the elasticsearch.yml file.

Dynamically configure remote clustersedit

Use the cluster update settings API to dynamically configure remote settings on every node in the cluster. For example:

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "cluster": {
      "remote": {
        "cluster_one": {
          "seeds": [
            "127.0.0.1:9300"
          ],
          "transport.ping_schedule": "30s"
        },
        "cluster_two": {
          "mode": "sniff",
          "seeds": [
            "127.0.0.1:9301"
          ],
          "transport.compress": true,
          "skip_unavailable": true
        },
        "cluster_three": {
          "mode": "proxy",
          "proxy_address": "127.0.0.1:9302"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

You can dynamically update the compression and ping schedule settings. However, you must re-include seeds or proxy_address in the settings update request. For example:

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "cluster": {
      "remote": {
        "cluster_one": {
          "seeds": [
            "127.0.0.1:9300"
          ],
          "transport.ping_schedule": "60s"
        },
        "cluster_two": {
          "mode": "sniff",
          "seeds": [
            "127.0.0.1:9301"
          ],
          "transport.compress": false
        },
        "cluster_three": {
          "mode": "proxy",
          "proxy_address": "127.0.0.1:9302",
          "transport.compress": true
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

You can delete a remote cluster from the cluster settings by passing null values for each remote cluster setting:

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "cluster": {
      "remote": {
        "cluster_two": { 
          "mode": null,
          "seeds": null,
          "skip_unavailable": null,
          "transport": {
            "compress": null
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Statically configure remote clustersedit

If you specify settings in elasticsearch.yml files, only the nodes with those settings can connect to the remote cluster and serve remote cluster requests. For example:

cluster:
    remote:
        cluster_one: 
            seeds: 127.0.0.1:9300 
            transport.ping_schedule: 30s 
        cluster_two: 
            mode: sniff 
            seeds: 127.0.0.1:9301 
            transport.compress: true 
            skip_unavailable: true 
        cluster_three: 
            mode: proxy 
            proxy_address: 127.0.0.1:9302 

Global remote cluster settingsedit

These settings apply to both sniff mode and proxy mode. Sniff mode settings and proxy mode settings are described separately.

Sniff mode remote cluster settingsedit

Proxy mode remote cluster settingsedit