How to set memory limit to ElasticSearch in Windows?

Question

Is there any possible to limit ElasticSearch working set memory on a windows server 2008 R2?

I tried everything online, but nothing seem to work.

Tried to set (environment vars): ES_MIN_MEM ES_MAX_MEM ES_HEAP_SIZE

In the java service: -Xms15g -Xmx15g -Xss256k

In the YML file: bootstrap.mlockall: true

Any idea what am I doing wrong, or if its possible at all to limit RAM in a Windows service?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can set the memory limit for Elastic Search on Windows Server by following command:

[Elasticsearch Path]\bin>elasticsearch-service.bat manager

Note: Run command prompt as administrator

It will open manager as shown here: Image: ElasticSearch service properties

Now go to the 'Java' tab and change settings based on your requirement.

Note: Make sure, you changed it under 'JavaOptions' textbox and also for separate parameters. For example, to set 1GB initial memory pool and maximum memory pool, you can set '1024' MB for both.

You can only use this manager after you install service. For more detail, refer to the 'Using the Manager GUI' section at this link: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/5.1/windows.html#windows

After your change, you need to restart the service. And, you can also see the change reflected in the registry as well under 'elasticsearch-service-x64' node:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Apache Software Foundation\Procrun 2.0\elasticsearch-service-x64\Parameters\Java

Note: It is mandatory to restart the service after any changes made in manager properties window.