How to make elasticsearch document ttl work?

Question

I installed debian package

I am able to push data using curl:

curl -XPUT 'http://mybox:9200/blog/user/dilbert' -d '{
  "name": "Dilbert Brown"
}'

And fetch it

curl -XGET 'http://mybox:9200/blog/user/dilbert'

result:

{
  "_index": "blog",
  "_type": "user",
  "_id": "dilbert",
  "_version": 2,
  "exists": true,
  "_source": {
    "name": "Dilbert Brown"
  }
}

And find it with

curl -XGET 'http://mybox:9200/blog/user/_search?q=name:Dilbert+Brown&pretty=True'

I want to push the same record with ttl of 5 seconds and 5 seconds later get 404 http status code when trying to fetch this entry. Also the entry should not be visible in search results.

NOTE: I tried various combinations of search configurations from

• http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/mapping/ttl-field/
• http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/reference/api/index_/
• http://elasticsearch-users.115913.n3.nabble.com/TTL-in-elastic-search-is-not-working-td4034844.html

None of them helped me out.

Can somebody mention a simple sequence of steps that would let me achieve the targeted outcome?

Answer 1

Here is what works for me:

curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/blog/user/_mapping' -d '{"user": {"_ttl": {"enabled": true, "default": 5000}}}'

curl -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/blog/user/phb' -d '{"name" : "Pointy-Haired Boss"}'

sleep 60  # this is the default deletion interval for the expired documents

curl -XGET http://localhost:9200/blog/user/phb  # 404

Answer 2

@bereal is right.

For ttl to work, you have to enable it first in mapping (by default, it's disabled), and then set the TTL value when indexing documents.

curl -XPUT 'mybox:9200/blog/user/_mapping?pretty' -d '{
  "user": {
     "_ttl": {"enabled": true}
}'

curl -XPUT 'mybox:9200/blog/user/dilbert' -d '{ "name" : "Dilbert Brown", "_ttl": "3m"}'

curl -XGET 'mybox:9200/blog/user/dilbert?pretty'

For more information, please reference

• http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-ttl-field.html
• http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/docs-index_.html#index-ttl

Answer 3

Please take note that you can only setting TTL during create new mapping (type). You cannot enable it after created. I already tried many way to enable it after product release, but cannot. So that I must update code to use the new one which created with TTL enable. For more information, I can see here: http://grokbase.com/t/gg/elasticsearch/132v5y0w11/problem-with-ttl