Installation quickstart

OpenSearch supports multiple installation methods: Docker, Debian, Helm, RPM, tarball, and Windows.

This guide uses Docker for a quick local setup. For other installation options, see Installing OpenSearch and Installing OpenSearch Dashboards.

The configurations on this page are intended for local testing. They either disable security or use demo certificates, and they serve OpenSearch Dashboards over HTTP. To set up OpenSearch for production, see Installing OpenSearch and Security configuration.

There are two ways to get started:

Try OpenSearch with a single command – Great for quick demos.
Set up a custom Docker cluster – Ideal for more control.

Prerequisite

Before you begin, install Docker on your machine.

Option 1: Try OpenSearch in one command

Use this method to quickly spin up OpenSearch and OpenSearch Dashboards on your local machine with minimal setup. This configuration disables security.

Start OpenSearch:

docker pull opensearchproject/opensearch:latest && docker run -d -p 9200:9200 -p 9600:9600 -e "discovery.type=single-node" -e "DISABLE_SECURITY_PLUGIN=true" --name opensearch opensearchproject/opensearch:latest

Start OpenSearch Dashboards:

docker pull opensearchproject/opensearch-dashboards:latest && docker run -d -p 5601:5601 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -e "OPENSEARCH_HOSTS=http://host.docker.internal:9200" -e "DISABLE_SECURITY_DASHBOARDS_PLUGIN=true" --name opensearch-dashboards opensearchproject/opensearch-dashboards:latest

This process may take some time. After it finishes, OpenSearch is running on port 9200 and OpenSearch Dashboards on port 5601. To verify that OpenSearch is running, send the following request:

curl http://localhost:9200

You should get a response that looks like this:

{
  "name" : "a937e018cee5",
  "cluster_name" : "docker-cluster",
  "cluster_uuid" : "GLAjAG6bTeWErFUy_d-CLw",
  "version" : {
    "distribution" : "opensearch",
    "number" : <version>,
    "build_type" : <build-type>,
    "build_hash" : <build-hash>,
    "build_date" : <build-date>,
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : <lucene-version>,
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "7.10.0",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "7.0.0"
  },
  "tagline" : "The OpenSearch Project: https://opensearch.org/"
}

To verify that OpenSearch Dashboards has started, go to http://localhost:5601/ in your browser.

Option 2: Set up a custom Docker cluster

Use Docker Compose to run a local multi-node OpenSearch and OpenSearch Dashboards cluster:

Set up a cluster without security – Best for local development.
Set up a cluster with security – Try OpenSearch with security by installing it with default certificates.

Set up a cluster without security

This setup uses a development Docker Compose file with security disabled.

Create a directory for your OpenSearch cluster (for example, opensearch-cluster). Create a docker-compose.yml file in this directory and copy the contents of the Docker Compose file for development into this file.
Start the cluster by running the following command:
```
 docker compose up -d
```

Check that the containers are running:

 docker compose ps

You should see an output similar to the following:

 NAME                    IMAGE                                            COMMAND                  SERVICE                 CREATED          STATUS          PORTS
 opensearch-dashboards   opensearchproject/opensearch-dashboards:latest   "./opensearch-dashbo…"   opensearch-dashboards   30 seconds ago   Up 30 seconds   0.0.0.0:5601->5601/tcp, [::]:5601->5601/tcp
 opensearch-node1        opensearchproject/opensearch:latest              "./opensearch-docker…"   opensearch-node1        30 seconds ago   Up 30 seconds   0.0.0.0:9200->9200/tcp, [::]:9200->9200/tcp, 9300/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9600->9600/tcp, [::]:9600->9600/tcp, 9650/tcp
 opensearch-node2        opensearchproject/opensearch:latest              "./opensearch-docker…"   opensearch-node2        30 seconds ago   Up 30 seconds   9200/tcp, 9300/tcp, 9600/tcp, 9650/tcp

To verify that OpenSearch is running, send the following request:
```
 curl http://localhost:9200
```
You should get a response similar to the one in Option 1.

You can now explore OpenSearch Dashboards by opening http://localhost:5601/.

Set up a cluster with security

This configuration enables security using demo certificates and requires additional system setup.

Before running OpenSearch on your machine, you should disable memory paging and swapping performance on the host to improve performance and increase the number of memory maps available to OpenSearch.

Disable memory paging and swapping:
```
 sudo swapoff -a
```
Edit the sysctl config file that defines the host’s max map count:
```
 sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf
```
Set max map count to the recommended value of 262144:
```
 vm.max_map_count=262144
```
Reload the kernel parameters:
```
 sudo sysctl -p
```
For more information, see important system settings.
Download the sample Compose file to your host. You can download the file with command line utilities like curl and wget, or you can manually copy docker-compose.yml from the OpenSearch Project documentation-website repository using a web browser.

To use cURL, send the following request:
```
 curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opensearch-project/documentation-website/3.9/assets/examples/docker-compose.yml
```
To use wget, send the following request:
```
 wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opensearch-project/documentation-website/3.9/assets/examples/docker-compose.yml
```
First, create a custom admin password. Create (or edit) a .env file in the same directory as your docker-compose.yml file. This file stores environment variables that Docker Compose automatically reads when starting the containers. Add the following line to define the admin password:
```
 OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<custom-admin-password>
```
In your terminal application, navigate to the directory containing the docker-compose.yml file you downloaded and run the following command to create and start the cluster as a background process:
```
 docker compose up -d
```

Confirm that the containers are running using the following command:

 docker compose ps

You should see an output like the following:

 NAME                    IMAGE                                            COMMAND                  SERVICE                 CREATED          STATUS          PORTS
 opensearch-dashboards   opensearchproject/opensearch-dashboards:latest   "./opensearch-dashbo…"   opensearch-dashboards   30 seconds ago   Up 30 seconds   0.0.0.0:5601->5601/tcp, [::]:5601->5601/tcp
 opensearch-node1        opensearchproject/opensearch:latest              "./opensearch-docker…"   opensearch-node1        30 seconds ago   Up 30 seconds   0.0.0.0:9200->9200/tcp, [::]:9200->9200/tcp, 9300/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9600->9600/tcp, [::]:9600->9600/tcp, 9650/tcp
 opensearch-node2        opensearchproject/opensearch:latest              "./opensearch-docker…"   opensearch-node2        30 seconds ago   Up 30 seconds   9200/tcp, 9300/tcp, 9600/tcp, 9650/tcp

Verify that OpenSearch is running. You should use -k (also written as --insecure) to disable hostname checking because the default security configuration uses demo certificates. Use -u to pass the default username and password (admin:<custom-admin-password>):
```
 curl https://localhost:9200 -ku admin:<custom-admin-password>
```
You should get a response similar to the one in Option 1.

You can now explore OpenSearch Dashboards by opening http://localhost:5601/ in a web browser on the same host that is running your OpenSearch cluster. Log in as the admin user using the custom admin password that you set in the .env file.

Common issues

If your containers fail to start or exit unexpectedly, see Common issues in the Docker installation guide.

Stop the cluster

To stop the containers that you started in Option 1, run the following command:

docker stop opensearch opensearch-dashboards

Option 1 doesn’t mount a volume, so the containers store your data internally. To start the containers again with your data intact, use docker start in place of docker stop. Removing the containers with docker rm deletes their data, including any indexes that you create in the following tutorials.

To stop the cluster that you started in Option 2, run the following command from the directory containing your docker-compose.yml file:

docker compose down

This command removes the containers and the network but keeps the named volumes in which the cluster stores your data, so running docker compose up -d again restores the cluster with your data intact. Adding -v to docker compose down deletes the volumes and the data in them.

Other installation types

In addition to Docker, you can install OpenSearch and OpenSearch Dashboards on various Linux distributions and on Windows. For all available installation guides, see Installing OpenSearch and Installing OpenSearch Dashboards.

Next steps

To learn how to send requests to OpenSearch, see Communicate with OpenSearch.

Prerequisite
Option 1: Try OpenSearch in one command
Option 2: Set up a custom Docker cluster
- Set up a cluster without security
- Set up a cluster with security
Common issues
Stop the cluster
Other installation types
Further reading
Next steps

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Installation quickstart

Prerequisite

Option 1: Try OpenSearch in one command

Option 2: Set up a custom Docker cluster

Set up a cluster without security

Set up a cluster with security

Common issues

Stop the cluster

Other installation types

Further reading

Next steps

OpenSearch Links

Get Involved

Resources

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