How To Install Elasticsearch On Linux for Rails Development

What is elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is an open-source real-time search and analytics engine that runs on top of Lucene, a Java-based indexing and search library.

How to install it on Linux Mint 16 and Ubuntu 14.04

Step 1 – Download elasticsearch

At the command prompt, type:

wget https://download.elasticsearch.org/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-1.3.1.deb

Elasticsearch was at version 1.3.1 at the time of this writing. You can substitute the latest version number when you go to download it.

Step 2 – Install it by double clicking on the deb package or via the command prompt

If you want to install it via the command prompt, type:

sudo dpkg -i elasticsearch-1.3.1.deb

Otherwise, just double click on the .deb package and the Linux installer will prompt you to install it. For example, in Linux Mint 16, a dialog box comes up that asks me to install it. I just click the Install button and it installs.

Starting up elasticsearch

To start elasticsearch, at the command prompt, type:

sudo /etc/init.d/elasticsearch start