elasticsearch/docs/reference/index-modules/translog.asciidoc

[[index-modules-translog]]
== Translog

Changes to Lucene are only persisted to disk during a Lucene commit, which is a
relatively expensive operation and so cannot be performed after every index or
delete operation. Changes that happen after one commit and before another will
be removed from the index by Lucene in the event of process exit or hardware
failure.

Because Lucene commits are too expensive to perform on every individual change,
each shard copy also has a _transaction log_ known as its _translog_ associated
with it. All index and delete operations are written to the translog after
being processed by the internal Lucene index but before they are acknowledged.
In the event of a crash, recent transactions that have been acknowledged but
not yet included in the last Lucene commit can instead be recovered from the
translog when the shard recovers.

An Elasticsearch flush is the process of performing a Lucene commit and
starting a new translog. Flushes are performed automatically in the background
in order to make sure the translog doesn't grow too large, which would make
replaying its operations take a considerable amount of time during recovery.
The ability to perform a flush manually is also exposed through an API,
although this is rarely needed.

[float]
=== Translog settings

The data in the translog is only persisted to disk when the translog is
++fsync++ed and committed.  In the event of hardware failure, any data written
since the previous translog commit will be lost.

By default, Elasticsearch ++fsync++s and commits the translog every 5 seconds
if `index.translog.durability` is set to `async` or if set to `request`
(default) at the end of every <<docs-index_,index>>, <<docs-delete,delete>>,
<<docs-update,update>>, or  <<docs-bulk,bulk>> request. More precisely, if set
to `request`, Elasticsearch will only report success of an index, delete,
update, or bulk request to the client after the translog has been successfully
++fsync++ed and committed on the primary and on every allocated replica.

The following <<indices-update-settings,dynamically updatable>> per-index
settings control the behaviour of the translog:

`index.translog.sync_interval`::

How often the translog is ++fsync++ed to disk and committed, regardless of
write operations. Defaults to `5s`. Values less than `100ms` are not allowed.

`index.translog.durability`::
+
--

Whether or not to `fsync` and commit the translog after every index, delete,
update, or bulk request.  This setting accepts the following parameters:

`request`::

    (default) `fsync` and commit after every request. In the event
    of hardware failure, all acknowledged writes will already have been
    committed to disk.

`async`::

    `fsync` and commit in the background every `sync_interval`. In
    the event of hardware failure, all acknowledged writes since the last
    automatic commit will be discarded.
--

`index.translog.flush_threshold_size`::

The translog stores all operations that are not yet safely persisted in Lucene
(i.e., are not part of a Lucene commit point). Although these operations are
available for reads, they will need to be reindexed if the shard was to
shutdown and has to be recovered. This settings controls the maximum total size
of these operations, to prevent recoveries from taking too long. Once the
maximum size has been reached a flush will happen, generating a new Lucene
commit point. Defaults to `512mb`.

`index.translog.retention.size`::

The total size of translog files to keep. Keeping more translog files increases
the chance of performing an operation based sync when recovering replicas. If
the translog files are not sufficient, replica recovery will fall back to a
file based sync. Defaults to `512mb`


`index.translog.retention.age`::

The maximum duration for which translog files will be kept. Defaults to `12h`.


[float]
[[corrupt-translog-truncation]]
=== What to do if the translog becomes corrupted?

In some cases (a bad drive, user error) the translog on a shard copy can become
corrupted. When this corruption is detected by Elasticsearch due to mismatching
checksums, Elasticsearch will fail that shard copy and refuse to use that copy
of the data.  If there are other copies of the shard available then
Elasticsearch will automatically recover from one of them using the normal
shard allocation and recovery mechanism.  In particular, if the corrupt shard
copy was the primary when the corruption was detected then one of its replicas
will be promoted in its place.

If there is no copy of the data from which Elasticsearch can recover
successfully, a user may want to recover the data that is part of the shard at
the cost of losing the data that is currently contained in the translog. We
provide a command-line tool for this, `elasticsearch-translog`.

[WARNING]
The `elasticsearch-translog` tool should *not* be run while Elasticsearch is
running. If you attempt to run this tool while Elasticsearch is running, you 
will permanently lose the documents that were contained only in the translog!

In order to run the `elasticsearch-translog` tool, specify the `truncate`
subcommand as well as the directory for the corrupted translog with the `-d`
option:

[source,txt]
--------------------------------------------------
$ bin/elasticsearch-translog truncate -d /var/lib/elasticsearchdata/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/
Checking existing translog files
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!   WARNING: Elasticsearch MUST be stopped before running this tool   !
!                                                                     !
!   WARNING:    Documents inside of translog files will be lost       !
!                                                                     !
!   WARNING:          The following files will be DELETED!            !
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--> data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog-41.ckp
--> data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog-6.ckp
--> data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog-37.ckp
--> data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog-24.ckp
--> data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog-11.ckp

Continue and DELETE files? [y/N] y
Reading translog UUID information from Lucene commit from shard at [data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/index]
Translog Generation: 3
Translog UUID      : AxqC4rocTC6e0fwsljAh-Q
Removing existing translog files
Creating new empty checkpoint at [data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog.ckp]
Creating new empty translog at [data/nodes/0/indices/P45vf_YQRhqjfwLMUvSqDw/0/translog/translog-3.tlog]
Done.
--------------------------------------------------

You can also use the `-h` option to get a list of all options and parameters
that the `elasticsearch-translog` tool supports.