Elasticsearch is a distributed search and analytics engine built on Apache Lucene. It handles full-text search, structured queries, and real-time analytics at scale – making it the backbone of the Elastic Stack (ELK). This guide walks through installing Elasticsearch 8.x on Fedora 42 from the official Elastic repository.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elasticsearch 8.x ships with security enabled by default – TLS encryption, authentication, and role-based access control are all turned on out of the box. We will install it on Fedora 42, configure the systemd service, open firewall ports, and verify the setup with curl. For full documentation, see the official Elasticsearch 8.x reference<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elasticsearch 8.x bundles its own JDK, but having a system-wide Java installation is useful for related tools and plugins. Install OpenJDK 17 on Fedora<\/a> along with a few helpful utilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verify the Java version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expected output:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Import the Elastic GPG signing key first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Create the Elasticsearch 8.x repository file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Add the following content:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Press Verify the repository is available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the repository configured, install Elasticsearch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During installation, Elasticsearch 8.x generates security credentials automatically. The installer output contains the superuser password, enrollment tokens, and TLS certificate fingerprint. Save this output – you will need the password shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you missed the installer output, reset the You will be prompted to enter and confirm the new password.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main configuration file is Common settings to adjust for a single-node deployment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n JVM heap size is configured separately in Adjust the heap size lines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reload systemd to pick up the Elasticsearch unit file, then enable and start the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verify the service is running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Confirm Elasticsearch is listening on port 9200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If firewalld is active, open ports 9200\/tcp (REST API) and 9300\/tcp (inter-node communication). Port 9300 is only needed if you plan to run a multi-node Elasticsearch cluster<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verify the ports are open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elasticsearch 8.x has TLS enabled by default. Query the API using the CA certificate and the Enter the password when prompted. A successful response looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Check cluster health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Create a sample index to confirm read and write operations work. This creates an index called Retrieve the document to confirm it was indexed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Expected output:<\/p>\n\n\n\n List all indices on the node.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clean up the test index when done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more on managing index data, see how to delete Elasticsearch index data with curl<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elasticsearch 8.x is now running on Fedora 42 with TLS encryption and authentication enabled by default. The service is managed through systemd and the firewall is configured for API and cluster communication on ports 9200 and 9300.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For production deployments, consider setting up a multi-node cluster for high availability, configuring automated snapshots for backups, and deploying the rest of the Elastic Stack (Kibana, Logstash, Beats)<\/a> for log aggregation and visualization. You can also add Filebeat and Logstash<\/a> to build a complete log pipeline.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elasticsearch is a distributed search and analytics engine built on Apache Lucene. It handles full-text search, structured queries, and real-time analytics at scale – making it the backbone of the Elastic Stack (ELK). This guide walks through installing Elasticsearch 8.x on Fedora 42 from the official Elastic repository. Elasticsearch 8.x ships with security enabled by … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,299,50],"tags":[344,37995,539],"class_list":["post-4800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fedora","category-how-to","category-linux-tutorials","tag-elasticsearch","tag-install-elasticsearch-on-fedora","tag-kibana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163473,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4800\/revisions\/163473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/computingforgeeks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Prerequisites<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Step 1: Install Java on Fedora 42<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
sudo dnf install -y java-17-openjdk java-17-openjdk-devel lsof curl<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\njava -version<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nopenjdk version \"17.0.14\" 2025-01-21\nOpenJDK Runtime Environment (Red_Hat-17.0.14.0.7-1.fc42) (build 17.0.14+7)\nOpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (Red_Hat-17.0.14.0.7-1.fc42) (build 17.0.14+7, mixed mode, sharing)<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 2: Add Elasticsearch 8.x Repository<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
sudo rpm --import https:\/\/artifacts.elastic.co\/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo tee \/etc\/yum.repos.d\/elasticsearch.repo<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n[elastic-8.x]\nname=Elastic repository for 8.x packages\nbaseurl=https:\/\/artifacts.elastic.co\/packages\/8.x\/yum\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https:\/\/artifacts.elastic.co\/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch\nenabled=1\nautorefresh=1\ntype=rpm-md<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nCtrl+D<\/code> after pasting to save and close. Alternatively, write the file directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\necho '[elastic-8.x]\nname=Elastic repository for 8.x packages\nbaseurl=https:\/\/artifacts.elastic.co\/packages\/8.x\/yum\ngpgcheck=1\ngpgkey=https:\/\/artifacts.elastic.co\/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch\nenabled=1\nautorefresh=1\ntype=rpm-md' | sudo tee \/etc\/yum.repos.d\/elasticsearch.repo<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo dnf repolist | grep elastic<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 3: Install Elasticsearch on Fedora 42<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
sudo dnf install -y elasticsearch<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nelastic<\/code> superuser password.<\/p>\n\n\n\nsudo \/usr\/share\/elasticsearch\/bin\/elasticsearch-reset-password -u elastic -i<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 4: Configure Elasticsearch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\/etc\/elasticsearch\/elasticsearch.yml<\/code>. For a single-node setup, the defaults work out of the box. Open the configuration file to review or customize settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\nsudo vi \/etc\/elasticsearch\/elasticsearch.yml<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n# Cluster name - used to auto-discover nodes\ncluster.name: my-cluster\n\n# Node name - defaults to hostname\nnode.name: node-1\n\n# Network - bind to localhost only (default) or specific IP for remote access\nnetwork.host: 0.0.0.0\n\n# Discovery - single node mode\ndiscovery.type: single-node\n\n# Data and log paths (defaults are fine for most setups)\npath.data: \/var\/lib\/elasticsearch\npath.logs: \/var\/log\/elasticsearch<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n\/etc\/elasticsearch\/jvm.options<\/code>. The default is 1GB. For production, set it to half of available RAM (max 32GB).<\/p>\n\n\n\nsudo vi \/etc\/elasticsearch\/jvm.options<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n-Xms2g\n-Xmx2g<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 5: Start and Enable Elasticsearch Service<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
sudo systemctl daemon-reload\nsudo systemctl enable --now elasticsearch<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n$ systemctl status elasticsearch<\/mark>\n\u25cf<\/mark> elasticsearch.service - Elasticsearch\n Loaded: loaded (\/usr\/lib\/systemd\/system\/elasticsearch.service; enabled; preset: disabled)\n Active: active (running)<\/mark> since Fri 2026-03-21 10:15:32 UTC; 12s ago\n Docs: https:\/\/www.elastic.co\n Main PID: 2541 (java)\n Tasks: 89 (limit: 4543)\n Memory: 2.5G\n CPU: 48.231s\n CGroup: \/system.slice\/elasticsearch.service\n \u251c\u25002541 \/usr\/share\/elasticsearch\/jdk\/bin\/java ...\n \u2514\u25002612 \/usr\/share\/elasticsearch\/modules\/x-pack-ml\/platform\/linux-x86_64\/bin\/controller<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo lsof -i :9200<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 6: Configure Firewall<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9200\/tcp --permanent\nsudo firewall-cmd --add-port=9300\/tcp --permanent\nsudo firewall-cmd --reload<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo firewall-cmd --list-ports<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 7: Test Elasticsearch with curl<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
elastic<\/code> superuser credentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\nsudo curl --cacert \/etc\/elasticsearch\/certs\/http_ca.crt -u elastic https:\/\/localhost:9200<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n{\n \"name\" : \"node-1\",\n \"cluster_name\" : \"my-cluster\",\n \"cluster_uuid\" : \"abc123XYZ...\",\n \"version\" : {\n \"number\" : \"8.19.13\",\n \"build_flavor\" : \"default\",\n \"build_type\" : \"rpm\",\n \"build_hash\" : \"...\",\n \"build_snapshot\" : false,\n \"lucene_version\" : \"9.12.0\",\n \"minimum_wire_compatibility_version\" : \"7.17.0\",\n \"minimum_index_compatibility_version\" : \"7.0.0\"\n },\n \"tagline\" : \"You Know, for Search\"\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo curl --cacert \/etc\/elasticsearch\/certs\/http_ca.crt -u elastic https:\/\/localhost:9200\/_cluster\/health?pretty<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 8: Create a Test Index<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
test-index<\/code> and adds a document.<\/p>\n\n\n\nsudo curl --cacert \/etc\/elasticsearch\/certs\/http_ca.crt -u elastic \\\n -X POST \"https:\/\/localhost:9200\/test-index\/_doc\/1\" \\\n -H \"Content-Type: application\/json\" \\\n -d '{\"name\": \"Elasticsearch on Fedora\", \"message\": \"Installation successful\"}'<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo curl --cacert \/etc\/elasticsearch\/certs\/http_ca.crt -u elastic \\\n \"https:\/\/localhost:9200\/test-index\/_doc\/1?pretty\"<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n{\n \"_index\" : \"test-index\",\n \"_id\" : \"1\",\n \"_version\" : 1,\n \"_seq_no\" : 0,\n \"_primary_term\" : 1,\n \"found\" : true,\n \"_source\" : {\n \"name\" : \"Elasticsearch on Fedora\",\n \"message\" : \"Installation successful\"\n }\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo curl --cacert \/etc\/elasticsearch\/certs\/http_ca.crt -u elastic \\\n \"https:\/\/localhost:9200\/_cat\/indices?v\"<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nsudo curl --cacert \/etc\/elasticsearch\/certs\/http_ca.crt -u elastic \\\n -X DELETE \"https:\/\/localhost:9200\/test-index\"<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nConclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n