Upgrading to Elasticsearch 8

7.4 U81+, 7.3 U31+

Elasticsearch 8 is supported and recommended for the latest Liferay DXP Quarterly and Portal GA release out of the box. For specific version compatibility details, refer to the Search Engine Compatibility Matrix.

Important

Before upgrading Elasticsearch, back up your existing data. If something goes wrong during or after the upgrade, roll back to the previous version using the uncorrupted index snapshots. Follow the steps in Backing up Elasticsearch.

To upgrade an existing Elasticsearch 7 server (or cluster) to Elasticsearch 8,

1. Back up the Liferay Company and System Indexes.

2. Back up the application specific indexes for Search Tuning (Synonym Sets and Result Rankings).

3. Prepare the new Elasticsearch installation.

4. Upgrade Elasticsearch

5. If you’re using X-Pack security, it’s enabled by default in Elasticsearch 8. To disable it, add this property:

   xpack.security.enabled: false
   

   See Securing Elasticsearch for detailed coverage of the security configuration.

6. Configure the Elasticsearch connection.

   Note

   The bundled connector for Elasticsearch 7 is used to connect to Elasticsearch 8 through Elasticsearch’s REST API compatibility. See the connector reference guide for the applicable System Settings and configuration file names.

7. Restart Liferay, then reindex all search and spell check indexes.

   Note

   If you performed a rolling upgrade, reindexing is not necessary.

8. Restore Search Tuning indexes from the snapshot. If you were previously using these features, you may have data stored in these indexes.

9. Verify that Search Tuning entries have been carried over.

Upgrading Elasticsearch

If you are using a rolling restart-eligible version, doing a rolling upgrade is the recommended way to upgrade your Elasticsearch cluster as it minimizes downtime and eliminates the need to reindex all your data. Otherwise, follow the full cluster restart upgrade guide.

If you’ve installed a new Elasticsearch server, you can restore most Liferay indexes by triggering a full or concurrent reindex from the UI, once the Liferay database is upgraded.

Note

On Liferay 7.2/7.3, the Search Tuning (Result Rankings and Synonyms) indexes and any custom indexes are not backed by database storage. These indexes must be restored from a snapshot of the pre-upgrade indexes if setting up a new Elasticsearch server for Liferay 7.2/7.3 or when upgrading from Liferay 7.2/7.3 and setting up a new Elasticsearch server.

Restart Liferay and Reindex

Once Liferay is connected with the Elasticsearch cluster, reindex the data into the new Elasticsearch installation:

1. If you’ve performed a full cluster restart upgrade, you must reindex the company, system, and spell check indexes. From the Global Menu (), navigate to Control Panel → Configuration → Search. Click Execute for the Reindex All Search Indexes entry.

2. If you’ve performed a full cluster restart upgrade, you must reindex the Workflow Metrics indexes: from the Global Menu (), navigate to Applications → Workflow—Metrics. Open the Settings menu () and Click Reindex All. Repeat the process for each Virtual Instance.

This restores the indexes built from data stored in the Liferay database. To restore indexes used as primary storage, see Backing Up Elasticsearch.