Before you begin reading this guide, we recommend you try running the Elasticsearch Error Check-Up which analyzes 2 JSON files to detect many configuration errors.
Briefly, this error occurs when Elasticsearch is unable to create the blob container. This error may be caused by a lack of permissions or an issue with the underlying file system. To resolve the issue, you can try checking the file system permissions and ensuring that the necessary directories exist and are writable.
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This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” failed to create blob container ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: repositories, container, plugins.
Overview
An Elasticsearch snapshot provides a backup mechanism that takes the current state and data in the cluster and saves it to a repository (read snapshot for more information). The backup process requires a repository to be created first. The repository needs to be registered using the _snapshot endpoint, and multiple repositories can be created per cluster. The following repository types are supported:
Repository types
| Repository type | Configuration type |
|---|---|
| Shared file system | Type: “fs” |
| S3 | Type : “s3” |
| HDFS | Type :“hdfs” |
| Azure | Type: “azure” |
| Google Cloud Storage | Type : “gcs” |
Examples
To register an “fs” repository:
PUT _snapshot/my_repo_01
{
"type": "fs",
"settings": {
"location": "/mnt/my_repo_dir"
}
}Notes and good things to know
- S3, HDFS, Azure and Google Cloud require a relevant plugin to be installed before it can be used for a snapshot.
- The setting, path.repo: /mnt/my_repo_dir needs to be added to elasticsearch.yml on all the nodes if you are planning to use the repo type of file system. Otherwise, it will fail.
- When using remote repositories, the network bandwidth and repository storage throughput should be high enough to complete the snapshot operations normally, otherwise you will end up with partial snapshots.
Log Context
Log “failed to create blob container”classname is HdfsBlobStore.java We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
try {
mkdirs(path);
} catch (FileAlreadyExistsException ok) {
// behaves like Files.createDirectories
} catch (IOException ex) {
throw new ElasticsearchException("failed to create blob container"; ex);
}
}
return path;
}
Find & fix Elasticsearch problems
