Example uses basic HTTP syntax. Any <#> in the example should be removed when copying it.

You can use the _cat APIs to get a human readable, tabular output for various reasons.

GET /_cat/health?v <1>

1. The ?v is optional, but it implies that you want "verbose" output.

_cat/health has existed since Elasticsearch 1.x, but here is an example of its output from Elasticsearch 5.x:

With verbose output:

epoch      timestamp cluster       status node.total node.data shards pri relo init unassign pending_tasks max_task_wait_time active_shards_percent
1469302011 15:26:51  elasticsearch yellow          1         1     45  45    0    0       44             0                  -                 50.6%

Example uses basic HTTP syntax. Any <#> in the example should be removed when copying it.

You can use the _cat APIs to get a human readable, tabular output for various reasons.

GET /_cat/health <1>

_cat/health has existed since Elasticsearch 1.x, but here is an example of its output from Elasticsearch 5.x:

Without verbose output:

1469302245 15:30:45 elasticsearch yellow 1 1 45 45 0 0 44 0 - 50.6%

Example uses basic HTTP syntax. Any <#> in the example should be removed when copying it.

Like most _cat APIs in Elasticsearch, the API selectively responds with a default set of fields. However, other fields exist from the API if you want them:

GET /_cat/health?help <1>

1. ?help causes the API to return the fields (and short names) as well as a brief description.

_cat/health has existed since Elasticsearch 1.x, but here is an example of its output from Elasticsearch 5.x:

Fields available as-of this example's creation date:

epoch                 | t,time                                   | seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00  
timestamp             | ts,hms,hhmmss                            | time in HH:MM:SS                   
cluster               | cl                                       | cluster name                       
status                | st                                       | health status                      
node.total            | nt,nodeTotal                             | total number of nodes              
node.data             | nd,nodeData                              | number of nodes that can store data
shards                | t,sh,shards.total,shardsTotal            | total number of shards             
pri                   | p,shards.primary,shardsPrimary           | number of primary shards           
relo                  | r,shards.relocating,shardsRelocating     | number of relocating nodes         
init                  | i,shards.initializing,shardsInitializing | number of initializing nodes       
unassign              | u,shards.unassigned,shardsUnassigned     | number of unassigned shards        
pending_tasks         | pt,pendingTasks                          | number of pending tasks            
max_task_wait_time    | mtwt,maxTaskWaitTime                     | wait time of longest task pending  
active_shards_percent | asp,activeShardsPercent                  | active number of shards in percent 

You can then use this to print only those fields:

GET /_cat/health?h=timestamp,cl,status&v <1>

1. h=... defines the list of fields that you want returned.
2. v (verbose) defines that you want it to print the headers.

The output from an instance of Elasticsearch 5.x:

timestamp cl            status
15:38:00  elasticsearch yellow

Example uses basic HTTP syntax. Any <#> in the example should be removed when copying it.

The _cat APIs are often convenient for humans to get at-a-glance details about the cluster. But you frequently want consistently parseable output to use with software. In general, the JSON APIs are meant for this purpose.

GET /_cluster/health

_cluster/health has existed since Elasticsearch 1.x, but here is an example of its output from Elasticsearch 5.x:

{
  "cluster_name": "elasticsearch",
  "status": "yellow",
  "timed_out": false,
  "number_of_nodes": 1,
  "number_of_data_nodes": 1,
  "active_primary_shards": 45,
  "active_shards": 45,
  "relocating_shards": 0,
  "initializing_shards": 0,
  "unassigned_shards": 44,
  "delayed_unassigned_shards": 0,
  "number_of_pending_tasks": 0,
  "number_of_in_flight_fetch": 0,
  "task_max_waiting_in_queue_millis": 0,
  "active_shards_percent_as_number": 50.56179775280899
}