Dev Bit: How to add plugins to elasticsearch under Mac/Brew

Elasticsearch is a powerful search engine written in Java. Plugins make elasticsearch even more powerful. Two of the most common plugins are

• Kopf (https://github.com/lmenezes/elasticsearch-kopf): Administration tool written with AngularJS.
• Elastic HQ (https://github.com/royrusso/elasticsearch-HQ): Management and monitoring.

However, sometimes it is not easy to find the right place to start. With the Mac/Brew installation, the libexec folder is what you are looking for. Here is the shortcut, simply go to your console and enter:

sudo /usr/local/Cellar/elasticsearch/2.1.1/libexec/bin/plugin install GIT_REPO

Of course your elasticsearch version can be different and you have to replace GIT_REPO with an actual Git repository (e.g. sudo plugin install lmenezes/elasticsearch-kopf/master). You can verify the plugin installation (don't forget to restart!) under http://localhost:9200/_plugin/kopf or http://localhost:9200/_plugin/hq.

I use a Mac, so maybe your paths are different. If you are not sure where elasticsearch lives on your system, go to your browser and enter http://localhost:9200/_nodes?pretty=true&settings=true. This will print out an extensive list of details of your running installation.