Elasticsearch: Can't set action.auto_create_index to any value(too restrictive)

[teuneboon]

Elasticsearch version: 6.4.0

Plugins installed: []

JVM version: OpenJDK 1.8.0_181

OS version: Linux 3.16.0-5-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.51-3+deb8u1 (2018-01-08) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior:
When I try to set action.auto_create_index: false I get the following error when starting Elasticsearch:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: the [action.auto_create_index] setting value [false] is too restrictive. disable [action.auto_create_index] or set it to [.watches, .triggered_watches, .watcher-history-*]

After trying some different values(-* and +foobar,-*) I decided to try setting it to exactly what the error message recommended: action.auto_create_index: watches, .triggered_watches, .watcher-history-* which is when I got the amazing error:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: the [action.auto_create_index] setting value [.watches, .triggered_watches, .watcher-history-*] is too restrictive. disable [action.auto_create_index] or set it to [.watches, .triggered_watches, .watcher-history-*]

The initial issue still isn't solved(still can't disable automatic index creation), but this seems like a documentation/errormessage bug at the very least.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install Elasticsearch 6.4.0
2. Put action.auto_create_index: false in elasticsearch.yml
3. (Re)start Elasticsearch

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/es-core-infra

[danielmitterdorfer]

Thanks for raising the issue.

You need to specify the index patterns without any spaces in between. The following works:

action.auto_create_index: ".watches,.triggered_watches,.watcher-history-*"

(note how I removed the spaces after each comma).

I'll create a PR to remove the spaces in the error message so it is copy&pasteable.

[teuneboon]

Alright thanks, this fixes it.

[cavalier23]

Thanks for raising the issue.

You need to specify the index patterns without any spaces in between. The following works:

action.auto_create_index: ".watches,.triggered_watches,.watcher-history-*"

(note how I removed the spaces after each comma).

I'll create a PR to remove the spaces in the error message so it is copy&pasteable.

that means we can't close action.auto_create_index setting? btw, I just tried this on elasticsearch server version of 7.9.2, still can't close auto_create_index! @danielmitterdorfer