limit - Elasticsearch: Max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144]

Question

I have an issue with a systemd config for ElasticSearch.

[Unit]
Description=platform-elasticsearch
After=syslog.target network.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target

[Service]
User={{ app_user }}
Group={{ app_group }}
Environment=ES_PATH_CONF=/platform/opt/elasticsearch-{{ elasticsearch.version }}/config
Environment=JAVA_HOME=/platform/opt/jdk{{ jdk.major_version }}_{{ jdk.minor_version }}
LimitAS=infinity
LimitRSS=infinity
LimitCORE=infinity
LimitNOFILE=100000
LimitMEMLOCK=100000
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
WorkingDirectory=/platform/var/app/elasticsearch
ExecStart=/platform/opt/elasticsearch-{{ elasticsearch.version }}/bin/elasticsearch
ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID
ExecStop=/bin/kill -s -TERM $MAINPID
TimeoutStopSec=60
# When a JVM receives a SIGTERM signal it exits with code 143
SuccessExitStatus=143 0
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
PIDFile=/platform/var/run/elasticsearch.pid

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

This does not seem to let me configure the vm.max_map_count setting.

Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [2018-07-20T14:53:46,359][INFO ][o.e.b.BootstrapChecks    ] [1oQJNUK] bound or publishing to a non-loopback     address, enforcing bootstrap checks
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: ERROR: [1] bootstrap checks failed
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [1]: max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144]
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [2018-07-20T14:53:46,376][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [1oQJNUK] stopping ...
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [2018-07-20T14:53:46,414][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [1oQJNUK] stopped
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [2018-07-20T14:53:46,414][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [1oQJNUK] closing ...
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [2018-07-20T14:53:46,445][INFO ][o.e.n.Node               ] [1oQJNUK] closed
Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad systemd: platform-elasticsearch.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=78/n/a

The specific issue is the following:

Jul 20 14:53:46 scratchpad elasticsearch: [1]: max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144]

I have been able to start elastic search on the commandline with the following:

sudo su -c 'echo 262144 > "/proc/sys/vm/max_map_count"' &&  
export JAVA_HOME=/platform/opt/jdk1.8.0_181 && 
export ES_PATH_CONF=/platform/opt/elasticsearch-6.3.1/config && 
/platform/opt/elasticsearch-6.3.1/bin/elasticsearch 

can anyone tell me why LimitMEMLOCK=100000 does not work, and how I can effectively set max_map_count from within systemd.

I have also tried to set the following:

cat /etc/security/limits.d/30_elastic_limits.conf

vagrant       hard    nofile     500000
vagrant       hard    memlock     262144

but this seems to be totally ignored by systemd.

Answer 1

Vivek's answer

sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

is correct, however, the setting will only last for the duration of the session. If the host reboots, the setting will be reset to the original value.

If you want to set this permanently, you need to edit /etc/sysctl.conf and set vm.max_map_count to 262144.

When the host reboots, you can verify that the setting is still correct by running sysctl vm.max_map_count