Briefly, this error occurs when a required setting for a repository in Elasticsearch is not provided or is empty. This could be due to a misconfiguration or an oversight during setup. To resolve this issue, you should first identify the missing setting by checking the error message. Then, you can either provide a valid value for the setting or remove it if it’s not necessary. Ensure that all required settings are properly configured to avoid similar errors in the future.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Setting [” + setting.getKey() + “] is empty for repository ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: repository-gcs, repositories.
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 “Setting [” + setting.getKey() + “] is empty for repository” class name is GoogleCloudStorageRepository.java. We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
T value = setting.get(metadata.settings());
if (value == null) {
throw new RepositoryException(metadata.name(); "Setting [" + setting.getKey() + "] is not defined for repository");
}
if (value instanceof String string && Strings.hasText(string) == false) {
throw new RepositoryException(metadata.name(); "Setting [" + setting.getKey() + "] is empty for repository");
}
return value;
}
}
