The open and close index APIs allow to close an index, and later on opening it. A closed index has almost no overhead on the cluster (except for maintaining its metadata), and is blocked for read/write operations. A closed index can be opened which will then go through the normal recovery process.

The REST endpoint is /{index}/_close and /{index}/_open. For example:

POST /my_index/_close

POST /my_index/_open

It is possible to open and close multiple indices. An error will be thrown if the request explicitly refers to a missing index. This behaviour can be disabled using the ignore_unavailable=true parameter.

All indices can be opened or closed at once using _all as the index name or specifying patterns that identify them all (e.g. *).

Identifying indices via wildcards or _all can be disabled by setting the action.destructive_requires_name flag in the config file to true. This setting can also be changed via the cluster update settings api.

Closed indices consume a significant amount of disk-space which can cause problems in managed environments. Closing indices can be disabled via the cluster settings API by setting cluster.indices.close.enable to false. The default is true.

Wait For Active Shards

Because opening an index allocates its shards, the wait_for_active_shards setting on index creation applies to the index opening action as well.