How to Set Up OpenSearch for Magento 2.4.7 on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04

Setting Up OpenSearch for Magento 2.4.7 on Ubuntu

Magento 2.4.7 requires OpenSearch (or Elasticsearch) for its catalog search. Getting it right matters -- a misconfigured search engine means broken product search, failed reindexing, and frustrated customers. This post covers a straightforward install on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, plus an optional cluster setup if you need redundancy.

Prerequisites

• System Requirements:
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS installed.
  • Root or sudo user privileges.
  • Minimum hardware requirements for Magento and OpenSearch.
• Installed Software:
  • Java 11 or higher (required for OpenSearch).
  • LAMP/LEMP stack (Linux, Apache/Nginx, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP) for Magento.
  • Composer (for Magento installation).

Step 1: Update System Packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install Java

sudo apt install openjdk-11-jdk -y
java -version

Step 3: Install OpenSearch

Add the official OpenSearch repository and install:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install opensearch -y

Using the official repo means you'll get a version that's compatible with Magento 2.4.7 out of the box.

Step 4: Configure OpenSearch

Single-Node Configuration

Open the config file:

sudo nano /etc/opensearch/opensearch.yml

Set these values:

cluster.name: magento-cluster
node.name: node-1
network.host: 127.0.0.1
plugins.security.disabled: true  # Disable security for development only

This tells OpenSearch to listen only on localhost, which is what Magento expects when both run on the same box. Note: Don't disable security in production -- this is a dev/staging shortcut only.

Optional: Configuring an OpenSearch Cluster

If you need high availability, you can spread OpenSearch across multiple nodes.

Step 4.1: Prepare Multiple Nodes

You'll need:

• At least two or more servers with Ubuntu 22.04/24.04.
• Each node should have OpenSearch installed following the steps above.

Step 4.2: Configure Each Node

Edit /etc/opensearch/opensearch.yml on each node:

cluster.name: magento-cluster
node.name: node-1  # Change for each node (node-2, node-3, etc.)
network.host: 0.0.0.0
discovery.seed_hosts: ["node1-ip", "node2-ip", "node3-ip"]
cluster.initial_master_nodes: ["node-1", "node-2"]

A few things to note here:

• cluster.name must be identical on every node -- mismatch and they won't find each other
• node.name needs to be unique per node
• discovery.seed_hosts is how nodes discover each other during cluster formation
• cluster.initial_master_nodes bootstraps the cluster on first start

Step 4.3: Configure Firewall and Network Settings

Open the necessary ports on all nodes:

sudo ufw allow 9200/tcp
sudo ufw allow 9300/tcp

Port 9200 handles REST API calls. Port 9300 is for inter-node communication.

Step 4.4: Generate Security Certificates

Navigate to the OpenSearch directory:

cd /usr/share/opensearch/

Generate certificates using the OpenSearch security plugin:

sudo plugins/opensearch-security/tools/securityadmin.sh -cd plugins/opensearch-security/securityconfig/ -ca -cert

Copy the certificates to all nodes and make sure permissions are correct. This is one of those steps that's easy to rush and regret later.

Step 5: Start and Enable OpenSearch

sudo systemctl enable opensearch
sudo systemctl start opensearch

Verify it's actually running:

sudo systemctl status opensearch

Step 6: Install Magento 2.4.7

(Skip this if Magento is already installed.)

Install Composer:

sudo apt install composer -y

Set up the web server and PHP extensions:

• Install Apache/Nginx, PHP 8.x, and required PHP extensions.

Create the Magento project:

composer create-project --repository-url=https://repo.magento.com/ magento/project-community-edition=2.4.7

Set file permissions and ownership, then create a MySQL/MariaDB database and user for Magento.

Run the Magento installation script:

bin/magento setup:install --base-url=http://your-domain.com/ \
--db-host=localhost --db-name=magento --db-user=magento_user --db-password=your_password \
--admin-firstname=Admin --admin-lastname=User --admin-email=admin@example.com \
--admin-user=admin --admin-password=Admin123 --language=en_US \
--currency=USD --timezone=America/Chicago --use-rewrites=1 \
--search-engine=opensearch --opensearch-host=127.0.0.1 --opensearch-port=9200

Step 7: Configure Magento to Use OpenSearch

Already have Magento installed? Just point it at OpenSearch:

bin/magento config:set catalog/search/engine opensearch
bin/magento config:set catalog/search/opensearch_server_hostname 127.0.0.1
bin/magento config:set catalog/search/opensearch_server_port 9200
bin/magento indexer:reindex catalogsearch_fulltext
bin/magento cache:flush

Step 8: Verify the Setup

Check cluster health:

curl -XGET 'http://127.0.0.1:9200/_cluster/health?pretty'

List cluster nodes:

curl -XGET 'http://127.0.0.1:9200/_cat/nodes?v'

Test Magento store search functionality:

• Do a few searches on the storefront and make sure results come back correctly.

Keep an eye on logs for anything unexpected:

sudo tail -f /var/log/opensearch/opensearch.log

That's it -- OpenSearch is running and Magento is using it for catalog search. If you went with the cluster setup, you've also got redundancy in case a node goes down. One thing I'd stress: keep OpenSearch updated, and don't run with security disabled in production. It's tempting to skip the certificate setup, but it's not worth the risk.