Configuring indices created by Metricbeat 7 or internal collection

When monitoring using Metricbeat 7 or internal collection, data is stored in a set of indices called either:

The settings and mappings for these indices are determined by legacy index templates named .monitoring-{product}. You can retrieve these templates in Kibana by navigating to Stack Management > Index Management > Index Templates, or by using the Elasticsearch _template API:

resp = client.indices.get_template(
    name=".monitoring-*",
)
print(resp)

response = client.indices.get_template(
  name: '.monitoring-*'
)
puts response

const response = await client.indices.getTemplate({
  name: ".monitoring-*",
});
console.log(response);

GET /_template/.monitoring-*

To change the settings of the indices, add a custom index template. You can do that in Kibana, or using the Elasticsearch API:

resp = client.indices.put_template(
    name="custom_monitoring",
    index_patterns=[
        ".monitoring-beats-7-*",
        ".monitoring-es-7-*",
        ".monitoring-kibana-7-*",
        ".monitoring-logstash-7-*"
    ],
    order=1,
    settings={
        "number_of_shards": 5,
        "number_of_replicas": 2
    },
)
print(resp)

response = client.indices.put_template(
  name: 'custom_monitoring',
  body: {
    index_patterns: [
      '.monitoring-beats-7-*',
      '.monitoring-es-7-*',
      '.monitoring-kibana-7-*',
      '.monitoring-logstash-7-*'
    ],
    order: 1,
    settings: {
      number_of_shards: 5,
      number_of_replicas: 2
    }
  }
)
puts response

const response = await client.indices.putTemplate({
  name: "custom_monitoring",
  index_patterns: [
    ".monitoring-beats-7-*",
    ".monitoring-es-7-*",
    ".monitoring-kibana-7-*",
    ".monitoring-logstash-7-*",
  ],
  order: 1,
  settings: {
    number_of_shards: 5,
    number_of_replicas: 2,
  },
});
console.log(response);

PUT /_template/custom_monitoring
{
  "index_patterns": [".monitoring-beats-7-*", ".monitoring-es-7-*", ".monitoring-kibana-7-*", ".monitoring-logstash-7-*"],
  "order": 1,
  "settings": {
    "number_of_shards": 5,
    "number_of_replicas": 2
  }
}

After changing the index template, the updated settings are only applied to new indices.