I\'ve tried updating the number of replicas as follows, according to the documentation
curl -XPUT \'localhost:9200/_settings\' -d \'
{ \"index\" : { \"number
Yes, you can use index templates. Index templates are a great way to set default settings (including mappings) for new indices created in a cluster.
Index Templates
Index templates allow to define templates that will automatically be applied to new indices created. The templates include both settings and mappings, and a simple pattern template that controls if the template will be applied to the index created.
http://www.elasticsearch.org/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/indices-templates.html
For your example:
curl -XPUT 'localhost:9200/_template/logstash_template' -d '
{
"template" : "logstash-*",
"settings" : {"number_of_replicas" : 4 }
} '
This will set the default number of replicas to 4 for all new indexes that match the name "logstash-*". Note that this will not change existing indexes, only newly created ones.