Binary log (aka transaction log) files path. Optional, default is build-time configured data directory. Introduced in version 1.10-beta.

Binary logs are used for crash recovery of RT index data that would otherwise only be stored in RAM. When logging is enabled, every transaction COMMIT-ted into RT index gets written into a log file. Logs are then automatically replayed on startup after an unclean shutdown, recovering the logged changes.

binlog_path directive specifies the binary log files location. It should contain just the path; searchd will create and unlink multiple binlog.* files in that path as necessary (binlog data, metadata, and lock files, etc).

Empty value disables binary logging. That improves performance, but puts RT index data at risk.

Example:

binlog_path = # disable logging
binlog_path = /var/data # /var/data/binlog.001 etc will be created