Set up Apache Solr¶

Here you will install Apache Solr. Open https://downloads.apache.org/lucene/solr in your browser and find the Solr package for the version you want to install. Copy the link to it.

Set up recent version of Solr¶

If you want to use multiple versions of Solr, this is the recommended way to install it, and the procedure is the same for both macOS and Ubuntu. This type of setup allows you to easily have multiple Solr versions and start/stop them when needed. The only drawback is that you have to manually start it each time you need it.

If you want to install it as a service instead, there are instructions at the end of this document.

1 Install¶

In the console, create solr directory in your home directory and position into it:

mkdir ~/solr
cd ~/solr

Now download your chosen Solr package from https://lucene.apache.org/solr/downloads.html, extract it, delete the archive and position into the extracted directory:

wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/7.7.3/solr-7.7.3.tgz
tar xzf solr-7.7.3.tgz && rm solr-7.7.3.tgz
cd solr-7.7.3

2 Start¶

From the installation directory you can start the Solr server using the provided solr command:

./bin/solr start

After the server has started, verify that you can access its web interface on http://localhost:8983/solr.

The command above will start the server in the background, and you can stop it with:

./bin/solr stop

For debugging purposes you might want to have the server running in the foreground with -f switch:

./bin/solr start -f

In this case, stop the server when needed with Control-C.

If you run Solr version 7 or higher, you might need to disable the shard whitelisting if so required by your consumer code (for example eZ Platform Solr Search Engine). You can do that either in the solrconfig.xml file, or by adding a parameter to the start command documented above:

./bin/solr start -f -Dsolr.disable.shardsWhitelist=true

Add a new core¶

You can use solr command to create a new core using a specific configuration. Prepare your configuration in a separate directory, then execute:

./bin/solr create_core -c my_new_core -d /path/to/my/solr/config

Core can also be removed from the server:

./bin/solr delete -c my_new_core

Note: Solr must be running for these commands to work.

To find out about other available options, execute the solr command without arguments and follow the given instructions.

Use a specific Java version¶

If your Solr version requires a different Java version than the one you have installed globally, you can install that specific Java version on aside, and use it to run that specific version of Solr.

First, in the console create java directory in your home directory and position into it:

mkdir ~/java
cd ~/java

Download your chosen Java SE Runtime Environment in the archive format from https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase7-archive-downloads.html and place it in the previously created directory ~/java.

Extract it and delete the archive:

cd ~/java
tar xzf jre-8u202-macosx-x64.tar.gz && rm jre-8u202-macosx-x64.tar.gz

Now you can use that specific version of Java with commands documented above by defining SOLR_JAVA_HOME environment variable on the command line. For example:

SOLR_JAVA_HOME=~/java/jre1.8.0_202.jre/Contents/Home ./bin/solr start -f

Set up Solr version 4.10.4¶

1 Install¶

In the console, create solr directory in your home directory and position into it:

mkdir ~/solr
cd ~/solr

Now download your chosen Solr package from https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/, extract it, delete the archive and position into the extracted directory:

wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/4.10.4/solr-4.10.4.tgz
tar xzf solr-4.10.4.tgz && rm solr-4.10.4.tgz
cd solr-4.10.4

To run this version of Solr, you will also need Java 7. In the console, create java directory in your home directory and position into it:

mkdir ~/java
cd ~/java

Download your chosen Java package in the archive format from https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase7-archive-downloads.html. Download Java SE Runtime Environment 7u51 and place it in the previously created directory ~/java.

Now you can extract it and delete the archive:

cd ~/java
tar xzf jre-7u51-macosx-x64.tar.gz && rm jre-7u51-macosx-x64.tar.gz

If you use macOS, it will prevent you from executing an unverified binary, so make sure you remove the quarantine flag from the downloaded Java version by executing:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/java/jre1.7.0_51.jre

You can now use Java directly from the extracted directory, for example:

~/java/jre1.7.0_51.jre/Contents/Home/bin/java -version

2 Configure¶

A big Solr query might fail because of request header size limitation set on the Jetty connector. If this happens, you will get an error like:

11380 [qtp853119666-17] WARN  org.eclipse.jetty.http.HttpParser  – HttpParser Full for /0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:8983 <--> /0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:57176

To fix this problem, open ~/solr/solr-4.10.4/example/etc/jetty.xml file and configure a bigger request query size:

<Call name="addConnector">
    <Arg>
        <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.bio.SocketConnector">
            <Set name="host"><SystemProperty name="jetty.host" /></Set>
            <Set name="port"><SystemProperty name="jetty.port" default="8983"/></Set>
            <Set name="maxIdleTime">50000</Set>
            <Set name="lowResourceMaxIdleTime">1500</Set>
            <Set name="statsOn">false</Set>
+            <Set name="requestHeaderSize">10240000</Set>
        </New>
    </Arg>
</Call>

3 Start¶

To start Solr, prepare your cores in ~/solr/solr-4.10.4/example/multicore and position into ~/solr/solr-4.10.4/example. Then execute:

~/java/jre1.7.0_51.jre/Contents/Home/bin/java -Djetty.port=8983 -Dsolr.solr.home=multicore -jar start.jar

The server will run in the foreground, and you can stop it when needed with Control-C.

Set up recent version of Solr as a service on Ubuntu (optional)¶

If you will be using only one version of Solr, then it makes sense to install it as a service. This setup is similar to the one on production servers, and it makes it easier to start/stop Solr, and it makes it possible to start Solr automatically after the reboot.

Note: this kind of setup will create solr user as well as solr user group, and you will have to use this user to manage cores and data.

1 Install¶

In order to install Solr as a service, execute the following commands:

sudo apt install default-jre
cd /opt
sudo wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/7.7.3/solr-7.7.3.tgz
sudo tar -xvzf solr-7.7.3.tgz solr-7.7.3/bin/install_solr_service.sh --strip-components 2
sudo ./install_solr_service.sh solr-7.7.3.tgz
sudo rm -rf install_solr_service.sh solr-7.7.3.tgz

2 Start¶

You can control the Solr service with following commands:

sudo systemctl start solr
sudo systemctl stop solr
sudo systemctl restart solr
sudo systemctl status solr

3 Start automatically after reboot¶

To check if Solr service is set to automatically start after the reboot, to enable or disable it, use the following commands:

sudo systemctl is-enabled solr
sudo systemctl enable solr
sudo systemctl disable solr

4 Add a new core¶

When using Solr as a service, cores are located in the /var/solr/data directory.

You can use solr command to create a new core using a specific configuration. Prepare your configuration in a separate directory, then execute:

solr create_core -c my_new_core -d /var/solr/data

If you want to manually create cores (e.g. if you have them in your project repository), you need to use the solr user:

sudo su solr

5 Uninstall Solr as a service¶

If you want to uninstall Solr as a service (e.g. if you decided to have multiple versions of Solr at the same time), you can do that by executing the following commands:

Warning: This will delete all your cores and data in them!

sudo service solr stop
sudo rm -r /var/solr
sudo rm -r /opt/solr-7.7.3
sudo rm -r /opt/solr
sudo rm /etc/init.d/solr
sudo deluser --remove-home solr
sudo deluser --group solr
sudo update-rc.d -f solr remove
sudo rm -rf /etc/default/solr.in.sh