How To Install Apache-Solr And Use It With Drupal And ISPConfig (OpenSUSE/Debian)

Solr is the popular, blazing fast open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. Its major features include powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, and rich document (e.g., Word, PDF) handling. I use this on OpenSUSE and Debian (minor tweaks on Debian, just paths to correct but it's almost the same). Packages from 4 of March 2011.

Search On Steroids

Install Drupal. And use ISPConfig 2.

Use this .htacess file in the root of your Drupal installation:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>  
RewriteEngine on
#RewriteBase /  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f  
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1 [L,QSA]  
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/favicon.ico
</IfModule>

Alter the .htacess file in /web/sites/default/files and comment:

#SetHandler Drupal_Security_Do_Not_Remove_See_SA_2006_006
#Options None

Install Drupal. This tutorial doesn't cover full Drupal installation.

Log in as root or sudo as you wish.

Install some dependencies Drupal needs:

pecl install uploadprogress
pecl install json
pecl install apc
pecl install -n solr-beta

Also install Java 1.5 (gives error if 1.6) on your server. (This tutorial doesn't cover Java installation.)

Open your php.ini...

nano -w /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

... and paste the following extensions uploadprogress, apc and solr so the extensions load with PHP:

; Directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside.
extension_dir = /usr/lib64/php5/extensions
extension=uploadprogress.so
extension=apc.so
extension=solr.so

Save your file and restart webserver:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

cd /tmp
wget http://mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/sites/ftp.apache.org/lucene/solr/1.4.1/apache-solr-1.4.1.zip
unzip apache-solr-1.4.1.zip
mv apache-solr-1.4.1 apache-solr
cp -r apache-solr /usr/share/apache-solr

Copy configuration from your Drupal installation, in my case /srv/www/web11/web:

cp /srv/www/web11/web/sites/all/modules/apachesolr/solrconfig.xml /usr/share/apache-solr/example/solr/conf/solrconfig.xml
cp /srv/www/web11/web/sites/all/modules/apachesolr/schema.xml /usr/share/apache-solr/example/solr/conf/schema.xml

cd apache-solr/example
java -jar start.jar

In your browser, test it (remember to open in ISPConfig firewall port 8983):

http://yourwebsite.com:8983/solr/admin/

TEST OK!

ctrl+c in your terminal and apache-solr ends... But never mind.

Let's make a start script so it starts solr when system boots:

nano -w /etc/init.d/solr

And paste this script:

#!/bin/sh -e

# Starts, stops, and restarts solr

SOLR_DIR="/usr/share/apache-solr/example"
JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xmx1024m -DSTOP.PORT=8079 -DSTOP.KEY=stopkey -jar start.jar"
LOG_FILE="/var/log/solr.log"
JAVA="/usr/bin/java"

case $1 in
    start)
        echo "Starting Solr"
        cd $SOLR_DIR
        $JAVA $JAVA_OPTIONS 2> $LOG_FILE &
        ;;
    stop)
        echo "Stopping Solr"
        cd $SOLR_DIR
        $JAVA $JAVA_OPTIONS --stop
        ;;
    restart)
        $0 stop
        sleep 1
        $0 start
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}" >&2
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

Make it executable:

chmod a+rx /etc/init.d/solr

Check what is booting:

chkconfig --list

Oh no! solr is not booting. Of course not!

chkconfig --add solr

Then try to stop it:

service solr stop

Oh. It's not working? Let's try to start it:

service solr start

Test on your browser. 

http://yourdomain.com:8983/solr/admin/

It's ALIVE! apache-solr, search on steroids!

Now you can reboot your server, too, and see apache-solr working. :)