How To Install and Configure Solr on Ubuntu 14.04

Solr is a search engine platform that allows you to set up your own “search engine”. This tutorial will teach you how to setup Solr on Ubuntu. Solr is built with Java and therefore we’ll need a web server that is able to serve Java webpages: Apache Tomcat.

Step 1: Installing Java

First off, we’ll need to install python-software-properties, this is needed for being able to use the command add-apt-repository:

apt-get install python-software-properties

We’ll need to install Java 8, thus we need to use an unofficial repository:

add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java

And update:

apt-get update

You will now be able to install Java 8:

apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

You will be asked to agree.

Next, download Solr:

wget http://apache.mirror1.spango.com/lucene/solr/5.2.1/solr-5.2.1.tgz
tar xzf solr-5.2.1.tgz solr-5.2.1/bin/install_solr_service.sh --strip-components=2

Now run the install script:

./install_solr_service.sh solr-5.2.1.tgz

You will see the following message:

Waiting to see Solr listening on port 8983 [/]  
Started Solr server on port 8983 (pid=27009). Happy searching!

It will add Solr as a service as well, for easier management:

Service solr installed.

Solr will be automatically started. To confirm it has started, run:

service solr status

Terminology in Solr

Solr is more complex compared to other software when it comes to terminology.

• Node: A node is an instance of Solr running on a server, for example if Solr is started once on your server, 1 node is running.
• Collection: Documents grouped together in a logical index.
• Core: Solr instance representing a logical index.
• Replica: Replica of a logical index.
• Shard: Section of a collection.

We need to create a core and a collection to begin with.

Step 2: Creating a core and a collection

To create a core and a collection, use:

sudo su - solr -c "/opt/solr/bin/solr create -c CollectionName -n data_driven_schema_configs"

Step 3: Accessing the Solr admin

You can access the Solr admin from the URL http://YourServerIP:8983. In the bottom left corner, you’ll be able to select a core and manage it. If you choose “Documents”, you will be able to add documents which will be indexed by Solr. We can use JSON to add documents. For example:

{
    "number": 1,
    "full_name": "Johnny Appleseed",
    "birth": 1774,
    "death": 1845
}

Click the blue button (‘Submit Document’) to add the document. Solr will add the document and return Status: success.