Install Apache Solr 3.6 on Ubuntu 14.04

Post date:
Sunday, October 12, 2014

Update: I have update this tutorial with a latest release of Apache Solr for Drupal 7 and 8. Read here.

On this quick tutorial, I’ll show you the steps to have a quick default Apache Solr installation using Jetty on an Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS, which is the latest Ubuntu release. These are the steps you need to set up an Apache Solr multicore on Ubuntu

Get default Java and Jetty, on a terminal window type:

#apt-get install default-jdk jetty libjetty-extra libjetty-extra-java

dowload Apache Solr from archives: https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/3.6.2/

#wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/3.6.2/apache-solr-3.6.2.tgz

Extract the file and move the extrated folder under /opt

#mv apache-solr-3.6.2 /opt

rename the folder to "solr":

#mv apache-solr-3.6 solr

Get Jetty init shell, this file is really important since is the shell script designed so Jetty 6 and Solr 3.x can work together:

#wget http://svn.codehaus.org/jetty/jetty/branches/jetty-6.1/bin/jetty.sh or click here

then, remove the default jetty shell, move the new shell file to /etc/init.d folder and give it correct permissions:

#rm /etc/init.d/jetty
#cp jetty.sh /etc/init.d/jetty
#chmod 755 /etc/init.d/jetty

*Optional: create Sorl user, this one is optional since Jetty creates a jetty user on the system by default which you can use instead of creating a new one.

#useradd -d /opt/solr -s /bin/false solr
#chown solr:solr -R /opt/solr

create Solr logs folder:

#mkdir -p /opt/solr/logs
#chown solr:solr -R /opt/solr/logs

create logging file required by Solr:

#nano /opt/solr/example/etc/jetty-logging.xml

and paste the following xml:


    <?xml version="1.0"?>
  <!DOCTYPE Configure PUBLIC "-//Mort Bay Consulting//DTD Configure//EN" "http://jetty.mortbay.org/configure.dtd">
  <!-- =============================================================== -->
  <!-- Configure stderr and stdout to a Jetty rollover log file -->
  <!-- this configuration file should be used in combination with -->
  <!-- other configuration files.  e.g. -->
  <!--    java -jar start.jar etc/jetty-logging.xml etc/jetty.xml -->
  <!-- =============================================================== -->
  <Configure id="Server" class="org.mortbay.jetty.Server">

      <New id="ServerLog" class="java.io.PrintStream">
        <Arg>
          <New class="org.mortbay.util.RolloverFileOutputStream">
            <Arg><SystemProperty name="jetty.logs" default="."/>/yyyy_mm_dd.stderrout.log</Arg>
            <Arg type="boolean">false</Arg>
            <Arg type="int">90</Arg>
            <Arg><Call class="java.util.TimeZone" name="getTimeZone"><Arg>GMT</Arg></Call></Arg>
            <Get id="ServerLogName" name="datedFilename"/>
          </New>
        </Arg>
      </New>

      <Call class="org.mortbay.log.Log" name="info"><Arg>Redirecting stderr/stdout to <Ref id="ServerLogName"/></Arg></Call>
      <Call class="java.lang.System" name="setErr"><Arg><Ref id="ServerLog"/></Arg></Call>
      <Call class="java.lang.System" name="setOut"><Arg><Ref id="ServerLog"/></Arg></Call>
  </Configure>

create default Jetty configuration file:

#nano /etc/default/jetty

Copy/paste these lines:


NO_START=0
JAVA_OPTIONS="-Dsolr.solr.home=/opt/solr/example/solr $JAVA_OPTIONS"
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/default-java
JETTY_HOME=/opt/solr/example
JETTY_USER=solr
JETTY_LOGS=/opt/solr/logs
JETTY_PORT=8983

Run Jetty at Startup:

#update-rc.d jetty defaults

By now you should be able to start the Jetty service and visit the Solr page

#service jetty restart

open a browser window and enter http://localhost:8983/solr/admin you'll see Solr admin page up and running just like the screenshot shows.

solr admin interface

Thats is all! you now have configured a single core Solr installation using Jetty.

Want to configure multicore support for all you projects? easy! just edit the jetty default file:

#nano /etc/default/jetty

and modify the solr.home line so it looks like:


NO_START=0
JAVA_OPTIONS="-Dsolr.solr.home=/opt/solr/example/multicore $JAVA_OPTIONS"
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/default-java
JETTY_HOME=/opt/solr/example
JETTY_USER=solr
JETTY_LOGS=/opt/solr/logs
JETTY_PORT=8983

The multicore/ folder inside /opt/solr/example has the initial configuration of sample cores so you can start using them or add new ones, remember to add new core to the solr.xml file included in the same folder.

Restart Jetty:

#service jetty restart

and visit the Solr Core page in order to see the list of available core in you system http://localhost:8983/solr/ and you should see a list as the screenshot shows: