Apache Solr is an open-source search platform developed in Java. Searching is a very important part of an application. When comes to searching terabytes of data it would be important to consider speed and availability. Solr provides a rich set of features for search.
Apache Solr Features
- Distributed full-text search
- Generates indexes of different file types including rich-text documents
- Integration with big data tools
- Scalability and Clustering
In this tutorial, we will cover the steps to install Apache Solr on Ubuntu 20.04.
Prerequisite
A user with sudo privileges.
Update Ubuntu system
Let us begin by checking for package updates with the command below.
$ sudo apt update
Install Java
Next, run the command below to verify that Java is installed. This is required because Solr is a Java-based software.
$ sudo java -version
If you do not get a similar output as shown in the image above, then try to install Java as follows.
$ sudo apt install default-jdk
Enter y to continue when prompted.
Download Apache Solr
At the time of writing, the most recent Apache Solr release is Solr 8.8.1.
Run the command below to download Apache Solr 8.8.1.
$ wget https://downloads.apache.org/lucene/solr/8.8.1/solr-8.8.1.tgz
Once downloaded, run the next command to extract the Apache Solr archive.
$ sudo tar -xvf solr-8.8.1.tgz
Install Apache Solr as a Service
Next, run the Solr as a service installation script with the command below.
$ sudo bash solr-8.8.1/bin/install_solr_service.sh solr-8.8.1.tgz
Once done, you should see an output similar to what is shown in the image below.
Run the next command to enable the Apache Solr service to start when the system boots.
$ sudo systemctl enable solr
Test Apache Solr
To test your Apache Solr installation, open a web browser and go to YourServerIP:8983.For example, 192.168.16.8:8983.
You should see the Apache Solr dashboard as shown in the image below.
Hereafter, there are so many things you could do with Solr. We suggest that you check out the Apache Solr reference guide which provides exercises that show the capabilities of Solr.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we have shown you how to quickly install Apache Solr on Ubuntu 20.04. If you have any questions or ideas, the Apache Solr community is a great place to interact with other Solr users and developers.
