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Install and Configure Additional Extractor Instance for High Availability (Windows)

The following guide gives detailed instructions on how to install an additional extractor instance for high availability (slave server) on Windows.

Make sure that you have followed the suggested prerequisites defined in the PoolParty System Requirements.

Note

With release 6.0 a 64-bit build of a Sun/Oracle Java 8 SE Development Kit is required to run PoolParty

Prerequisites for Installation of the Additional Extractor Instance

This guide also assumes that a PoolParty standard installation will be made using the following options:

  • An instance of PoolParty is already installed.

  • The target system is a Windows Server 2012 (64bit).

  • A user (e.g. "poolparty") is defined on the server that should be used to run the Apache Tomcat server and is able to gain administrator rights.

  • You are logged in as this user.

  • PoolParty Tomcat will be running as localhost using port 80.

  • PoolParty's built in Apache Solr server will be running as localhost using port 8983

MASTER Configuration

STEP 1: Ensure solrconfig.xml Is Set to 'Master' for Replication

  • Navigate to each core solrconfig.xml file and ensure the correct settings are enabled for master replication.

  • You can find the files in the following directory: <drive>:\<PPAppDir> \data\solr\{corename}\conf\

  • Ensure the request handler is set to the following:

<requestHandler name="/replication" class="solr.ReplicationHandler">
           <lst name="master">
             <str name="replicateAfter">commit</str>
             <str name="replicateAfter">startup</str>
             <str name="confFiles">schema.xml,stopwords.txt</str>
           </lst>
    </requestHandler>

SLAVE Configuration

STEP 1: Clean up Core Folders

Navigate to <drive>:\<Installation Guide (Linux)

PPAppDir> \data\solr and simply delete all files and folders located here. Extract the solr_Replication_v6.zip and replace the files inside C:\Users\Public\PoolParty\data\solr\

STEP 2: Open the solrcore.properties File and Adapt Your Configuration Settings

The solrcore.properties file will pass the configuration settings to all the necessary cores.

STEP 3: Start Slave Server

Open an elevated command prompt to change the ownership of the modified solr directory:

takeown /f "<drive>:\<PPAppDir>\data\solr" /r /d y
icacls "<drive>:\<PPAppDir>\data\solr" /grant poolparty:F /t /q

Start Solr, using these commands:

net start Solr // if Solr is installed as a service with properties configured
 
<drive>:\<PPAppDir>\index\solr\bin\solr.cmd start -s "<drive>:\<PPAppDir>\data\solr" -DMASTER_CORE_URL=http://my-master.poolparty.biz:80 -DPOLL_TIME=00:00:20 -DBASIC_AUTH_USER=username -DBASIC_AUTH_PWD=password 
// if Solr is not installed as a service, please also adjust properties accordingly

Start PoolParty:

net start Tomcat7

Note

Authorization for the additional instance (slave server) is done configuring users in the auth.xml file that can be found here: <drive>:\<PPAppDir>\config

Post Installation Check

You can check your system, following this procedure: Controlling the Status of Solr Replication

SolrCore Initialisation Failures

If SolrCores have an issue with initialization then it is necessary to change the solr.conf file. It should include environment variables to this startup script so the access to the cores works correctly.

  • Windows: \PoolParty\config\

The following must be appended to solr.conf (adjust variables accordingly)

-DMASTER_CORE_URL=http://(master server URL path here):80 -DPOLL_TIME=00:00:20 -DBASIC_AUTH_USER=(user goes here) -DBASIC_AUTH_PWD=(password goes here)