Quick Start - The 5 Steps

At the end of this chapter, you will have a web app up and running with the mechanical-pencils collection indexed and ready to search, sort, and facet on the URL:
http://localhost:8181/panl-results-viewer/ 

IMPORTANT: This is the Quick Start guide for Solr version 9, if you are using a previous version of Panl, ensure that you have the correct Panl release package and the you refer to the Setting up a Solr 7 or 8 server section in the Appendix for how to index data for those versions.



Image: The In-Build Panl Results Viewer web app, with the mechanical pencils CaFUPs shown

IMPORTANT: Throughout the book the filesystem paths are described using the *NIX nomenclature of a forward slash '/' between the directories, rather than the backslash of Microsoft Windows systems '\'.  So please take care when copying the commands.

  1. Download Solr and Panl

Download the latest release of Synapticloop Panl - this book is using the solr-panl-9-1.1.1 version:

https://github.com/synapticloop/panl/releases

Download the latest version of Apache Solr - this book is using the 9.6.1-slim version:

https://solr.apache.org/downloads.html

WARNING: Solr version 9.7.0 has changed command line options, and some of the in-built scripts are not fully working.


A Note On Running The Commands

These are all of the commands for either Microsoft Windows or *NIX operating systems (Linux/Apple Macintosh).  Should there be any errors - see the 'Getting Started' section for a more in-depth explanation and approach.

IMPORTANT: You will need to replace the
SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY 
and
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY 
references in the commands for your particular setup.

Windows Commands

IMPORTANT: Each of the commands - either Windows or *NIX must be run on a single line - watch out for ↩ continuations.
  1. Create an example cloud instance

This requires no interaction, will use the default setup, two replicas, and two shards under the 'example' cloud node.

Command(s)

cd SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin\solr start -e cloud -noprompt
  1. Create the mechanical pencils collection

This will create and set up the mechanical pencil collection and schema so that the data can be indexed.

Command(s)

cd SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin\solr create -c mechanical-pencils -d ↩
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY\sample\solr\mechanical-pencils\ -s 2 -rf 2
  1. Index the mechanical pencils data

This will index the included sample mechanical pencil data into the Solr instance in the mechanical-pencils collection.

Command(s)

cd SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin\solr post -c mechanical-pencils ↩
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY\sample\data\mechanical-pencils.json
  1. Start the Panl Server

This will start the server and be ready to accept requests.

Command(s)

cd PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin\panl.bat -properties ↩
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY\sample\panl\mechanical-properties\panl.properties
  1. Browse the in-built Panl Results Viewer web app

Open the link http://localhost:8181/panl-results-viewer/ in your favourite browser, choose a collection/FieldSet and search, facet, sort, paginate and view the results

Need help understanding what the Panl server is doing?

Open the link http://localhost:8181/panl-results-explainer/ in your favourite browser, choose a collection and fieldset, paste the canonical URL path from the results viewer and an explanation of the parsing and decoding and the configuration will be presented.

*NIX Commands

IMPORTANT: Each of the commands - either Windows or *NIX must be run on a single line - watch out for ↩ continuations.
  1. Create an example cloud instance

This requires no interaction, will use the default setup, two replicas, and two shards under the 'example' cloud node.

Command(s)

cd SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin/solr start -e cloud -noprompt
  1. Create the mechanical pencils collection

This will create and set up the mechanical pencil collection and schema so that the data can be indexed.

Command(s)

cd SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin/solr create -c mechanical-pencils -d ↩
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/sample/solr/mechanical-pencils/ -s 2 -rf 2
  1. Index the mechanical pencils data

This will index the included sample mechanical pencil data into the Solr instance in the mechanical-pencils collection.

Command(s)

cd SOLR_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin/solr post -c mechanical-pencils ↩
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/sample/data/mechanical-pencils.json
  1. Start the Panl Server

This will start the server and be ready to accept requests.

Command(s)

cd PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY

bin/panl -properties ↩
PANL_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/sample/panl/mechanical-properties/panl.properties
  1. Browse the in-built Panl Results Viewer web app

Open the link http://localhost:8181/panl-results-viewer/ in your favourite browser, choose a collection/FieldSet and search, facet, sort, paginate and view the results

Need help understanding what the Panl server is doing?

Open the link http://localhost:8181/panl-results-explainer/ in your favourite browser, choose a collection and fieldset, paste the canonical URL path from the results viewer and an explanation of the parsing and decoding and the configuration will be presented.

Something Went Wrong?

Work your way through the next section, or have a look at the When Something Goes Wrong section.

Next Steps

For indexing additional data, see the Additional Data section, for deeper understanding of how to set up a new collection and search page from scratch see the A Walkthrough Example - The Book Store section.

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