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System Details:
OS: Cent OS 5.5 x86_64
java - 1.7 (1.7.0_25)
tomcat : 6.0.37
solr 4.4 (configured for multi-core)

I had solr 4.4 multicore running perfectly on jetty (although running just one core at the moment).

I need to run the same on tomcat 6 to see if there it can perform better than jetty.

Here is what I did:
1. downloaded tomcat 6
from : http://mirrors.sonic.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-6/v6.0.37/bin/apache-tomcat-6.0.37.tar.gz

2. extracted apache-tomcat-6.0.37.tar.gz to /usr/local/tomcat/
created start up and shutdown scripts and the process runs through user:group tomcat:tomcat check the start up scripts and found tomcat to run fine. I modified the port from 8080 to 8400

3. created a solr.xml under tomcat for the solr app: file: /usr/local/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/solr.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Context docBase="/var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/solr/solr-4.4.0.war" debug="0" privileged="true" allowLinking="true" crossContext="true">
    <Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="/var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/solr" override="true" />
</Context>

4. copy solr.war to core's home-path

cp /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/webapps/solr.war  /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/solr/oncars/

even tried with solr-4.4.war

cp /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/dist/solr-4.4.0.war /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/solr/

5. Edit solrconfig.xml
5.a : I have tried editing the datadir in solrconfig.xml
from : 

<dataDir>${solr.core0.data.dir:}</dataDir>

to: 

<dataDir>${solr.core0.data.dir:/var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/solr/oncars/data}</dataDir>

5.b I have also tried after reverting the above setting

6. copy slf4j jars to tomcat: Encountered lots of sl4j errors in catalina logs when I tried to start solr app from tomcat manager. This was resolved by copying sl4j libraries from solr to tomcat. As given below:

cp -v /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/lib/ext/slf4j-*  /usr/local/tomcat/lib/
cp -v /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/lib/ext/log4j-1.2.16.jar  /usr/local/tomcat/lib/

from 1 to 6 were done to execute existing solr from tomcat. Under Tomcat Manager, '/solr' shows as started. Stop and Start of the same does not throw errors.

I can see that solr folder is created under webapps in tomcat:

ll webapps/solr/

output:

-rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat 5642 Jul 10 11:11 admin.html
drwxr-xr-x 3 tomcat tomcat 4096 Sep 19 18:53 css
-rw-r--r-- 1 tomcat tomcat 1146 Jul 10 11:11 favicon.ico
drwxr-xr-x 4 tomcat tomcat 4096 Sep 19 18:53 img
drwxr-xr-x 4 tomcat tomcat 4096 Sep 19 18:53 js
drwxr-xr-x 2 tomcat tomcat 4096 Sep 19 18:53 META-INF
drwxr-xr-x 2 tomcat tomcat 4096 Sep 19 18:53 tpl
drwxr-xr-x 3 tomcat tomcat 4096 Sep 19 18:53 WEB-INF

When clicked on /solr from tomcat manager i.e. URL: http://localdomain.com:8400/solr/ The following page shows up:

HTTP Status 503 - Server is shutting down

type Status report

message Server is shutting down

description The requested service is not currently available.
Apache Tomcat/6.0.37

SOLR CONFIG: /var/www/projects/solr-oncars/example/solr/solr.xml :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<solr persistent="true">
  <cores adminPath="/admin/cores">
    <core schema="schema.xml" name="oncars" instanceDir="oncars" conf="solrconfig.xml"/>
  </cores>
</solr>

I have tried looking around the web for help, but I couldn't find any that worked. Even resources from serverfault

anup
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1 Answers1

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The issue was probably with solr, since we had modified solrconfig initially and later even solr.xml (of solr) in the process of trial and error.

So, I did the whole thing again from ground zero. This time I referred another, rather relevant How-To

In sort, the mistake I made was to make changes to solr. Don't do that!
Solr Tomcat Wiki suggests: "Solr4.3 requires completely different deployment. These instructions are not current and are for an indeterminate version of Solr."
With wiki you tend to click on the index and miss fine print! I had referred it, therefore messed with working solr (lucky I had taken a back-up).

From the How-To I referred, I learned following things:

1 Don't make changes to a working solr config (i.e. run solr from jetty to check if it starts up fine)

2 Get tomcat up and running prior to adding solr in to it. (run both independently. Stop both the service if you are satisfied that both are fine)

3 Let's say solr path is /usr/local/solr-4.x, then copy solr-4.x.war from /usr/local/solr-4.x/dist/solr-4.x.x.war to /usr/local/solr-4.x/example/solr/solr.war . That's all you need to do in the solr directory. Rest, you need to take few files from solr directory in to tomcat directory (pt. 6)

4 Modify tomcat's server.xml and make sure you have URIEncoding in it:

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
    connectionTimeout="20000"
    redirectPort="8443"
    URIEncoding="UTF-8" />

5 Create solr.xml in tomcat's conf : vim /usr/local/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/solr.xml add following lines:

<Context path="/solr" docBase="/usr/local/solr/example/solr/solr.war" debug="0" crossContext="true">
        <Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="/usr/local/solr/example/solr" override="true"/>
</Context>

note: solr cores are under the path: /usr/local/solr/example/solr/core{0,1,..n}

6 Copy Solr extensions files and log4j configuration file to tomcat:

cp -v /usr/local/solr/example/lib/ext/*  /usr/local/tomcat/lib/
cp -v /usr/local/solr-oncars/example/resources/log4j.properties /usr/local/tomcat/conf/

For the rest, cross-check with the 'How-To'

In the end, grant tomcat ownership to solr and tomcat directories (if tomcat run as user/group 'tomcat'):

chown -R tomcat:tomcat /usr/local/tomcat
chown -R tomcat:tomcat /usr/local/solr

Start up tomcat and access the solr-url, it worked!

anup
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