iStern Blog

For some time, I’ve wanted to work with Docker. So I took on the task of creating a Solr container for Sitecore, a container you can turn on and have all the required Solr Cores configured and preinstalled, so it just works with Sitecore. This post is not a detailed introduction to Docker if you want a detailed introduction I suggest looking at their website https://www.docker.com. This post is only meant to be a simple demo to shown how you could combine Docker with Sitecore. Dont use this container for more than testing, it is not suposed to be used in production.

First I found a  suitable  Docker container image to start from , my choice : the Solr:5.3 found here : https://github.com/docker-solr/docker-solr/blob/dfe2c80ca10ca9191ae8ce7c6193ecd47c6c0b5f/5.3/Dockerfile.

I’ve installed the images “spun up a docker container” pulled  the schema file and ran it through Sitecore 8.2 “enrichment” process. Next I started to build my docker file containing all the configuration for building the container ie configuring the different cores . All that happens is  first to copy in the new schema file  to the basic_configset and afterwards copy the basic_configset to multiple new folders one for each core. See the docker file below

FROM solr:5.3

MAINTAINER istern

ENV SOLR_PATH /opt/solr/server/solr

COPY resources/schema.xml $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/conf

RUN cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_core_index && \
echo name=sitecore_core_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_core_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_master_index && \
echo name=sitecore_master_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_master_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_web_index && \
echo name=sitecore_web_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_web_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_fxm_master_index && \
echo name=sitecore_fxm_master_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_fxm_master_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_fxm_web_index && \
echo name=sitecore_fxm_web_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_fxm_web_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_list_index && \
echo name=sitecore_list_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_list_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master && \
echo name=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketing_asset_index_master/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web && \
echo name=sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketing_asset_index_web/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master && \
echo name=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master> $SOLR_PATH//sitecore_marketingdefinitions_master/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web && \
echo name=sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_marketingdefinitions_web/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_suggested_test_index && \
echo name=sitecore_suggested_test_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_suggested_test_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_testing_index && \
echo name=sitecore_testing_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_testing_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/social_messages_master && \
echo name=social_messages_master > $SOLR_PATH/social_messages_master/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/social_messages_web && \
echo name=social_messages_web > $SOLR_PATH/social_messages_web/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_analytics_index && \
echo name=sitecore_analytics_index > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_analytics_index/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_core_indexMainAlias && \
echo name=sitecore_core_indexMainAlias > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_core_indexMainAlias/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_master_indexMainAlias && \
echo name=sitecore_master_indexMainAlias > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_master_indexMainAlias/core.properties && \
cp -r $SOLR_PATH/configsets/basic_configs/ $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_web_indexMainAlias && \
echo name=sitecore_web_indexMainAlias > $SOLR_PATH/sitecore_web_indexMainAlias/core.properties

You can see the project here at github https://github.com/istern/Sitecore-Containers/tree/master/containers/solr/sitecore8.2  the container image is at dockerhub  at https://hub.docker.com/r/istern/solr-sitecore/

You can test it out  by installing docker and then running the following command.

docker run –name nameofyoucontainer -d -p 8983:8983 istern/solr-sitecore:8.2

You can now reach you solr admin interface on your http://localhost:8983

If you want to add an extra core I’ve made a script you can run from your favorite prompt.

 docker exec [NAMEOFYOURSOLRCONTAINER] ./createcore.sh NameOfNewCore

You could combine the above image with docker compose to have both a solr and mongo running in containers. Below is an example  of a docker-compose.yml

version: ‘2.0’
services:
solr:
image: istern/solr-sitecore:8.2
ports:
– “8983:8983”
mongo:
image: mongo
ports:
– “27020:27017”

you can test it by runnning the following command . The “-d” means as a daemon in he background.

docker-compose up -d

and now you have both a solr and mongo server running as  containers .

A big thanks to @pbering for getting me started and helping m with all my silly docker questions.