CF9 - install Solr after-the-fact

[Guest]

We have a Windows 2003 server with Multiserver configuration of ColdFusion 9 (and subsequent 9.0.1 updater) installed.  Unfortunately, we installed CF without selecting the Solr Search Server install option, and now are finding a need for it.  What are our options for getting the Solr Search Server installed on the same server? 

Searching through Google, I found some options but not sure which is best:

1. Solr Standalone Installer - seems to be for installing on a separate server, which we do not want to do.  Unclear if this would be safe to install on same server as CF 9, and also would not give ability for any updates to be automatically updated.
2. Do a complete reinstall of CF 9 again on the server, but that would require extra effort and retesting of applications. 
3. Install via CF 9 installation disk.  One blog I found suggested to go through the installation process again, selecting to install with ear/war as multiserver, then would be able to select option to install Solr.  We tried this on a test server, but were getting Solr errors (NullPointerException) when trying to create a new Solr collection.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  I only wish Adobe had better documentation on this, as I would think it could happen more frequently.

Thanks!

Tiana

[Charlie Arehart]

Very interesting question, Tiana. But to be honest, no, it doesn’t come up that often, at least that I’ve noticed (and I’m pretty active on these and other CF troubleshooting forums and lists).

As for solutions, I suspect you’ll find the first option below works well. As far as I know, there’s no problem at all running it on the same machine as CF. And I’d not worry as much about “updates”. It’s not often that updates seem to relate to the Solr engine (though I’ve not studied that really closely.)

But you’re right: it really ought to be easier to enable Solr after the fact (whether for the Standard/Server or Multiserver form of deployment). I too am surprised that it’s not come up before. I’ve just done a fair bit of googling hoping to find someone having discussed it, to no avail.

It would be a cool thing for someone to research/blog about. It may be fairly simple, just as enabling CF’s built-in web server or RDS features can be enabled after the fact, if you know what XML files to tweak. But then the Solr feature in CF runs as a service, so that has to be installed (I suspect that installer will do that), and then there are CF Admin configuration settings that need to be tweaked. I don’t use Solr enough myself to be excited to pursue this myself.

But do consider asking Ray Camden and/or Ben Nadel, who both offer a means on their blogs to answer specific questions. I think they’d be interested in this one, in particular, since it would be a great contribution to the community to document if there’s any solution. Ray can be reached via http://www.raymondcamden.com/contact.cfm, and Ben at http://www.bennadel.com/ask-ben/ask-ben-nadel.htm.

If you find an answer some day, please do share it here. Hope that helps.

/charlie