How to manage Sitecore Managed Cloud hosted Solr server


Overview

This article defines the steps for managing a Sitecore Managed Cloud hosted Solr server.

It is possible to request the Solr server as an alternative search indexing service when requesting a new set provisioning within the scope of the Sitecore Managed Cloud service. You can read more about how to request a new Managed Cloud set with Solr here.

The existing Managed Cloud deployment can also be switched from Azure Cognitive Search to Solr by raising a service request on Sitecore Support Portal.

Security

When Sitecore Managed Cloud Support deploys a Solr implementation for a customer:

Note: before continuing with the next steps, ensure that you have requested to whitelist the IP address you will use to access your cluster.

How to access Solr server admin UI

After provisioning, Sitecore provides the URL of the Solr server and user credentials. For example, the Solr URL might be:

https://<deployment-name>mcsitecore-deploy.com/solr/

To access the Solr Admin UI, open the URL and enter the username and password.

An example of a Solr Admin UI:

Picture1.png

 

How to manage IP access rules

By default, Solr server allows access only from your own Sitecore Service, and Zookeeper has all incoming traffic blocked. If you need further assistance with Solr IP access rules management, contact Sitecore Support.

How to manage Solr server users

By default, there is only an admin user on a provisioned Solr server. A customer can create a new user using the Solr admin user interface.
Note: Sitecore provides the admin username and password after provisioning has been done.

Steps

For Solr versions higher than 8.1.0 perform the following steps:

  1. Contact the Sitecore Support to whitelist your IP.
  2. Login to your Solr portal: 
    https://<deploymentid>-<environment type>.mcsitecore-deploy.com/
  3. Go to Security and click Add User:

    Picture2.png

  4. Add a user and assign a role if required:

Picture3.png

For Solr versions earlier than 8.1.0:

  1. Contact the Sitecore Support to whitelist your IP.
  2. Use the API to add a new user: 
    curl -u admin:admin_password -H 'Content-type:application/json' -d '{
      "set-user": {
        "newuser": "newpassword"
      }
    }' http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/authentication
  3. Assign this user to the admin role or any other role that suits your needs: 
    curl --user myadmin:password 'http://localhost:8983/solr/admin/authorization' \
      -H 'Content-type:application/json' \
      -d '{
            "set-user-role": {
              "newuser": ["admin"]
            }
          }'

How to upload a configset and create a collection

The provisioned SolrCloud server already contains a valid Sitecore configset. Customers can create new search collections and define new fields through the Solr admin UI.

The best practice for working with Solr configurations is through the documented SolrCloud Configset API for your Solr version, or the Solr admin UI. The usual pattern for making an update to the Solr configuration, such as adding a new search field, is:

  1. Download the current configuration through the API.
  2. Make changes locally.
  3. Upload the change through the Solr admin UI.

How To Browse Configsets and Collections

You can view server files by clicking Cloud, Tree in the menu on the left. Here, you can browse all the configsets and collections data:

Picture4.png

In addition, you can find all the collections by clicking Collections in the menu on the left:

Picture5.png

How to restart Solr server

If you want to restart Solr server, contact Sitecore Support.

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