Eric London

Eric London

Software engineer, data guy, Open Source enthusiast, New Hampshire resident, husband, father. Fan of guitars, hiking, photography, homebrewing, sarcasm.

Drupal 7: Creating a Centos server installation for Apache, MySQL, Tomcat, PHP, Drupal, and Solr

In this article I’ll show the commands I have been using to set up a fresh Centos server, configured for Apache, MySQL, PHP, Tomcat, Drupal, and Apache Solr. For my article, I used Parallels to create a virtual machine from the Centos 5.6 64bit ISOs I downloaded. To simply this article, all commands are being executed as root, firewall configurations and performance tweaks are not accounted for.

Once the distribution is installed, the first thing I do is upgrade all packages.

$ yum update

Install PHP, Apache, and MySQL

$ yum install php53 php53-gd php53-mbstring php53-mysql php53-xml mysql-server httpd

Set runlevels for Apache and MySQL

$ chkconfig --level 2345 httpd on
$ chkconfig --level 2345 mysqld on

Install subversion. I chose to use subversion for this article because the Drupal 6 installation works well with svn:externals to fetch the SolrPhpClient library. All subversion commands are connecting to a local subversion repository. If you are using an external server (like Beanstalk), you will have to transpose all commands from using “file://” to “https://”.

$ yum install subversion

Add a new local subversion repository (OPTIONAL).

$ mkdir /var/subversion
$ svnadmin create /var/subversion/example.com
$ svn mkdir file:///var/subversion/example.com/trunk -m "added trunk"
$ svn mkdir file:///var/subversion/example.com/branches -m "added branches"
$ svn mkdir file:///var/subversion/example.com/tags -m "added tags"

Download/setup drush

$ cd /var/www
$ wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drush-7.x-4.4.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf drush-7.x-4.4.tar.gz
$ ln -s /var/www/drush/drush /usr/local/bin/drush

Create a vhost location on the server for the Drupal installation.

$ mkdir /var/www/vhosts
$ cd /var/www/vhosts
$ drush dl drupal
$ mv drupal-7.0/ example.com

Integrate the Drupal files with subversion

$ cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com
$ svn co file:///var/subversion/example.com/trunk .
$ svn add * .htaccess
$ svn commit -m "downloaded drupal"

Download the Drupal apachesolr module

# make a folder for contrib modules
$ mkdir /var/www/vhosts/example.com/sites/all/modules/contrib
$ cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com/sites/all/modules/contrib

# note: in the below command, you may be prompted to choose which version of the Solr module to install. I choose option 2 for the Supported version
$ drush dl apachesolr

# commit to subversion
$ cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com/sites/all/modules
$ svn add contrib
$ svn commit -m "added contrib folder and apachesolr module"

Setup MySQL

# start mysql
$ /etc/init.d/mysqld start

# set root password
$ /usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password 'new-password'

# create new database, user, and set permissions
$ mysql --execute="create database db_example"
$ mysql --execute="grant all privileges on db_example.* to 'example-user'@'localhost' identified by 'some_password'"

Setup Apache vhost

$ cd /etc/httpd/conf.d

# create a new file "example.com.conf", with the contents:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<Directory /var/www/vhosts>
  AllowOverride All
</Directory>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/example.com
  ErrorLog logs/example.com-error_log
  CustomLog logs/example.com-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

Reset Apache file permissions. NOTE: you will need a more solid/secure configuration for this!

$ cd /var/www
$ chown -R apache.apache drush*
$ chown -R apache.apache vhosts

Start Apache

$ /etc/init.d/httpd start

Install Drupal via drush

$ cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com

# note: you can set your user 1 username, password, email, etc in the following command if desired. type "drush help si" for more install options
$ drush site-install standard --sites-subdir=example.com --db-url=mysqli://example-user:some_password@localhost/db_example

At this point, you should be able to browse to your site and it will be up and running.

Drupal Installed

Now we move onto Tomcat and Solr.

Installing Tomcat and Java. The default Centos yum repositories provide Tomcat5. I prefer Tomcat6, so there are some extras steps below and a dependency issue I had to resolve.

# added repo file to get tomcat6:
$ cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
$ wget http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage50.repo

# install Java JDK:
$ yum install java-1.6.0-openjdk

# install tomcat6:
$ yum install tomcat6 tomcat6-admin-webapps tomcat6-webapps

# dang, dependency issue... (!)

java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-1.4.2.0-40jpp.115.x86_64 from base has depsolving problems
  --> Missing Dependency: /usr/bin/rebuild-security-providers is needed by package java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-1.4.2.0-40jpp.115.x86_64 (base)
Error: Missing Dependency: /usr/bin/rebuild-security-providers is needed by package java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-1.4.2.0-40jpp.115.x86_64 (base)
 You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
 You could try running: package-cleanup --problems
                        package-cleanup --dupes
                        rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest
The program package-cleanup is found in the yum-utils package.

# Fixing dependency issue (OPTIONAL):
$ mkdir ~/downloads
$ cd ~/downloads
$ wget http://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/linux/centos/images/jpackage-utils-compat-el5-0.0.1-1.noarch.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh jpackage-utils-compat-el5-0.0.1-1.noarch.rpm
$ yum install tomcat6 tomcat6-admin-webapps tomcat6-webapps

# setting tomcat runlevels
$ chkconfig --level 2345 tomcat6 on

# starting tomcat
$ /etc/init.d/tomcat6 start

At this point, you should be able to access Tomcat in your browser (http://example.com:8080)

Tomcat homepage

Downloading Solr Java library.

$ cd ~/downloads
# note: you may need to choose a different mirror to download
$ wget http://www.fightrice.com/mirrors/apache//lucene/solr/1.4.1/apache-solr-1.4.1.tgz
$ tar -xzf apache-solr-1.4.1.tgz

# copy/rename solr war file into Tomcat webapps directory
$ cp ~/downloads/apache-solr-1.4.1/dist/apache-solr-1.4.1.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr.war

# copy solr files
$ cp -r ~/downloads/apache-solr-1.4.1/example/solr/ /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/

Copying the java war file into the Tomcat webapps folder will create this directory automatically:

/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr

Create Catalina config file to link war file to solr directory:

$ cd /etc/tomcat6/Catalina/localhost

# create new file: "solr.xml", with the contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <Context docBase="/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr.war" debug="0" privileged="true" allowLinking="true" crossContext="true">
  <Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="/var/lib/tomcat6/solr" override="true" />
</Context>

Setup Tomcat admin user(s):

# edit file: /etc/tomcat6/tomcat-users.xml, ensure similar contents exist:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<tomcat-users>
  <role rolename="admin"/>
  <role rolename="manager"/>
  <user username="eric" password="supersecretpassword" roles="admin,manager"/>
</tomcat-users>

Update WEB-INF/web.xml file:

# edit file: /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr/WEB-INF/web.xml, update section to reflect solr path:

<env-entry>
  <env-entry-name>solr/home</env-entry-name>
  <env-entry-value>/var/lib/tomcat6/solr</env-entry-value>
  <env-entry-type>java.lang.String</env-entry-type>
</env-entry>

Copy conf files from Drupal apachesolr module into Tomcat Solr conf directory (overwrite):

$ cp /var/www/vhosts/example.com/sites/all/modules/contrib/apachesolr/protwords.txt /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf/
$ cp /var/www/vhosts/example.com/sites/all/modules/contrib/apachesolr/schema.xml /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf/
$ cp /var/www/vhosts/example.com/sites/all/modules/contrib/apachesolr/solrconfig.xml /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf/

Reset Tomcat permissions/ownership:

$ cd /var/lib
$ chown -R tomcat.tomcat tomcat6/

Restart Tomcat

$ /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

At this point, you should be able to access the solr/admin tomcat Page (http://example.com:8080/solr/admin)

Solr Admin

If things are not working well at this point, check the Tomcat logs:

/var/log/tomcat6/catalina.out

And, ensure the solr java module is listed in the Tomcat Web Application Manager: http://example.com:8080/manager/html

If all is well, you can now enable the Drupal apachesolr modules:

$ cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com
$ drush en apachesolr apachesolr_search apachesolr_taxonomy apachesolr_access --uri=example.com

Log into your Drupal site. NOTE: default account (via drush): admin/admin

Edit default Apache Solr Host Settings: URL: http://example.com/admin/config/search/apachesolr/server/solr/edit Change url to: http://example.com:8080/solr, and save form.

Go to Drupal search settings page: URL: http://example.com/admin/config/search/settings Change the default search mode to “Apache Solr search”, and save form.

Now, you are ready to test the indexing and integration.

Add a new piece of content to test indexing.

# Example:
# http://example.com/node/add/article
# title: Test Article
# Body: test test test

Browse to solr index page: URL: http://example.com/admin/config/search/apachesolr/index Select: Index queued content, and click on Begin button You should see a status message like: “1 item processed successfully.” and “Number of documents in index: 0 (1 sent but not yet processed)” A few minutes later, refreshing the index page should show: “Number of documents in index: 1”

Search for “test” to verify Solr results. URL: http://example.com/search/site/test

Solr Search Results

You can also review search results via solr/admin URL: http://example.com:8080/solr/admin/ Enter “test” in query string box and click search

Part 2, Multicore Configuration (OPTIONAL)

If you need to run multiple sites off a single Solr Tomcat installation, you can setup multicore..

Copy the multicore xml file into your solr directory:

$ cp ~/downloads/apache-solr-1.4.1/example/multicore/solr.xml /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/

Create a new directory for each multisite in the solr directory:

$ mkdir /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/example.com

Replicate the solr conf directory into the new multisite directory:

cp -r /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/example.com/conf/

Update the solr.xml file:

# edit file: /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/solr.xml, added <core> section for each site:
<cores adminPath="/admin/cores">
  <core name="example.com" instanceDir="example.com" />
</cores>

Restart Tomcat

$ /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

Now your new multicore site will be accessible here: http://example.com:8080/solr/example.com/admin/

Updated: