Installing Solr for dedicated search

Question

I am looking for a dedicated search engine that doesn't need to search through my MySQL database, but accesses a xml/xhtml file for fast search capabilities. Faceted search is a huge requirement.

I went with a service called Open Solr for two reasons: 1. It's a free Solr hosting service. 2. My hosting provider does not support Java or Tomcat.

I set up a free account, indexed my website, and installed the Solr for WordPress plugin. Thinking I was good to go, I got several errors in my WordPress site:

1. When I check server settings in the WP admin panel, I get a Ping Failed! message
2. When I try and run a search, I get the error:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message '"0" Status: Communication Error'

Answer 1

Make sure you use the solr port and hostname provided to you in your opensolr account area for your collection.

The default free opensolr server, is running on port 8180.

Every single aspect of connecting to the opensolr collections is being explain throughly, through the blog, and through videos.

Opensolr is intended to give a head-start with solr for those that don't have time or don't wish to setup their own instance.

You can also get dedicated managed solr servers with opensolr as well.

Here are a few useful links to help you get started better and faster:

• http://www.opensolr.com/blog/2011/09/how-to-use-with-drupal
• http://www.opensolr.com/blog/2011/09/how-to-create-an-index
• http://www.opensolr.com/blog/2011/09/how-to-setup-solr-mysql-data-importer

---

Update April 4, 2013

We do have wordpress plugins under development however, why don't you integrate an existing php solr client in your wordpress such as this one: https://code.google.com/p/solr-php-client/

And we've upgraded our services now and our solr cloud now has more nodes (US and The Netherlands), you can also create more than 1 collection (in order to use ballancing - distributed search), managed backups and more.

So... while I do admit that we don't have plugins ready for wordpress and drupal and other such frameworks and CMS systems ready, our system is quite easy to implement and use with your website.

We have also extended our support dept., so please do contact support at opensolr.com/contact if you have any other questions.