5.4 Setting Up Two Filr Search Appliances

Novell best practices require that every Filr-clustered deployment have two Filr Search appliances. A Filr cluster can operate with one search appliance, but this should only occur under special circumstances, such as when reindexing is required. Figure 5-4 illustrates that two Filr Search appliances are the second and third components deployed when creating a Filr Cluster.

Figure 5-4 Filr-Clustering Task 2: Set up two Filr Search appliances

You can use the steps that follow to gain hands-on experience with setting up Filr Search appliances, or for general guidance as you set up a Filr-clustered deployment in your own lab or production network. For complete instructions, see the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

5.4.1 Downloading, Starting, and Configuring the Filr Search Appliances

  1. Download and configure the virtual environment for a Filr Search appliance as documented in Downloading the Search Index Appliance and Configuring the Virtual Environment in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

    For example, for a VMware Workstation deployment this involves the following basic steps:

    1. Download, unzip, and open the Filrsearch*.ovf file.

    2. Name the appliance and click Import.

    3. Add a second hard disk to the appliance for the /vastorage mount point.

    4. Adjust the appliance’s resources (RAM and so forth) as needed.

    5. Power on the appliance.

  2. Install the Filr Search appliance that you downloaded and configured in Step 1 as documented in Installing the Search Index Appliance in the Novell Filr 1.0.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.

    1. Accept the license agreement.

    2. Specify the passwords, network settings, and time settings, then click Next.

    3. Select the Hard Disk option by clicking Next, then specify the second hard disk you added in Step 1.c as the data storage location for /vastorage by clicking Configure.

      When the terminal prompt screen appears, the search appliance is ready to configure.

5.4.2 Deploying the Filr Search Appliances

  1. Using a browser, access the Appliance Administration Utility on the first Filrsearch appliance by entering the following URL:

    https://IP_Address:9443

    Where IP_Address is the IP address of the first Filr appliance.

  2. Log in as the root user using the password that you set in Step 2.b.

  3. Click the Novell Filrsearch Appliance Configuration button to launch the Filrsearch Configuration Wizard.

  4. Click Next to confirm that this is a new appliance.

  5. Specify and confirm a password for the default Lucene user, then click Finish.

  6. At the bottom of the Search Settings dialog, click Submit.

  7. Close the browser.

  8. Repeat from Step 1 to install and configure a second Filr Search appliance, then continue with Setting Up the MySQL Appliance.