9.6 Changing Your Lucene Index Server Configuration

The default Lucene Index Server configuration is appropriate for a medium-sized Novell Vibe site. If you have a larger Vibe site, you can change its Lucene Index Server configuration.

After planning your Lucene configuration, complete the planning process for additional Advanced installation features as needed, then perform the Advanced installation as described in Section 10.0, Performing an Advanced Vibe Installation.

9.6.1 Understanding Indexing

The Lucene Index Server is responsible for indexing all data on the Vibe site so that Vibe users can easily use the Find and Search features to retrieve the information that they need. Text posted in folder entries is easy to index, because the formatting is simple. However, text in attached files arrives in many different file formats, many of which require conversion before the text in the files can be indexed. Therefore, the Lucene Index Server is dependent on the available file conversion technology in order to perform its indexing function. For information about the file viewers that Vibe uses, see Section 2.4.1, File Viewer Support.

The Lucene Index Server provides additional services on your Vibe site in addition to indexing. In fact, you cannot access your Vibe site if the Lucene Index Server is not running. For this reason, Novell Vibe provides multi-server Lucene configuration options that are not available in Kablink Vibe.

9.6.2 Changing Lucene Configuration Settings

If you have an extremely large Vibe site and you need to reindex the Vibe data, you might see improved performance by increasing these settings.

  • Max booleans: The default is 10000. This means that 10,000 Boolean clauses are allowed in a query. You need to increase this only if your Vibe site includes more than 10,000 users, groups, or teams.

  • RAM in MB that may be used for buffering: The default is 256 MB for remote and high availability Lucene configurations and 32 MB for local Lucene configurations. This is the amount of RAM that is allocated for buffering documents and deletions before they are flushed to the directory. (This setting can be changed only in the Lucene installer; it is not available in the Vibe installer.)

  • Merge factor: The default is 10. This sets the number of index segments that are created on disk. When additional index segments are needed, existing segments are merged to keep the merge factor constant.

  • Network interface for RMI service: (Optional) Specify the IP address or hostname for the network interface for the RMI (Remote Method Invocation) service.

    This is the hostname of the server where the Lucene Index is installed.

ADVANCED VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under Lucene Configuration, specify any Lucene configuration settings that you want to change.

9.6.3 Running the Lucene Index Server in Its Own JVM

By default, the Lucene Index Server runs in the same Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as the Vibe software. To leave more memory available for the Novell Vibe software, you can configure the Lucene Index Server to run in a separate JVM. In this configuration, it communicates with the Vibe software using the RMI (Remote Method Invocation) port, which by default is 1199.

ADVANCED VIBE INSTALLATION SUMMARY SHEET

Under Lucene Configuration, specify a hostname of localhost. Use the default RMI port number unless it is already in use on the server.

To change from running the Lucene Index Server in the same JVM with Vibe to running it in its own JVM, you must complete the same steps that you use for setting up the Lucene Index Server on a remote server. This includes manually installing the Lucene Index Server software on the Vibe server, as described in Section 14.0, Installing the Lucene Index Server on a Remote Server.

9.6.4 Running the Lucene Index Server on a Remote Server

If the Lucene Index Server requires more memory, disk space, or CPU resources than are available on the Novell Vibe server, you can move it to a remote server. This requires installing the Lucene Index Server software on that server. For instructions, see Section 14.0, Installing the Lucene Index Server on a Remote Server.

9.6.5 Running Multiple Lucene Index Servers

Because the availability of the index is critical to the functioning of the Novell Vibe site, you can install multiple Lucene Index Servers on multiple remote servers to provide high availability. For instructions, see Section 16.0, Running Multiple Lucene Index Servers.