Installing ElasticSearch on Webfaction

You read everywhere that setting up and running elasticsearch is very simple. In fact, it is. There are some hurdles to clear when you’re setting it up on Webfaction, however. These instructions will hopefully provide some guidance.

1. Install JRE7
   1. cd ~/share/  (I use share; use whatever folder makes sense for you)
   2. wget --no-check-certificate --no-cookies --header "Cookie: oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/7u55-b13/jdk-7u55-linux-x64.tar.gz
   3. Extract into ~/share/java7 so you end up with ~/share/java7/bin, ~/share/java7/jre, etc.
   4. Edit ~/.bash_profile, add JAVA_HOME and java bin directory. Here’s an example:
      
      export JAVA_HOME=$HOME/share/java7 PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH:$HOME/bin export PATH

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      export JAVA_HOME=$HOME/share/java7 PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH:$HOME/bin export PATH

   5. source ~/.bash_profile
   6. java -version  (should show 1.7x)
2. Setup new app in my.webfaction.com
   1. Name: elasticsearch
   2. Type: Custom app (listening on port)
   3. Check the box to open firewall port
   4. Save
   5. Find new app in the list and see which port WF chose
   6. Copy the port number
3. Download ElasticSearch
   1. Browse to ~/webapps/elasticsearch
   2. wget https://download.elasticsearch.org/elasticsearch/release/org/elasticsearch/distribution/tar/elasticsearch/2.0.0/elasticsearch-2.0.0.tar.gz
   3. Extract into ~/webapps/elasticsearch so you end up with ~/webapps/elasticsearch/bin, ~/webapps/elasticsearch/config, etc.
4. Configure ElasticSearch
   1. vim ~/webapps/elasticsearch/config/elasticsearch.yml
   2. Set http.port to the port Webfaction chose when you setup the app
   3. Set http.host to 127.0.0.1 (if app accessing ElasticSearch is on same server)
   4. Set network.host to 127.0.0.1 (if app accessing ElasticSearch is on same server)
5. Run elasticsearch
   1. ~/webapps/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch

Running Automatically

If you have a working elasticsearch, you may be wondering how to keep it running all the time, even after you log out.

One solution is to create a simple bash script that starts a process if it’s not already running, and then execute this script regularly via a cronjob.

elasticsearch creates many processes that appear to ps  as “java”. This is not helpful. Using -eLf  we can see which processes are related to elasticsearch AND java. If there is less than 1 such process, we start elasticsearch, otherwise we do nothing.

1. vim ~/bin/elasticsearch_autostart.sh
2. # This should be executed regularly via a cronjob if [ `ps -u YOURUSERNAME -eLf | grep -i elasticsearch | grep -i java | wc -l` -lt 1 ] then echo "Starting elasticsearch." /home/YOURUSERNAME/webapps/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch else echo "elasticsearch is running." fi

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   # This should be executed regularly via a cronjob if [ `ps -u YOURUSERNAME -eLf | grep -i elasticsearch | grep -i java | wc -l` -lt 1 ] then     echo "Starting elasticsearch."     /home/YOURUSERNAME/webapps/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch else     echo "elasticsearch is running." fi

3. chmod +x ~/bin/elasticsearch_autostart.sh
4. crontab -e
5. Example: (notice we redefine JAVA_HOME and PATH (without using $HOME or $PATH))
   
   JAVA_HOME=/home/YOURUSERNAME/share/java7 PATH=/home/YOURUSERNAME/share/java7/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/home/YOURUSERNAME/bin # Make sure elasticsearch is running (every minute) * * * * * /home/YOURUSERNAME/bin/elasticsearch_autostart.sh

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   JAVA_HOME=/home/YOURUSERNAME/share/java7 PATH=/home/YOURUSERNAME/share/java7/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/home/YOURUSERNAME/bin   # Make sure elasticsearch is running (every minute) * * * * * /home/YOURUSERNAME/bin/elasticsearch_autostart.sh