Aspire for Elasticsearch Quick Start

The following tutorial gets you started with Aspire for Elasticsearch in 20 minutes or less. This tutorial will take you through installing Aspire, an Aspire connector for file systems, and the Aspire Elasticsearch publisher. It will give you an idea of how you install Aspire applications using the System Admin user interface (no programming knowledge needed). Once you have completed this tutorial you can refer to the connector information and tutorials for CIFS, RDB with Incremental via Snapshots, RDB with Incremental via Table or Heritrix, listed at Connectors

Prerequisites

Before you begin, it is assumed that you have registered for an Aspire for Elasticsearch account.(go to http://aspire.searchtechnologies.com/) if you haven't already done that.

You will need your user registration name and password in order to complete this tutorial.

Step 1: Install Java

The version of Java you should use depends on the Aspire version you are targeting to:

• Aspire 2.1.2 and earlier runs on Java 1.6 or Java 1.7
• Aspire 2.2 and up requires to run at Java 1.7.

Note that we recommend installing the Java JDK (Java Development Kit), just in case you want to create your own Aspire Components in the future. But really, only the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is absolutely required.

1. Download and install the latest version of the Java JDK appropriate for the system that will run Aspire: http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
   • If you have a 64 bit machine, we recommend installing the 64 bit version of Java. That will allow you to create large-memory instances of Aspire.
     • The Aspire framework itself does not use up that much memory (100mb or so). But some applications may store big hash tables to improve performance, so it's best to have the 64 bit JVM (Java Virtual Machine), just in case you need it someday.
2. Test that you can access the "java" command from your console.
   1. Open up a new DOS command-shell (go to the Start menu, enter "cmd" in the "Run" or "Search for Programs" field, and then execute the cmd.exe program).
   2. At the prompt, enter the following, then press the Enter key: java -version
   3. Success is indicated when version information is returned.

up to Aspire 2.1.2:

> java -version
 java version "1.6.0_18"
 Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_18-b07)
 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 16.0-b13, mixed mode)

or as of Aspire  (2.2 Release)  :

 > java -version
 java version "1.7.0_79"
 Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_79-b15)
 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.79-b02, mixed mode)

Step 3: Edit the Aspire settings.xml File

Go to the directory where you unpacked Aspire (such as "aspire-quick-start") and go to the configuration directory /config. Open the settings.xml file with a text or XML editor. Look for the maven repository tag. You need to replace the user name and password that displays with the user name and password you used to register for Aspire.

<repository type="maven">
     <defaultVersion>2.2</defaultVersion>
     <remoteRepositories>
       <remoteRepository>
         <id>stPublic</id>
         <url>
           http://repository.searchtechnologies.com/artifactory/simple/community-public/
         </url>
         <user>YOUR-REGISTERED-USERNAME</user>
         <password>YOUR-REGISTERED-PASSWORD</password>
       </remoteRepository>
     </remoteRepositories>
   </repository>

Once you've entered your user name and password, save and close the file. Make sure you save it so it remains a .xml file 

Step 4: Start Up Aspire

First, make sure you have access to the internet so that Aspire can download components. Next, still in the Aspire directory you created, change to the /bin directory and type "startup" to launch Aspire.

Note that "startup" is a batch script (on Windows) or a shell script (on Unix) that can be modified as necessary if you need more memory or need to set other system properties.

Aspire may take a few seconds to load all of the necessary components. You will see feedback to the command prompt during the startup. 

Step 5: Launch Aspire and open the Content Source Management Page

Step 6: Add a new File System Content Source

Add new source

To specify exactly what File System folder to crawl, we will need to create a new "Content Source".

To create a new content source:

1. From the Aspire 2 Home page, click on "Add Source" button.
2. Click on "File System Connector".

Step 7: Initiate the Full Crawl

Now that the content source is set up, the crawl can be initiated.

1. Click on the Full crawl option (lower left of content source card) to initiate the crawl. 

   Now that the content source is set up, the crawl can be initiated. Click on the Full crawl option (lower left of content source card) to initiate the crawl. During the Crawl Crawl Statistics During the crawl, you can do the following: Click on the "Refresh" button on the Content Sources page to view the latest status of the crawl. The status will show RUNNING while the crawl is going, and CRAWLED when it is finished. Click on "Complete" to view the number of documents crawled so far, the number of documents submitted, and the number of documents with errors. If there are errors, you will get a clickable "Error" flag that will take you to a detailed error message page.

Step 8: Congratulate yourself! (and shutdown)

Congratulations!!

You have completed the 20-minute quick start. We hope it was a fun experience.

To shutdown Aspire, go to the home page (http://localhost:50505/aspire) and click on the "Shutdown" button (that's the red button to the right of the server name). Or, you could go to the Aspire console window (where you started Aspire with "bin\startup") and type "shutdown" and then press the Return or Enter key. Either way will shut down Aspire.

Cheers!

The Aspire Development Team