Creating a custom Solr core using solr-init container in docker

Question

I am using docker approach with Sitecore V10.2. I am trying to create a custom index with it's associated schema.

I followed following article as the reference point : Add your custom index to Solr in Sitecore Docker like a boss(goon)

Although, it seems like the article was written for Sitecore V10.0(Initial Release) docker solution. With V10.2, all the solr initialization steps(scripts) have been moved into the solr-init container also the script names & content is also changed.

I was able to locate one script which seems like can be used to create a custom index.

New-SolrCore.ps1 :

param(
    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]$SolrEndpoint,

    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string[]]$SolrCoreNames,

    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]$SolrCorePrefix,

    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]$SolrConfigsetName,

    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]$SolrReplicationFactor,

    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]$SolrNumberOfShards,
    
    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]$SolrMaxShardNumberPerNode,

    $SolrCollectionAliases 
) 
function Invoke-SolrWebRequest {
    param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory)]
        [string]$Uri
    )

    return Invoke-RestMethod -Credential (Get-SolrCredential) -Uri $Uri `
        -ContentType "application/json" -Method Post
}
foreach($solrCoreName in $SolrCoreNames) {

$solrCollectionName = ('{0}{1}' -f $SolrCorePrefix, $solrCoreName)
Write-Host "Creating $solrCollectionName SOLR collection"

$solrUrl = [System.String]::Concat($SolrEndpoint, "/admin/collections?action=CREATE&name=", $solrCollectionName , 
    "&collection.configName=", $SolrConfigsetName, "&replicationFactor=", $SolrReplicationFactor, 
    "&numShards=", $SolrNumberOfShards, "&maxShardsPerNode=", $SolrMaxShardNumberPerNode, "&property.update.autoCreateFields=false")
$null = Invoke-SolrWebRequest -Uri $solrUrl

if( $SolrCollectionAliases.$solrCoreName ) {
    $aliasName = '{0}{1}' -f $SolrCorePrefix, $SolrCollectionAliases.$solrCoreName
    .\New-SolrAlias.ps1 -SolrEndpoint $SolrEndpoint -SolrCollectionName $solrCollectionName -AliasName $aliasName
} 
}

So, I made a few changes suggested in the mentioned article to my Dockerfile according to the parameters of New-SolrCore.ps1 script expected parameters.

Following is my DockerFile changes for the custom solr-init image :

DockerFile :

# escape=`

ARG BASE_IMAGE

FROM ${BASE_IMAGE}

SHELL ["powershell", "-Command", "$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'; $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue';"]

COPY customCores/custom_master_index C:\custom_master_index

RUN C:\New-SolrCore.ps1 -SolrEndpoint C:\data -SolrCoreNames '_custom_master_index' -SolrCorePrefix 'sitecore' -SolrConfigsetName C:\custom_master_index\managed-schema -SolrReplicationFactor '1' -SolrNumberOfShards '1' -SolrMaxShardNumberPerNode '1' ; `
Remove-Item -Path C:\custom_master_index -Recurse -Force;

After doing all these steps, I am getting following error & hence solution is not getting built :

Also, I am not using any custom script, I have been running the script (New-SolrCore.ps1) which is already a part of default solr-init running container.

Can anyone please help me out?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I was able to accomplish this setup with very little configuration in Sitecore 10.2 with Docker.

The following example was from an SXA setup but you can adapt to meet your needs.

Step 1

Create a new JSON configuration file called cores-sxa-custom.json and place under .\docker\build\solr-init. On startup of the solr-init container these new cores will be created automatically. I also found that by keeping the naming convention consistent with the default (e.g. sitecore_[SOMETHING_CUSTOM]_index) there is no need to do anything special with the PowerShell scripts.

{
    "sitecore": [
        "_sxa_company_master_index",
        "_sxa_company_master_index_rebuild",
        "_sxa_company_web_index",
        "_sxa_company_web_index_rebuild"
    ]    
}

Step 2

Create or update the Dockerfile to contain something like the following and then add to the build section of your docker-compose.override.yml.

# escape=`

ARG BASE_IMAGE
ARG SXA_IMAGE

FROM ${SXA_IMAGE} as sxa
FROM ${BASE_IMAGE}

SHELL ["powershell", "-Command", "$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'; $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue';"]

# Add SXA module
COPY --from=sxa C:\module\solr\cores-sxa.json C:\data\cores-sxa.json

COPY .\cores-sxa-custom.json C:\data\cores-sxa-custom.json

Answer 2

I do not have a local setup to try this out but this could be due to the wrong SolrEndpoint parameter.

Can you pass solr endpoint instead of C:\data? Because that parameter is being used to form solrurl by Invoke-SolrWebRequest method.

RUN C:\New-SolrCore.ps1 -SolrEndpoint C:\data