Search Service Configuration

Introduction

The Infinite Scale Search service is responsible for metadata and content extraction, stores that data as index and makes it searchable. The following clarifies the extraction terms metadata and content:

  • Metadata: all data that describes the file like Name, Size, MimeType, Tags and Mtime.

  • Content: all data that relates to content of the file like words, geo data, exif data etc.

Default Values

  • Search listens on port 9220 by default.

General Considerations

  • To use the search service, an event system needs to be configured for all services like NATS, which is shipped and preconfigured.

  • The search service consumes events and does not block other tasks.

  • When looking for content extraction, Apache Tika - a content analysis toolkit can be used but needs to be installed separately.

Extractions are stored as index via the search service. Consider that indexing requires adequate storage capacity - and the space requirement will grow. To avoid filling up the filesystem with the index and rendering Infinite Scale unusable, the index should reside on its own filesystem.

You can change the path to where search maintains its data in case the filesystem gets close to full and you need to relocate the data. Stop the service, move the data, reconfigure the path in the environment variable and restart the service.

When using content extraction, more resources and time are needed, because the content of the file needs to be analyzed. This is especially true for big and multiple concurrent files.

The search service runs out of the box with the shipped default basic configuration. No further configuration is needed, except when using content extraction.

Note that as of now, the search service can not be scaled. Consider using a dedicated hardware for this service in case more resources are needed.

Search engines

By default, the search service is shipped with bleve as its primary search engine.

Extraction Engines

The search service provides the following extraction engines and their results are used as index for searching:

  • The embedded basic configuration provides metadata extraction which is always on.

  • The tika configuration, which additionally provides content extraction, if installed and configured.

Content Extraction

The search service is able to manage and retrieve many types of information. For this purpose the following content extractors are included:

Basic Extractor

This extractor is the most simple one and just uses the resource information provided by Infinite Scale. It does not do any further analysis. The following fields are included in the index: Name, Size, MimeType, Tags, Mtime.

Tika Extractor

This extractor is more advanced compared to the Basic extractor. The main difference is that this extractor is able to provide file contents for the index. Though you can compile Tika manually on your system by following the Getting Started with Apache Tika guide (newer Tika versions may be available) or download a precompiled Tika server, you can also run Tika using a Tika container. See the Tika container usage document for a quickstart. Note that at the time of writing, containers are only available for the amd64 platform.

As soon as Tika is installed and accessible, the search service must be configured for the use with Tika. The following settings must be set:

  • SEARCH_EXTRACTOR_TYPE=tika

  • SEARCH_EXTRACTOR_TIKA_TIKA_URL=http://YOUR-TIKA.URL

When the search service can reach Tika, it begins to read out the content on demand. Note that files must be downloaded during the process, which can lead to delays with larger documents.

Content extraction and handling the extracted content can be very resource intensive. Content extraction is therefore limited to files with a certain file size. The default limit is 20MB and can be configured using the SEARCH_CONTENT_EXTRACTION_SIZE_LIMIT variable.

When using the Tika container and docker-compose, consider the following:

  • See the Docker Compose Examples (ocis_wopi) for details.

  • Containers for the linked service are reachable at a hostname identical to the alias or the service name if no alias was specified.

When using the Tika extractor, make sure to also set FRONTEND_FULL_TEXT_SEARCH_ENABLED in the frontend service to true. This will tell the web client that full-text search has been enabled.

Search Functionality

The search service consists of two main parts which are file indexing and file searching.

Indexing

Every time a resource changes its state, a corresponding event is triggered. Based on the event, the search service processes the file and adds the result to its index. There are a few more steps between accepting the file and updating the index.

Searching

A query via the search service will return results based on the index created.

State Changes which Trigger Indexing

The following state changes in the life cycle of a file can trigger the creation of an index or an update:

Resource Trashed

The service checks its index to see if the file has been processed. If an index entry exists, the index will be marked as deleted. In consequence, the file won’t appear in search requests anymore. The index entry stays intact and could be restored via Resource Restored.

Resource Deleted

The service checks its index to see if the file has been processed. If an index entry exists, the index will be finally deleted. In consequence, the file won’t appear in search requests anymore.

Resource Restored

This step is the counterpart of Resource Trashed. When a file is deleted, is isn’t removed from the index, instead the service just marks it as deleted. This mark is removed when the file has been restored, and it shows up in search results again.

Resource Moved

This comes into play whenever a file or folder is renamed or moved. The search index then updates the resource location path or starts indexing if no index has been created so far for all items affected. See Notes for an example.

Folder Created

The creation of a folder always triggers indexing. The search service extracts all necessary information and stores it in the search index

File Created

This case is similar to Folder created with the difference that a file can contain far more valuable information. This gets interesting but time-consuming when data content needs to be analyzed and indexed. Content extraction is part of the search service if configured.

File Version Restored

Since Infinite Scale is capable of storing multiple versions of the same file, the search service also needs to take care of those versions. When a file version is restored, the service starts to extract all needed information, creates the index and makes the file discoverable.

Resource Tag Added

Whenever a resource gets a new tag, the service takes care of it and makes that resource discoverable by the tag.

Resource Tag Removed

This is the counterpart of Resource tag added. It takes care that a tag gets unassigned from the referenced resource.

File Uploaded - Synchronous

This case only triggers indexing if async post processing is disabled. If so, the service starts to extract all needed file information, stores it in the index and makes it discoverable.

File Uploaded - Asynchronous

This is exactly the same as File uploaded - synchronous with the only difference that it is used for asynchronous uploads.

Manually Trigger Re-Indexing a Space

The service includes a command-line interface to trigger re-indexing a space:

ocis search index --space $SPACE_ID --user $USER_ID

Note that not names but IDs are necessary and that the specified user ID needs access to the space to be indexed.

Notes

The indexing process tries to be self-healing in some situations.

In the following example, let’s assume a file tree foo/bar/baz exists. If the folder bar gets renamed to new-bar, the path to baz is no longer foo/bar/baz but foo/new-bar/baz. The search service checks the change and either just updates the path in the index or creates a new index for all items affected if none was present.

Event Bus Configuration

The Infinite Scale event bus can be configured by a set of environment variables.

  • If you are using a binary installation as described in Minimal Bare Metal Deployment or Bare Metal with systemd, the address of the event bus OCIS_EVENTS_ENDPOINT is predefined as localhost address without the need for further configuration, but changeable on demand.

  • In case of an orchestrated installation like with Docker or Kubernetes, the event bus must be an external service for scalability like a Redis Sentinel cluster or a key-value-store NATS JetStream. Both named stores are supported and also used in Caching and Persistence. The store used is not part of the Infinite Scale installation and must be separately provided and configured.

  • Note that from a configuration point of view, caching and persistence are independent of the event bus configuration.

Note that for each global environment variable, a service-based one might be available additionally. For precedences see Environment Variable Notes. Check the configuration section below.

Without the aim of completeness, see the list of environment variables to configure the event bus:

Envvar Description

OCIS_EVENTS_ENDPOINT

The address of the event system.

OCIS_EVENTS_CLUSTER

The clusterID of the event system. Mandatory when using NATS as event system.

OCIS_EVENTS_ENABLE_TLS

Enable TLS for the connection to the events broker.

OCIS_INSECURE

Whether to verify the server TLS certificates.

OCIS_EVENTS_AUTH_USERNAME

The username to authenticate with the events broker.

OCIS_EVENTS_AUTH_PASSWORD

The password to authenticate with the events broker.

Configuration

Environment Variables

The search service is configured via the following environment variables. Read the Environment Variable Types documentation for important details.

  • 5.0.9

Environment variables for the search service
Name Type Default Value Description

OCIS_TRACING_ENABLED
SEARCH_TRACING_ENABLED

bool

false

Activates tracing.

OCIS_TRACING_TYPE
SEARCH_TRACING_TYPE

string

The type of tracing. Defaults to '', which is the same as 'jaeger'. Allowed tracing types are 'jaeger' and '' as of now.

OCIS_TRACING_ENDPOINT
SEARCH_TRACING_ENDPOINT

string

The endpoint of the tracing agent.

OCIS_TRACING_COLLECTOR
SEARCH_TRACING_COLLECTOR

string

The HTTP endpoint for sending spans directly to a collector, i.e. http://jaeger-collector:14268/api/traces. Only used if the tracing endpoint is unset.

OCIS_LOG_LEVEL
SEARCH_LOG_LEVEL

string

The log level. Valid values are: 'panic', 'fatal', 'error', 'warn', 'info', 'debug', 'trace'.

OCIS_LOG_PRETTY
SEARCH_LOG_PRETTY

bool

false

Activates pretty log output.

OCIS_LOG_COLOR
SEARCH_LOG_COLOR

bool

false

Activates colorized log output.

OCIS_LOG_FILE
SEARCH_LOG_FILE

string

The path to the log file. Activates logging to this file if set.

SEARCH_DEBUG_ADDR

string

127.0.0.1:9224

Bind address of the debug server, where metrics, health, config and debug endpoints will be exposed.

SEARCH_DEBUG_TOKEN

string

Token to secure the metrics endpoint.

SEARCH_DEBUG_PPROF

bool

false

Enables pprof, which can be used for profiling.

SEARCH_DEBUG_ZPAGES

bool

false

Enables zpages, which can be used for collecting and viewing in-memory traces.

SEARCH_GRPC_ADDR

string

127.0.0.1:9220

The bind address of the GRPC service.

OCIS_JWT_SECRET
SEARCH_JWT_SECRET

string

The secret to mint and validate jwt tokens.

OCIS_REVA_GATEWAY

string

com.owncloud.api.gateway

The CS3 gateway endpoint.

OCIS_GRPC_CLIENT_TLS_MODE

string

TLS mode for grpc connection to the go-micro based grpc services. Possible values are 'off', 'insecure' and 'on'. 'off': disables transport security for the clients. 'insecure' allows using transport security, but disables certificate verification (to be used with the autogenerated self-signed certificates). 'on' enables transport security, including server certificate verification.

OCIS_GRPC_CLIENT_TLS_CACERT

string

Path/File name for the root CA certificate (in PEM format) used to validate TLS server certificates of the go-micro based grpc services.

OCIS_EVENTS_ENDPOINT
SEARCH_EVENTS_ENDPOINT

string

127.0.0.1:9233

The address of the event system. The event system is the message queuing service. It is used as message broker for the microservice architecture.

OCIS_EVENTS_CLUSTER
SEARCH_EVENTS_CLUSTER

string

ocis-cluster

The clusterID of the event system. The event system is the message queuing service. It is used as message broker for the microservice architecture. Mandatory when using NATS as event system.

OCIS_ASYNC_UPLOADS
SEARCH_EVENTS_ASYNC_UPLOADS

bool

true

Enable asynchronous file uploads.

SEARCH_EVENTS_NUM_CONSUMERS

int

0

The amount of concurrent event consumers to start. Event consumers are used for searching files. Multiple consumers increase parallelisation, but will also increase CPU and memory demands. The default value is 0.

SEARCH_EVENTS_REINDEX_DEBOUNCE_DURATION

int

1000

The duration in milliseconds the reindex debouncer waits before triggering a reindex of a space that was modified.

OCIS_INSECURE
SEARCH_EVENTS_TLS_INSECURE

bool

false

Whether to verify the server TLS certificates.

OCIS_EVENTS_TLS_ROOT_CA_CERTIFICATE
SEARCH_EVENTS_TLS_ROOT_CA_CERTIFICATE

string

The root CA certificate used to validate the server’s TLS certificate. If provided SEARCH_EVENTS_TLS_INSECURE will be seen as false.

OCIS_EVENTS_ENABLE_TLS
SEARCH_EVENTS_ENABLE_TLS

bool

false

Enable TLS for the connection to the events broker. The events broker is the ocis service which receives and delivers events between the services.

OCIS_EVENTS_AUTH_USERNAME
SEARCH_EVENTS_AUTH_USERNAME

string

The username to authenticate with the events broker. The events broker is the ocis service which receives and delivers events between the services.

OCIS_EVENTS_AUTH_PASSWORD
SEARCH_EVENTS_AUTH_PASSWORD

string

The password to authenticate with the events broker. The events broker is the ocis service which receives and delivers events between the services.

SEARCH_ENGINE_TYPE

string

bleve

Defines which search engine to use. Defaults to 'bleve'. Supported values are: 'bleve'.

SEARCH_ENGINE_BLEVE_DATA_PATH

string

/var/lib/ocis/search

The directory where the filesystem will store search data. If not defined, the root directory derives from $OCIS_BASE_DATA_PATH:/search.

SEARCH_EXTRACTOR_TYPE

string

basic

Defines the content extraction engine. Defaults to 'basic'. Supported values are: 'basic' and 'tika'.

OCIS_INSECURE
SEARCH_EXTRACTOR_CS3SOURCE_INSECURE

bool

false

Ignore untrusted SSL certificates when connecting to the CS3 source.

SEARCH_EXTRACTOR_TIKA_TIKA_URL

string

http://127.0.0.1:9998

URL of the tika server.

SEARCH_EXTRACTOR_TIKA_CLEAN_STOP_WORDS

bool

true

Defines if stop words should be cleaned or not. See the documentation for more details.

SEARCH_CONTENT_EXTRACTION_SIZE_LIMIT

uint64

20971520

Maximum file size in bytes that is allowed for content extraction.

OCIS_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_ID
SEARCH_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_ID

string

The ID of the service account the service should use. See the 'auth-service' service description for more details.

OCIS_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_SECRET
SEARCH_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_SECRET

string

The service account secret.

YAML Example

  • 5.0.9

# Autogenerated
# Filename: search-config-example.yaml

tracing:
  enabled: false
  type: ""
  endpoint: ""
  collector: ""
log:
  level: ""
  pretty: false
  color: false
  file: ""
debug:
  addr: 127.0.0.1:9224
  token: ""
  pprof: false
  zpages: false
grpc:
  addr: 127.0.0.1:9220
  tls: null
token_manager:
  jwt_secret: ""
reva:
  address: com.owncloud.api.gateway
  tls:
    mode: ""
    cacert: ""
grpc_client_tls: null
events:
  endpoint: 127.0.0.1:9233
  cluster: ocis-cluster
  async_uploads: true
  num_consumers: 0
  debounce_duration: 1000
  tls_insecure: false
  tls_root_ca_certificate: ""
  enable_tls: false
  username: ""
  password: ""
engine:
  type: bleve
  bleve:
    data_path: /var/lib/ocis/search
extractor:
  type: basic
  cs3_allow_insecure: false
  tika:
    tika_url: http://127.0.0.1:9998
    clean_stop_words: true
content_extraction_size_limit: 20971520
service_account:
  service_account_id: ""
  service_account_secret: ""