Getting the Sensei source code and building the entire system is straightforward. Only two commands are needed:
Checking out the source code from trunk:
$ git clone git://github.com/javasoze/sensei.git sensei-trunk
Building Sensei using ant:
$ ant
In order to run the sample of Sensei search, you have to run an instance of ZooKeeper first.
You may download ZooKeeper from http://hadoop.apache.org/zookeeper/.
Using the sample configuration file in zookeeper-3.2.0/conf by copying
zookeeper-3.2.0/conf/zoo_sample.cfg to zookeeper-3.2.0/conf/zoo.cfg and
start an instance of ZooKeeper by running
$ zookeeper-3.2.0/bin/zkServer.sh start
For details, see http://hadoop.apache.org/zookeeper/docs/current/zookeeperStarted.html.
You can use command
bin/start-sensei-node.sh to start a server
node. This command takes one argument:
conf.dir, which contains all configuration
information for a given Sensei node.
Here is an example command-line that will work to fire up a single sensei node with some sample data:
$ bin/start-sensei-node.sh conf
Do not expect to see any logs after running this command. If you run it, have ZooKeeper up and running, a REST server (as discussed below) will also be started, and you will be able to get some sample search results.
When developing applications using Sensei, we found it convenient to have a RESTful end-point that provides data in JSON format. Having a RESTful end-point allows one to query the Sensei system in an ad-hoc way, and having a JSON formatted output provides a way to investigate the result set without having the need to depend on jars or any other types of code binding.
When a Sensei node is started, a RESTful end-point along with a web interactive client would be started as well:
RESTful end-point:
http://localhost:8080/sensei?q=
Web client
http://localhost:8080
After you start at least one node, you can run
$ bin/sensei-client.sh client-conf
to start a client. You can edit
client-conf/sensei-client.conf to change the
properties.
Type help to see command list:
$ bin/sensei-client.sh client-conf > help help - prints this message exit - quits info - prints system information query <query string> - sets query text facetspec <name>:<minHitCount>:<maxCount>:<sort> - add facet spec page <offset>:<count> - set paging parameters select <name>:<value1>,<value2>... - add selection, with ! in front of value indicates a not sort <name>:<dir>,... - set sort specs showReq: shows current request clear: clears current request clearSelections: clears all selections clearSelection <name>: clear selection specified clearFacetSpecs: clears all facet specs clearFacetSpec <name>: clears specified facetspec browse - executes a search >