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Containers / solr: README

Last updated on Aug 05, 2025

Bitnami package for Apache Solr

What is Apache Solr?

Apache Solr is an extremely powerful, open source enterprise search platform built on Apache Lucene. It is highly reliable and flexible, scalable, and designed to add value very quickly after launch.

Overview of Apache Solr Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

docker run --name solr bitnami/solr:latest

You can find the available configuration options in the Environment Variables section.

Why use Bitnami Images?

  • Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
  • With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
  • Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
  • All our images are based on minideb -a minimalist Debian based container image that gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading Linux distribution- or scratch -an explicitly empty image-.
  • All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Notation. Check this post to know how to verify the integrity of the images.
  • Bitnami container images are released on a regular basis with the latest distribution packages available.

Looking to use Apache Solr in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami solr Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/solr:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/solr:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .

Persisting your application

If you remove the container all your data and configurations will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a volume at the /bitnami path. The above examples define a docker volume namely solr_data. The Solr application state will persist as long as this volume is not removed.

To avoid inadvertent removal of this volume you can mount host directories as data volumes. Alternatively you can make use of volume plugins to host the volume data.

docker run -v /path/to/solr-persistence:/bitnami bitnami/solr:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

solr:
  ...
  volumes:
    - /path/to/solr-persistence:/bitnami
  ...

NOTE: As this is a non-root container, the mounted files and directories must have the proper permissions for the UID 1001.

Connecting to other containers

Using Docker container networking, a Solr server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers.

Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.

Using the Command Line

Step 1: Create a network

docker network create solr-network --driver bridge

Step 2: Launch the solr container within your network

Use the --network <NETWORK> argument to the docker run command to attach the container to the solr-network network.

docker run --name solr-node1 --network solr-network bitnami/solr:latest

Step 3: Run another containers

We can launch another containers using the same flag (--network NETWORK) in the docker run command. If you also set a name to your container, you will be able to use it as hostname in your network.

Using a Docker Compose file

When not specified, Docker Compose automatically sets up a new network and attaches all deployed services to that network. However, we will explicitly define a new bridge network named solr-network.

version: '2'

networks:
  solr-network:
    driver: bridge

services:
  solr-node1:
    image: bitnami/solr:latest
    networks:
      - solr-network
    ports:
      - '8983:8983'
  solr-node2:
    image: bitnami/solr:latest
    networks:
      - solr-network
    ports:
      - '8984:8984'

Then, launch the containers using:

docker-compose up -d

Configuration

Environment variables

Customizable environment variables

Name Description Default Value
SOLR_ENABLE_CLOUD_MODE Starts solr in cloud mode no
SOLR_NUMBER_OF_NODES Number of nodes of the solr cloud cluster 1
SOLR_HOST Solr Host name nil
SOLR_JETTY_HOST Configuration to listen on a specific IP address or host name 0.0.0.0
SOLR_HEAP Solr Heap nil
SOLR_SECURITY_MANAGER_ENABLED Solr Java security manager false
SOLR_JAVA_MEM Solr JVM memory -Xms512m -Xmx512m
SOLR_PORT_NUMBER Solr port number 8983
SOLR_CORES Solr CORE name nil
SOLR_COLLECTION Solr COLLECTION name nil
SOLR_COLLECTION_REPLICAS Solar collection replicas 1
SOLR_COLLECTION_SHARDS Solar collection shards 1
SOLR_ENABLE_AUTHENTICATION Enables authentication no
SOLR_ADMIN_USERNAME Administrator Username admin
SOLR_ADMIN_PASSWORD Administrator password bitnami
SOLR_CLOUD_BOOTSTRAP Indicates if this node is the one that performs the boostraping no
SOLR_CORE_CONF_DIR Solar CORE configuration directory ${SOLR_SERVER_DIR}/solr/configsets/_default/conf
SOLR_SSL_ENABLED Indicates if Solr starts with SSL enabled no
SOLR_SSL_CHECK_PEER_NAME Indicates if Solr should check the peer names false
SOLR_ZK_MAX_RETRIES Maximum retries when waiting for zookeeper configuration operations to finish 5
SOLR_ZK_SLEEP_TIME Sleep time when waiting for zookeeper configuration operations to finish 5
SOLR_ZK_CHROOT ZooKeeper ZNode chroot where to store solr data. Default: /solr /solr
SOLR_ZK_HOSTS ZooKeeper nodes (comma-separated list of host:port) nil

Read-only environment variables

Name Description Value
BITNAMI_VOLUME_DIR Directory where to mount volumes. /bitnami
SOLR_BASE_DIR Solr installation directory. ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/solr
SOLR_JAVA_HOME JAVA installation directory. ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/java
SOLR_BIN_DIR Solr directory for binary executables. ${SOLR_BASE_DIR}/bin
SOLR_TMP_DIR Solr directory for temp files. ${SOLR_BASE_DIR}/tmp
SOLR_PID_DIR Solr directory for PID files. ${SOLR_BASE_DIR}/tmp
SOLR_LOGS_DIR Solr directory for logs files. ${SOLR_BASE_DIR}/logs
SOLR_SERVER_DIR Solr directory for server files. ${SOLR_BASE_DIR}/server
SOLR_VOLUME_DIR Solr persistence directory. ${BITNAMI_VOLUME_DIR}/solr
SOLR_DATA_TO_PERSIST Solr data to persist. server/solr
SOLR_PID_FILE Solr PID file ${SOLR_PID_DIR}/solr-${SOLR_PORT_NUMBER}.pid
SOLR_DAEMON_USER Solr system user solr
SOLR_DAEMON_GROUP Solr system group solr

When you start the solr image, you can adjust the configuration of the instance by passing one or more environment variables either on the docker-compose file or on the docker run command line.

Specifying Environment Variables using Docker Compose

This requires a minor change to the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

solr:
  ...
  environment:
    - SOLR_CORES=my_core
  ...

Specifying Environment Variables on the Docker command line

docker run -d -e SOLR_CORES=my_core --name solr bitnami/solr:latest

Using your Apache Solr Cores configuration files

In order to load your own configuration files, you will have to make them available to the container. You can do it mounting a volume in the desired location and setting the environment variable with the customized value (as it is pointed above, the default value is data_driven_schema_configs).

Using Docker Compose

This requires a minor change to the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

solr:
  ...
  environment:
    - SOLR_CORE_CONF_DIR=/container/path/to/your/confDir
  volumes:
    - '/local/path/to/your/confDir:/container/path/to/your/confDir'
  ...

Logging

The Bitnami solr Docker image sends the container logs to the stdout. To view the logs:

docker logs solr

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose logs solr

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of solr, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/solr:latest

or if you're using Docker Compose, update the value of the image property to bitnami/solr:latest.

Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

docker stop solr

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose stop solr

Next, take a snapshot of the persistent volume /path/to/solr-persistence using:

rsync -a /path/to/solr-persistence /path/to/solr-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)

You can use this snapshot to restore the database state should the upgrade fail.

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

docker rm -v solr

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose rm -v solr

Step 4: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image, restoring your backup if necessary.

docker run --name solr bitnami/solr:latest

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose up solr

Notable Changes

8.11.3-debian-12-r2 and 9.5.0-debian-12-r7

  • Remove HDFS modules due to CVEs

8.8.0-debian-10-r11

  • Adds SSL support.

8.8.0-debian-10-r9

  • The Solr container initialization logic has been moved to Bash scripts.
  • The size of the container image has been decreased.
  • Added the support for cloud mode.
  • Added support for authentication and admin user creation.
  • Data migration for the upgrades. If you are running an older version of this container, run this version as user root and it will migrate your current data.

7.4.0-r23

  • The Solr container has been migrated to a non-root user approach. Previously the container ran as the root user and the Solr daemon was started as the solr user. From now on, both the container and the Solr daemon run as user 1001. As a consequence, the data directory must be writable by that user. You can revert this behavior by changing USER 1001 to USER root in the Dockerfile.

Using docker-compose.yaml

Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes. For production-ready deployments, we highly recommend utilizing its associated Bitnami Helm chart.

If you detect any issue in the docker-compose.yaml file, feel free to report it or contribute with a fix by following our Contributing Guidelines.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.

License

Copyright © 2024 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.