Configuring a remote sphinx server with Thinking Sphinx

deploy.rb

# deploy.rb

namespace :ts_remote do
  task :conf do
    run <<-CMD
      cd #{current_release}
      &&
      RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env} rake ts:conf
      &&
      rsync --progress #{current_release}/config/#{rails_env}.sphinx.conf sphinxsearch@db-server:/home/sphinxsearch/
      &&
      ssh sphinxsearch@db-server "searchd -c /home/sphinxsearch/#{rails_env}.sphinx.conf --stop
        ; searchd -c /home/sphinxsearch/#{rails_env}.sphinx.conf"
    CMD
  end
end

sphinx.rake

# sphinx.rake

namespace :ts_remote do
  desc 'Update indexes on the remote sphinx server'
  task :reindex do
    system "ssh sphinxsearch@db-server indexer --config ./#{ENV['RAILS_ENV']}.sphinx.conf --all --rotate"
  end
end

sphinx.yml

# sphinx.yml

development:
  port: 9312
test:
  port: 9312
staging:
  port: 9312
  address: db-server
  sql_host: localhost
  pid_file: /home/sphinxsearch/searchd.staging.pid
  searchd_file_path: /home/sphinxsearch/searchd-staging
  sql_sock: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
  searchd_log_file: "/home/sphinxsearch/log/staging.searchd.log"
  query_log_file: "/home/sphinxsearch/log/staging.query.log"
production:
  port: 9313
  address: db-server
  pid_file: /home/sphinxsearch/searchd.production.pid
  searchd_file_path: /home/sphinxsearch/searchd-production
  sql_sock: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
  searchd_log_file: "/home/sphinxsearch/log/production.searchd.log"
  query_log_file: "/home/sphinxsearch/log/production.query.log"

db-server is the database server (obvs)

sphinxsearch is the user on the db-server that has access to the relevant files

All the sphinx files are stored in sphinxsearch's home directory. No Rails on the db server, but you do need Sphinx on the app server in order to generate the conf file.

Hey. I'm actually trying to do this but I'm having some difficulty on implementing and I hope you can help me.

How do I send out the password for the rsync? What's happening right now to me is that I'm having 'Permission denied, please try again.' so I guess this must be because I'm not handing out the password. So how do I bypass this? Thanks!

I think you need to use an RSA key that will allow your Rails server to connect to the Sphinx server without needing a password

See my fork for making the default RAILS_ENV=development

@benmoss @roganartu is this still relevant with ThinkingSphinx > v3.0 as far as you know?

bump