Running Unblu in standalone mode

Requirements

Any reasonably modern machine should be capable of running Unblu in standalone mode. For example, a machine with the following specifications will do the job:

1 recent CPU core running at 2.4GHz
4 GB RAM
10 GB hard drive space

You will also need:

Java 21 installed on the computer where you want to run Unblu
The Unblu installation package, consisting of the following elements:
- The Unblu WAR file
- A valid Unblu license key
An Unblu properties file (optional)
A search engine

Search engine

Starting with Unblu 8.22.1, Unblu requires access to a search engine. Unblu supports Elasticsearch and OpenSearch.

One way to provision a search engine for development purposes is to use Docker.

Elasticsearch

To run a local development instance of Elasticsearch in Docker, open a terminal and run the command below. Note that on Windows, this requires the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Listing 1. Provision Elasticsearch in Docker for Unblu full-text search

curl -fsSL https://elastic.co/start-local | sh -s -- --esonly -v <elasticsearch-version> (1)

1	Replace `<elasticsearch-version>` with a version of Elasticsearch supported by Unblu.

This creates a folder called elastic-start-local with all the files needed to run Elasticsearch locally. To launch Elasticsearch, run the following commands;

Listing 2. Launch Elasticsearch locally in Docker

cd elastic-start-local
./start.sh

When you’ve finished run the following command to stop Elasticsearch:

Listing 3. Stop Elasticsearch

./stop.sh

For more detailed information about running Elasticsearch in Docker, refer to the article Local development installation (quickstart) in the Elasticsearch documentation and the README of the start-local script.

OpenSearch

To run OpenSearch in Docker, run the following commands in your terminal:

Listing 4. Provisioning OpenSearch in Docker for Unblu full-text search

docker run -d -p 9200:9200 -p 9600:9600 \
  -e "discovery.type=single-node" \
  -e "OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<opensearch-admin-password>" \ (1)
  --name "opensearch" opensearchproject/opensearch:<opensearch-version> (2)

docker cp opensearch:/usr/share/opensearch/config/root-ca.pem .

keytool -importcert -file root-ca.pem -keystore root-ca.jks -alias root-ca -storepass <trusted-store-password> (3)

1	Replace `<opensearch-admin-password>` with a password of your choice.
2	Replace `<opensearch-version>` with a version of OpenSearch supported by Unblu.
3	Replace `<trusted-store-password>` with a password of your choice.

Once you’ve run the commands above once, you can launch OpenSearch in Docker with the following command:

Listing 5. Launch OpenSearch in Docker

docker start opensearch

If you encounter any issues, a sensible first step is to run the following command:

Listing 6. Launch OpenSearch in Docker

docker opensearch log

For more detailed information about running OpenSearch in Docker, refer to the Docker article in the OpenSearch documentation.

Deployment

As an Unblu customer, you’re typically granted access to a downloadable file with a name like product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war. The Unblu WAR file can also be used as an executable JAR. In standalone mode, it runs using an embedded Jetty-based web server.

Listing 7. Starting Unblu with default configuration

java -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war (1)

1	Replace `<version>` and `<guid>` with the correct values.

The embedded Jetty web server automatically selects a TCP port in the range of 6060—7070. To specify the TCP port yourself, add -Dport= on the command line:

Listing 8. Starting Unblu with a specific TCP port

java -Dport=6789 \
     -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war

If you’re running the search engine in Docker as described above and you didn’t add the search engine configuration properties to your properties file, you must provide them as command-line arguments:

For Elasticsearch, the command looks like this:

Listing 9. Start Unblu with Elasticsearch in Docker

java -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.type=ELASTIC_SEARCH \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.es.host=http://localhost:9200 \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.es.authType=BASIC \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.es.username=elastic \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.es.password=<search-engine-password> \ (1)
 -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war (2)

1	Replace `<search-engine-password>` with the value of `ES_LOCAL_PASSWORD` from the `.env` file in `elastic-start-local/`.
2	Replace `<version>` and `<guid>` with the correct values.

For OpenSearch, it looks like this:

Listing 10. Start Unblu with OpenSearch in Docker

java -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.type=OPEN_SEARCH \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.os.host=https://localhost:9200 \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.os.authType=BASIC \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.os.username=admin \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.os.password=<opensearch-admin-password> \ (1)
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.os.pathToTrustedCertsKeyStoreFile=./root-ca.jks \
  -Dcom.unblu.search.engine.os.trustedCertsKeyStorePassword=<trusted-store-password> \ (2)
  -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war (3)

1	Replace `<opensearch-admin-password>` with the password you defined for the search engine.
2	Replace `<trusted-store-password>` with the password defined for the key store.
3	Replace `<version>` and `<guid>` with the correct values.

Command line options

The following command line options are available when you run the executable JAR file:

Listing 11. Options and description

-e,--export <arg>   Type of export. Possible options: 'ear' or 'wjar'
-h,--help	          Display this help message
-l,--list           Format of output: ( version: build: branch: )
-m,--migrationOnly  use to shutdown the product after database migration is complete
-o,--output <arg>   File to write the exported product to. If not given, output will default to STDOUT.
-p,--product <arg>  ID of the product to start, for example product.com.unblu.enterprise (default) (1)
-t,--test           Include test bundles into the product execution/export (not available in production versions).
-d,--diag           Include diagnostics bundles in the product execution/export (not available in production versions).

1	The `--product` switch is also available via System Properties.

These options are placed after -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war:

Listing 12. Placement of command line options when launching Unblu in standalone mode

java
     -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war \ (1)
     --help

1	Replace `<version>` and `<guid>` with the correct values.

Configuration

All configuration can be placed in a separate properties file.

Listing 13. Example properties file

com.unblu.runtime.jetty.port=7777

# Create a superadmin on DB setup
com.unblu.storage.createSuperAdmin=true
com.unblu.storage.superAdminUsername=
com.unblu.storage.superAdminPassword=superadmin

If you don’t specify the property com.unblu.storage.superAdminUsername, Unblu generates a random superadmin username.

To use your properties file, include its name in the command line argument -Dcom.unblu.propertyoverlay:

Listing 14. Start Unblu using the properties file unblu-config.properties

java -Dcom.unblu.propertyoverlay=unblu-config.properties \
    -Dport=7070 \
    -jar product.com.unblu-<version>-<guid>.war (1)

1	Replace `<version>` and `<guid>` with the correct values.

If you need to use the Unblu JavaScript demo page, activate it by setting com.unblu.server.resources.enableDemoResources to true. If you also want the Unblu documentation available locally, set com.unblu.server.resources.enableDocResources to true.