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Blast

Blast is a full-text search and indexing server written in Go built on top of Bleve.
It provides functions through gRPC (HTTP/2 + Protocol Buffers) or traditional RESTful API (HTTP/1.1 + JSON).
Blast implements a Raft consensus algorithm by hashicorp/raft. It achieves consensus across all the nodes, ensuring that every change made to the system is made to a quorum of nodes, or none at all. Blast makes it easy for programmers to develop search applications with advanced features.

Features

• Full-text search/indexing
• Faceted search
• Spatial/Geospatial search
• Search result highlighting
• Index replication
• Bringing up cluster
• An easy-to-use HTTP API
• CLI is available
• Docker container image is available

Install build dependencies

Blast requires some C/C++ libraries if you need to enable cld2, icu, libstemmer or leveldb. The following sections are instructions for satisfying dependencies on particular platforms.

Ubuntu 18.10

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y \
    libicu-dev \
    libstemmer-dev \
    libleveldb-dev \
    gcc-4.8 \
    g++-4.8 \
    build-essential

$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-8 80
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-8 80
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.8 90
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.8 90

$ export GOPATH=${HOME}/go
$ mkdir -p ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/blevesearch
$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/blevesearch
$ git clone https://github.com/blevesearch/cld2.git
$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/blevesearch/cld2
$ git clone https://github.com/CLD2Owners/cld2.git
$ cd cld2/internal
$ ./compile_libs.sh
$ sudo cp *.so /usr/local/lib

macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6

$ brew install \
    icu4c \
    leveldb

$ export GOPATH=${HOME}/go
$ go get -u -v github.com/blevesearch/cld2
$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/blevesearch/cld2
$ git clone https://github.com/CLD2Owners/cld2.git
$ cd cld2/internal
$ perl -p -i -e 's/soname=/install_name,/' compile_libs.sh
$ ./compile_libs.sh
$ sudo cp *.so /usr/local/lib

Build

Building Blast as following:

$ mkdir -p ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/mosuka
$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/mosuka
$ git clone https://github.com/mosuka/blast.git
$ cd blast
$ make

If you omit GOOS or GOARCH, it will build the binary of the platform you are using.
If you want to specify the target platform, please set GOOS and GOARCH environment variables.

Linux

$ make GOOS=linux build

macOS

$ make GOOS=darwin build

Windows

$ make GOOS=windows build

Build with extensions

Blast supports some Bleve Extensions (blevex). If you want to build with them, please set CGO_LDFLAGS, CGO_CFLAGS, CGO_ENABLED and BUILD_TAGS. For example, build LevelDB to be available for index storage as follows:

$ make GOOS=linux \
       BUILD_TAGS=icu \
       CGO_ENABLED=1 \
       build

Linux

$ make GOOS=linux \
       BUILD_TAGS="kagome icu libstemmer cld2" \
       CGO_ENABLED=1 \
       build

macOS

$ make GOOS=darwin \
       BUILD_TAGS="kagome icu libstemmer cld2" \
       CGO_ENABLED=1 \
       CGO_LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/icu4c/lib" \
       CGO_CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/icu4c/include" \
       build

Build flags

Refer to the following table for the build flags of the supported Bleve extensions:

BUILD_TAGS	CGO_ENABLED	Description
cld2	1	Enable Compact Language Detector
kagome	0	Enable Japanese Language Analyser
icu	1	Enable ICU Tokenizer, Thai Language Analyser
libstemmer	1	Enable Language Stemmer (Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish)

If you want to enable the feature whose CGO_ENABLE is 1, please install it referring to the Install build dependencies section above.

Binary

You can see the binary file when build successful like so:

$ ls ./bin
blast

Test

If you want to test your changes, run command like following:

$ make test

If you want to specify the target platform, set GOOS and GOARCH environment variables in the same way as the build.

Package

To create a distribution package, run the following command:

$ make dist

Configure

Blast can change its startup options with configuration files, environment variables, and command line arguments.
Refer to the following table for the options that can be configured.

CLI Flag	Environment variable	Configuration File	Description
--config-file	-	-	config file. if omitted, blast.yaml in /etc and home directory will be searched
--id	BLAST_ID	id	node ID
--raft-address	BLAST_RAFT_ADDRESS	raft_address	Raft server listen address
--grpc-address	BLAST_GRPC_ADDRESS	grpc_address	gRPC server listen address
--http-address	BLAST_HTTP_ADDRESS	http_address	HTTP server listen address
--data-directory	BLAST_DATA_DIRECTORY	data_directory	data directory which store the index and Raft logs
--mapping-file	BLAST_MAPPING_FILE	mapping_file	path to the index mapping file
--peer-grpc-address	BLAST_PEER_GRPC_ADDRESS	peer_grpc_address	listen address of the existing gRPC server in the joining cluster
--certificate-file	BLAST_CERTIFICATE_FILE	certificate_file	path to the client server TLS certificate file
--key-file	BLAST_KEY_FILE	key_file	path to the client server TLS key file
--common-name	BLAST_COMMON_NAME	common_name	certificate common name
--cors-allowed-methods	BLAST_CORS_ALLOWED_METHODS	cors_allowed_methods	CORS allowed methods (ex: GET,PUT,DELETE,POST)
--cors-allowed-origins	BLAST_CORS_ALLOWED_ORIGINS	cors_allowed_origins	CORS allowed origins (ex: http://localhost:8080,http://localhost:80)
--cors-allowed-headers	BLAST_CORS_ALLOWED_HEADERS	cors_allowed_headers	CORS allowed headers (ex: content-type,x-some-key)
--log-level	BLAST_LOG_LEVEL	log_level	log level
--log-file	BLAST_LOG_FILE	log_file	log file
--log-max-size	BLAST_LOG_MAX_SIZE	log_max_size	max size of a log file in megabytes
--log-max-backups	BLAST_LOG_MAX_BACKUPS	log_max_backups	max backup count of log files
--log-max-age	BLAST_LOG_MAX_AGE	log_max_age	max age of a log file in days
--log-compress	BLAST_LOG_COMPRESS	log_compress	compress a log file

Start

Starting server is easy as follows:

$ ./bin/blast start \
              --id=node1 \
              --raft-address=:7000 \
              --http-address=:8000 \
              --grpc-address=:9000 \
              --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node1 \
              --mapping-file=./examples/example_mapping.json

You can get the node information with the following command:

$ ./bin/blast node | jq .

or the following URL:

$ curl -X GET http://localhost:8000/v1/node | jq .

The result of the above command is:

{
  "node": {
    "raft_address": ":7000",
    "metadata": {
      "grpc_address": ":9000",
      "http_address": ":8000"
    },
    "state": "Leader"
  }
}

Health check

You can check the health status of the node.

$ ./bin/blast healthcheck | jq .

Also provides the following REST APIs

Liveness prove

This endpoint always returns 200 and should be used to check server health.

$ curl -X GET http://localhost:8000/v1/liveness_check | jq .

Readiness probe

This endpoint returns 200 when server is ready to serve traffic (i.e. respond to queries).

$ curl -X GET http://localhost:8000/v1/readiness_check | jq .

Put a document

To put a document, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast set 1 '
{
  "fields": {
    "title": "Search engine (computing)",
    "text": "A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload. The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.",
    "timestamp": "2018-07-04T05:41:00Z",
    "_type": "example"
  }
}
' | jq .

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X PUT 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/documents/1' --data-binary '
{
  "fields": {
    "title": "Search engine (computing)",
    "text": "A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload. The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.",
    "timestamp": "2018-07-04T05:41:00Z",
    "_type": "example"
  }
}
' | jq .

or

$ curl -X PUT 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/documents/1' -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data-binary @./examples/example_doc_1.json

Get a document

To get a document, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast get 1 | jq .

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X GET 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/documents/1' | jq .

You can see the result. The result of the above command is:

{
  "fields": {
    "_type": "example",
    "text": "A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload. The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.",
    "timestamp": "2018-07-04T05:41:00Z",
    "title": "Search engine (computing)"
  }
}

Search documents

To search documents, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast search '
{
  "search_request": {
    "query": {
      "query": "+_all:search"
    },
    "size": 10,
    "from": 0,
    "fields": [
      "*"
    ],
    "sort": [
      "-_score"
    ]
  }
}
' | jq .

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X POST 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/search' --data-binary '
{
  "search_request": {
    "query": {
      "query": "+_all:search"
    },
    "size": 10,
    "from": 0,
    "fields": [
      "*"
    ],
    "sort": [
      "-_score"
    ]
  }
}
' | jq .

You can see the result. The result of the above command is:

{
  "search_result": {
    "facets": null,
    "hits": [
      {
        "fields": {
          "_type": "example",
          "text": "A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload. The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.",
          "timestamp": "2018-07-04T05:41:00Z",
          "title": "Search engine (computing)"
        },
        "id": "1",
        "index": "/tmp/blast/node1/index",
        "score": 0.09703538256409851,
        "sort": [
          "_score"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "max_score": 0.09703538256409851,
    "request": {
      "explain": false,
      "facets": null,
      "fields": [
        "*"
      ],
      "from": 0,
      "highlight": null,
      "includeLocations": false,
      "query": {
        "query": "+_all:search"
      },
      "search_after": null,
      "search_before": null,
      "size": 10,
      "sort": [
        "-_score"
      ]
    },
    "status": {
      "failed": 0,
      "successful": 1,
      "total": 1
    },
    "took": 171880,
    "total_hits": 1
  }
}

Delete a document

Deleting a document, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast delete 1

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X DELETE 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/documents/1'

Index documents in bulk

To index documents in bulk, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast bulk-index --file ./examples/example_bulk_index.json

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X PUT 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/documents' -H "Content-Type: application/x-ndjson" --data-binary @./examples/example_bulk_index.json

Delete documents in bulk

To delete documents in bulk, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast bulk-delete --file ./examples/example_bulk_delete.txt

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X DELETE 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/documents' -H "Content-Type: text/plain" --data-binary @./examples/example_bulk_delete.txt

Bringing up a cluster

Blast is easy to bring up the cluster. the node is already running, but that is not fault tolerant. If you need to increase the fault tolerance, bring up 2 more data nodes like so:

$ ./bin/blast start \
              --id=node2 \
              --raft-address=:7001 \
              --http-address=:8001 \
              --grpc-address=:9001 \
              --peer-grpc-address=:9000 \
              --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node2 \
              --mapping-file=./examples/example_mapping.json

$ ./bin/blast start \
              --id=node3 \
              --raft-address=:7002 \
              --http-address=:8002 \
              --grpc-address=:9002 \
              --peer-grpc-address=:9000 \
              --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node3 \
              --mapping-file=./examples/example_mapping.json

Above example shows each Blast node running on the same host, so each node must listen on different ports. This would not be necessary if each node ran on a different host.

This instructs each new node to join an existing node, each node recognizes the joining clusters when started. So you have a 3-node cluster. That way you can tolerate the failure of 1 node. You can check the cluster with the following command:

$ ./bin/blast cluster | jq .

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X GET 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/cluster' | jq .

You can see the result in JSON format. The result of the above command is:

{
  "cluster": {
    "nodes": {
      "node1": {
        "raft_address": ":7000",
        "metadata": {
          "grpc_address": ":9000",
          "http_address": ":8000"
        },
        "state": "Leader"
      },
      "node2": {
        "raft_address": ":7001",
        "metadata": {
          "grpc_address": ":9001",
          "http_address": ":8001"
        },
        "state": "Follower"
      },
      "node3": {
        "raft_address": ":7002",
        "metadata": {
          "grpc_address": ":9002",
          "http_address": ":8002"
        },
        "state": "Follower"
      }
    },
    "leader": "node1"
  }
}

Recommend 3 or more odd number of nodes in the cluster. In failure scenarios, data loss is inevitable, so avoid deploying single nodes.

The above example, the node joins to the cluster at startup, but you can also join the node that already started on standalone mode to the cluster later, as follows:

$ ./bin/blast join --grpc-address=:9000 node2 127.0.0.1:9001

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X PUT 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/cluster/node2' --data-binary '
{
  "raft_address": ":7001",
  "metadata": {
    "grpc_address": ":9001",
    "http_address": ":8001"
  }
}
'

To remove a node from the cluster, execute the following command:

$ ./bin/blast leave --grpc-address=:9000 node2

or, you can use the RESTful API as follows:

$ curl -X DELETE 'http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/cluster/node2'

The following command indexes documents to any node in the cluster:

$ ./bin/blast set 1 '
{
  "fields": {
    "title": "Search engine (computing)",
    "text": "A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload. The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.",
    "timestamp": "2018-07-04T05:41:00Z",
    "_type": "example"
  }
}
' --grpc-address=:9000 | jq .

So, you can get the document from the node specified by the above command as follows:

$ ./bin/blast get 1 --grpc-address=:9000 | jq .

You can see the result. The result of the above command is:

value1

You can also get the same document from other nodes in the cluster as follows:

$ ./bin/blast get 1 --grpc-address=:9001 | jq .
$ ./bin/blast get 1 --grpc-address=:9002 | jq .

You can see the result. The result of the above command is:

{
  "fields": {
    "_type": "example",
    "text": "A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload. The most public, visible form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the World Wide Web.",
    "timestamp": "2018-07-04T05:41:00Z",
    "title": "Search engine (computing)"
  }
}

Docker

Build Docker container image

You can build the Docker container image like so:

$ make docker-build

Pull Docker container image from docker.io

You can also use the Docker container image already registered in docker.io like so:

$ docker pull mosuka/blast:latest

See https://hub.docker.com/r/mosuka/blast/tags/

Start on Docker

Running a Blast data node on Docker. Start Blast node like so:

$ docker run --rm --name blast-node1 \
    -p 7000:7000 \
    -p 8000:8000 \
    -p 9000:9000 \
    -v $(pwd)/etc/blast_mapping.json:/etc/blast_mapping.json \
    mosuka/blast:latest start \
      --id=node1 \
      --raft-address=:7000 \
      --http-address=:8000 \
      --grpc-address=:9000 \
      --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node1 \
      --mapping-file=/etc/blast_mapping.json

You can execute the command in docker container as follows:

$ docker exec -it blast-node1 blast node --grpc-address=:9000

Securing Blast

Blast supports HTTPS access, ensuring that all communication between clients and a cluster is encrypted.

Generating a certificate and private key

One way to generate the necessary resources is via openssl. For example:

$ openssl req -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout ./etc/blast_key.pem -out ./etc/blast_cert.pem -days 365 -subj '/CN=localhost'
Generating a 4096 bit RSA private key
............................++
........++
writing new private key to 'key.pem'

Secure cluster example

Starting a node with HTTPS enabled, node-to-node encryption, and with the above configuration file. It is assumed the HTTPS X.509 certificate and key are at the paths server.crt and key.pem respectively.

$ ./bin/blast start \
             --id=node1 \
             --raft-address=:7000 \
             --http-address=:8000 \
             --grpc-address=:9000 \
             --peer-grpc-address=:9000 \
             --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node1 \
             --mapping-file=./etc/blast_mapping.json \
             --certificate-file=./etc/blast_cert.pem \
             --key-file=./etc/blast_key.pem \
             --common-name=localhost

$ ./bin/blast start \
             --id=node2 \
             --raft-address=:7001 \
             --http-address=:8001 \
             --grpc-address=:9001 \
             --peer-grpc-address=:9000 \
             --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node2 \
             --mapping-file=./etc/blast_mapping.json \
             --certificate-file=./etc/blast_cert.pem \
             --key-file=./etc/blast_key.pem \
             --common-name=localhost

$ ./bin/blast start \
             --id=node3 \
             --raft-address=:7002 \
             --http-address=:8002 \
             --grpc-address=:9002 \
             --peer-grpc-address=:9000 \
             --data-directory=/tmp/blast/node3 \
             --mapping-file=./etc/blast_mapping.json \
             --certificate-file=./etc/blast_cert.pem \
             --key-file=./etc/blast_key.pem \
             --common-name=localhost

You can access the cluster by adding a flag, such as the following command:

$ ./bin/blast cluster --grpc-address=:9000 --certificate-file=./etc/blast_cert.pem --common-name=localhost | jq .

or

$ curl -X GET https://localhost:8000/v1/cluster --cacert ./etc/cert.pem | jq .