[Koha] How frequently to run zebra rebuild and what switches

[Phillip Ponchot]

The only time I think it is necessary to rebuild the zebra indexes is when there's corruption.  I have an older version of Koha on a Ubuntu Linux platform and I see that there are cron jobs which incrementally does the updating to the index on recent items that have been added.  An example of a corrupted index table is when you run a search and an item you know is in the catalog doesn't show up (Not to be confused with just a poorly constructed search).  

Depending on the version of zebra (and maybe Koha), there are different switches.  The switches that I've seen and used are the -r -b -a .  

The best way so see the switch on a Linux machine is to run a terminal window and actually go to the directory migration-tools and find find the rebuild_zebra.pl.  At this point if you run the command "./rebuild_zebra.pl --help", all the available switches will be run.  In my older version of Koha, this can be found here: /usr/local/koha/bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl, but I've been told that my installation might not be standard.  If you can find Koha, then you can use the path above to track down the rebuild program. 

By using crontab (Linux again) you can see the scheduled jobs and see if any are setup for Koha (and the rebuild).  On Ubuntu in a terminal window you have to run sudo crontab -e to see the root crontab.  

I hope I have been helpful in this area as I've I may be the one asking for help next time - smile. 

If you need to see a "sample" of the crontab zebra rebuild job, I can login to the server and copy the job so you will have some idea of what you are searching for. 

Hang in there,  


Phillip
 

> Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 18:10:11 -0400
> To: gbengaadara at yahoo.com; snicker1 at maine.rr.com; koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> From: paul.a at aandc.org
> Subject: Re: [Koha] How frequently to run zebra rebuild and what  switches
> 
> At 11:49 AM 8/20/2013 -0700, Olugbenga Adara wrote:
> >[snip] how often should
> > > the zebra_rebuild.pl script be executed and with exactly which switches?
> > > Right now I run it at 7:30 AM each morning with "-run-as-root -b -r
> > > -v"
> >I am quite surprised you need to do that since you say you installed from 
> >Debian packages. All the installations I have done through the Debian 
> >packages always have the zebra incremental indexing properly set in cron 
> >and it is usually set to run every 5 minutes.
> 
> Quite apart from running it as root (and if it's automated, no need for the 
> -v), the normal cron job is *incremental* (-z) and this user is running a 
> *rebuild* (-r) every morning, which is absolutely necessary if any 
> cataloguers have deleted a biblio, overwritten a "fast add" with a Z39.50, 
> changed the 001/003 combination, etc etc.
> 
> We only run ./bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl -b -r -v -x and (less 
> frequently) ./bin/migration_tools/rebuild_zebra.pl -a -r -v manually and at 
> the request of our cataloguers. If we've got a couple of conscientious ones 
> playing catch-up on older biblios imported from spreadsheets or fast-adds, 
> this can be as often as every 20 minutes (but it's trivial to do.)  One of 
> my "to do" jobs is to incorporate a script into the staff-admin page so 
> that certain (senior) cataloguers can run this without calling me.
> 
> The cataloguers cannot work without it -- we insist that every "entry" is 
> verified in the OPAC at the time of cataloguing to ensure that what our 
> users see is what the cataloguers intended. Hence the need to run -r fairly 
> promptly. The search function down-time, while zebra is "cleaning", is only 
> a couple of seconds, particularly if you clean the logs, sessions, imports 
> and zebraqueue every 24 hours.
> 
> Best - Paul
> 
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