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The GroupDocs.Search search network consists of one master node and several slave nodes. Each node is a server with the .NET platform deployed on it. On each server, an application is deployed that creates an instance of the SearchNetworkNode class.

An instance of the SearchNetworkNode class provides the services described in the configuration for this node:

• Indexing service (master node);
• Search service (master node);
• Extraction services (slave nodes);
• Shard services (slave nodes).

The indexing and search services also provide an interface to access all search network features through the Indexer and Searcher properties of the master node.

The SearchNetworkNode class has no public constructor. Its instances are created with the following static methods:

• CreateMasterNode(int nodeIndex, string storagePath, INetworkSettings networkSettings, ILogger logger, Configuration configuration) creates the master node. The configuration is required; it describes all nodes of the search network.
• CreateSlaveNode(int nodeIndex, string storagePath, INetworkSettings networkSettings) and CreateSlaveNode(int nodeIndex, string storagePath, INetworkSettings networkSettings, ILogger logger) create a slave node. A slave node receives its configuration from the master node and saves it in its storage folder, so after a restart, the node uses the saved configuration.

The parameters of these methods are the following:

• nodeIndex — the index of the node, which must match the node index in the configuration;
• storagePath — the folder where the node keeps its data;
• networkSettings — an instance of the TcpSettings class, which specifies the port at which a slave node accepts connections (it must match the port specified for the node in the configuration), as well as the send, receive, connect and retry timeouts in milliseconds;
• logger — an implementation of the ILogger interface, for example, FileLogger, or null. The logger of the master node receives the log messages of all nodes of the search network.

A node can also be given an OCR connector (SetOcrConnector method), which is used by its extraction services, a word forms provider (SetWordFormsProvider method), which is used by its shards, and custom text extractors (CustomExtractors property).

To deploy the GroupDocs.Search search network, perform the following steps:

• On each slave server, create a slave node with the CreateSlaveNode method and call its Start method.
• On the master server, create the master node with the CreateMasterNode method, passing the configuration object to it.
• Call the ConfigureAllNodes method of the master node. The method sends the configuration to all slave nodes and waits until they are configured. To configure only one slave node, for example, a node that has been replaced, use the ConfigureNode method. Only the master node can configure other nodes.
• Call the Start method of the master node.

To stop a node, call its Dispose method.

All nodes of a search network must use the same version of GroupDocs.Search. For upgrading a search network to version 26.10, see the Index format and compatibility page.

The following code example demonstrates starting a slave node on a server.

C#

string basePath = @"c:\SearchNetwork\";
int basePort = 49100;

// The timeouts are specified in milliseconds
int sendTimeout = 3000;
int receiveTimeout = 3000;
int connectTimeout = 3000;
int retryTimeout = 1000;

// Creating and starting the slave node with index 1, which listens on the port specified for it in the configuration
SearchNetworkNode node1 = SearchNetworkNode.CreateSlaveNode(
    1,
    basePath + "Node1",
    new TcpSettings(basePort + 1, sendTimeout, receiveTimeout, connectTimeout, retryTimeout));
node1.Start();

The following code example demonstrates starting the master node on a server. The configuration is created as shown on the Configuring search network page and loaded from a file.

C#

string basePath = @"c:\SearchNetwork\";
int basePort = 49100;

// The timeouts are specified in milliseconds
int sendTimeout = 3000;
int receiveTimeout = 3000;
int connectTimeout = 3000;
int retryTimeout = 1000;

// Loading the search network configuration from a file
Configuration configuration = Configuration.Load(basePath + "Configuration.xml");

// Creating the master node with index 0
SearchNetworkNode node0 = SearchNetworkNode.CreateMasterNode(
    0,
    basePath + "Node0",
    new TcpSettings(basePort, sendTimeout, receiveTimeout, connectTimeout, retryTimeout),
    new ConsoleLogger(),
    configuration);

node0.Events.ConfigurationCompleted += (s, e) =>
{
    Console.WriteLine("Configuration complete");
};

Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Configuring the search network");
node0.ConfigureAllNodes();

Console.WriteLine("Launching the search network");
node0.Start();

The following code example demonstrates the implementation of a simple console logger.

C#

class ConsoleLogger : ILogger
{
    public void Error(string message)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Error: " + message);
    }

    public void Trace(string message)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Trace: " + message);
    }
}

You may easily run the code from documentation articles and see the features in action in our GitHub examples:

• GroupDocs.Search for .NET examples

• GroupDocs.Search for Java examples

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You are welcome to search over your PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX and more with our free online Free Online Document Search App.