The image is based on current release of Manticore package.

The default configuration includes a sample Real-Time table and listens on the default ports:

• 9306 for connections from a MySQL client
• 9308 for connections via HTTP
• 9312 for connections via a binary protocol (e.g. in case you run a cluster)

The image comes with libraries for easy indexing data from MySQL, PostgreSQL, XML and CSV files.

The below is the simplest way to start Manticore in a container and log in to it via the mysql client:

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore --rm -d manticoresearch/manticore && echo "Waiting for Manticore docker to start. Consider mapping the data_dir to make it start faster next time" && until docker logs manticore 2>&1 | grep -q "accepting connections"; do sleep 1; echo -n .; done && echo && docker exec -it manticore mysql && docker stop manticore

Note that upon exiting the MySQL client, the Manticore container will be stopped and removed, resulting in no saved data. For information on using Manticore in a production environment, please see below.

The image comes with a sample table that can be loaded like this:

mysql> source /sandbox.sql

Also, the mysql client has several sample queries in its history that you can run on the above table, just use Up/Down keys in the client to see and run them.

For data persistence the folder /var/lib/manticore/ should be mounted to local storage or other desired storage engine.

The configuration file inside the instance is located at /etc/manticoresearch/manticore.conf. For custom settings, this file should be mounted to your own configuration file.

The ports are 9306/9308/9312 for SQL/HTTP/Binary, expose them depending on how you are going to use Manticore. For example:

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore -v $(pwd)/data:/var/lib/manticore -p 127.0.0.1:9306:9306 -p 127.0.0.1:9308:9308 -d manticoresearch/manticore

or

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore -v $(pwd)/manticore.conf:/etc/manticoresearch/manticore.conf -v $(pwd)/data:/var/lib/manticore/ -p 127.0.0.1:9306:9306 -p 127.0.0.1:9308:9308 -d manticoresearch/manticore

Make sure to remove 127.0.0.1: if you want the ports to be available for external hosts.

The Manticore Search Docker image doesn't come with the Manticore Columnar Library pre-installed, which is necessary if you require columnar storage and secondary indexes. However, it can easily be enabled during runtime by setting the environment variable EXTRA=1. For example, docker run -e EXTRA=1 ... manticoresearch/manticore. This will download and install the library in the data directory (which is typically mapped as a volume in production environments) and it won't be re-downloaded unless the Manticore Search version is changed.

Using EXTRA=1 also activates Manticore Buddy, which is used for processing certain commands. For more information, refer to the changelog.

If you only need the MCL, you can use the environment variable MCL=1.

In many cases, you may want to use Manticore in conjunction with other images specified in a Docker Compose YAML file. Below is the minimal recommended configuration for Manticore Search in a docker-compose.yml file:

version: '2.2'

services:
  manticore:
    container_name: manticore
    image: manticoresearch/manticore
    environment:
      - EXTRA=1
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 127.0.0.1:9306:9306
      - 127.0.0.1:9308:9308
    ulimits:
      nproc: 65535
      nofile:
         soft: 65535
         hard: 65535
      memlock:
        soft: -1
        hard: -1
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/lib/manticore
#      - ./manticore.conf:/etc/manticoresearch/manticore.conf # uncomment if you use a custom config

Besides using the exposed ports 9306 and 9308, you can log into the instance by running docker-compose exec manticore mysql.

HTTP protocol is exposed on port 9308. You can map the port locally and connect using curl.:

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore -p 9308:9308 -d manticoresearch/manticore

POST /cli -d 'CREATE TABLE testrt ( title text, content text, gid integer)'

POST /insert
-d'{"index":"testrt","id":1,"doc":{"title":"Hello","content":"world","gid":1}}'

POST /search -d '{"index":"testrt","query":{"match":{"*":"hello world"}}}'

By default, the server is set to send its logging to /dev/stdout, which can be viewed from the host with:

docker logs manticore

The query log can be diverted to Docker log by passing the variable QUERY_LOG_TO_STDOUT=true.

Here is a simple docker-compose.yml for defining a two node cluster:

version: '2.2'

services:

  manticore-1:
    image: manticoresearch/manticore
    environment:
      - EXTRA=1
    restart: always
    ulimits:
      nproc: 65535
      nofile:
         soft: 65535
         hard: 65535
      memlock:
        soft: -1
        hard: -1
    networks:
      - manticore
  manticore-2:
    image: manticoresearch/manticore
    environment:
      - EXTRA=1
    restart: always
    ulimits:
      nproc: 65535
      nofile:
        soft: 65535
        hard: 65535
      memlock:
        soft: -1
        hard: -1
    networks:
      - manticore
networks:
  manticore:
    driver: bridge

• Start it: docker-compose up

• Create a cluster:

  $ docker-compose exec manticore-1 mysql
  
  mysql> CREATE TABLE testrt ( title text, content text, gid integer);
  
  mysql> CREATE CLUSTER posts;
  Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.24 sec)
  
  mysql> ALTER CLUSTER posts ADD testrt;
  Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.07 sec)
  
  MySQL [(none)]> exit
  Bye

• Join to the the cluster on the 2nd instance

  $ docker-compose exec manticore-2 mysql
  
  mysql> JOIN CLUSTER posts AT 'manticore-1:9312';
  mysql> INSERT INTO posts:testrt(title,content,gid)  VALUES('hello','world',1);
  Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
  
  MySQL [(none)]> exit
  Bye

• If you now go back to the first instance you'll see the new record:

  $ docker-compose exec manticore-1 mysql
  
  MySQL [(none)]> select * from testrt;
  +---------------------+------+-------+---------+
  | id                  | gid  | title | content |
  +---------------------+------+-------+---------+
  | 3891565839006040065 |    1 | hello | world   |
  +---------------------+------+-------+---------+
  1 row in set (0.00 sec)
  
  MySQL [(none)]> exit
  Bye

It's recommended to overwrite the default ulimits of docker for the Manticore instance:

 --ulimit nofile=65536:65536

For best performance, table components can be "mlocked" into memory. When Manticore is run under Docker, the instance requires additional privileges to allow memory locking. The following options must be added when running the instance:

  --cap-add=IPC_LOCK --ulimit memlock=-1:-1

If you want to run Manticore with a custom configuration that includes table definitions, you will need to mount the configuration to the instance:

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore -v $(pwd)/manticore.conf:/etc/manticoresearch/manticore.conf -v $(pwd)/data/:/var/lib/manticore -p 127.0.0.1:9306:9306 -d manticoresearch/manticore

Take into account that Manticore search inside the container is run under user manticore. Performing operations with table files (like creating or rotating plain tables) should be also done under manticore. Otherwise the files will be created under root and the search daemon won't have rights to open them. For example here is how you can rotate all tables:

docker exec -it manticore gosu manticore indexer --all --rotate

You can also set individual searchd and common configuration settings using Docker environment variables.

The settings must be prefixed with their section name, example for in case of mysql_version_string the variable must be named searchd_mysql_version_string:

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore  -p 127.0.0.1:9306:9306  -e searchd_mysql_version_string='5.5.0' -d manticoresearch/manticore

In case of the listen directive, new listening interfaces using the Docker variable searchd_listen in addition to the default ones. Multiple interfaces can be declared, separated by a semi-colon ("|"). To listen only on a network address, the $ip (retrieved internally from hostname -i) can be used as address alias.

For example -e searchd_listen='9316:http|9307:mysql|$ip:5443:mysql_vip' will add an additional SQL interface on port 9307, an SQL VIP listener on port 5443 running only on the instance's IP, and an HTTP listener on port 9316, in addition to the defaults on 9306 and 9308, respectively.

$ docker run -e EXTRA=1 --rm -p 1188:9307  -e searchd_mysql_version_string='5.5.0' -e searchd_listen='9316:http|9307:mysql|$ip:5443:mysql_vip'  manticore
[Mon Aug 17 07:31:58.719 2020] [1] using config file '/etc/manticoresearch/manticore.conf' (9130 chars)...
listening on all interfaces for http, port=9316
listening on all interfaces for mysql, port=9307
listening on 172.17.0.17:5443 for VIP mysql
listening on all interfaces for mysql, port=9306
listening on UNIX socket /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
listening on 172.17.0.17:9312 for sphinx
listening on all interfaces for http, port=9308
prereading 0 indexes
prereaded 0 indexes in 0.000 sec
accepting connections

To start Manticore with custom startup flags, specify them as arguments when using docker run. Ensure you do not include the searchd command and include the --nodetach flag. Here's an example:

docker run -e EXTRA=1 --name manticore --rm manticoresearch/manticore:latest --replay-flags=ignore-trx-errors --nodetach

By default, the main Manticore process searchd is running under user manticore inside the container, but the script which runs on starting the container is run under your default docker user which in most cases is root. If that's not what you want you can use docker ... --user manticore or user: manticore in docker compose yaml to make everything run under manticore. Read below about possible volume permissions issue you can get and how to solve it.

To build plain tables specified in your custom configuration file, you can use the CREATE_PLAIN_TABLES=1 environment variable. It will execute indexer --all before Manticore starts. This is useful if you don't use volumes, and your tables are easy to recreate.

docker run -e CREATE_PLAIN_TABLES=1 --name manticore -v $(pwd)/manticore.conf:/etc/manticoresearch/manticore.conf -p 9306:9306 -p 9308:9308 -d manticoresearch/manticore

In case you are running Manticore Search docker under non-root (using docker ... --user manticore or user: manticore in docker compose yaml), you can face a permissions issue, for example:

FATAL: directory /var/lib/manticore write error: failed to open /var/lib/manticore/tmp: Permission denied

or in case you are using -e EXTRA=1:

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/var/lib/manticore/.mcl/’: Permission denied

This can happen because the user which is used to run processes inside the container may have no permissions to modify the directory you have mounted to the container. To fix it you can chown or chmod the mounted directory. If you run the container under user manticore you need to do:

chown -R 999:999 data

since user manticore has ID 999 inside the container.

On Windows, if you want Manticore to start at boot, you can install it as a Windows Service. You can follow the instructions in the Manticore as Windows Service guide to install Manticore as a service.

Once Manticore is installed as a service, you can start and stop it from the Control Panel or from the command line using the sc.exe command.

sc.exe start Manticore

sc.exe stop Manticore

Alternatively, if you don't install Manticore as a Windows service, you can start it from the command line by running the following command:

.\bin\searchd -c manticore.conf

This command assumes that you have the Manticore's binary and the configuration file in the current directory.

If Manticore is installed using HomeBrew, you can run it as a Brew service.

To start Manticore, run the following command:

brew services start manticoresearch

To stop Manticore, run the following command:

brew services stop manticoresearch