Apache Solr features in TYPO3: Data protection compliance with Hosted Solr
Nowadays, a powerful search function is a crucial factor for user satisfaction, conversion rates and operational efficiency. With the EXT:solr extension, you can seamlessly integrate a professional, scalable search solution into your existing TYPO3 infrastructure – thereby laying the foundations for a noticeably better performance of your digital platform.
In combination with Hosted Solr, you benefit from a search environment hosted in compliance with data protection regulations, which can be fully adapted to your business and technical requirements. From fine-grained relevance tuning and comprehensive filter and analysis functions to role-based access restrictions and user-friendly convenience features, you have all the tools at your disposal to consistently align your search strategy with your business objectives.
Which features are used in a specific project depends on your individual configuration and the defined purpose – a clear advantage for companies that value a needs-based, future-proof solution.
Apache Solr is one of the most powerful search solutions – Hosted Solr utilises this technology with a tailored selection of features for TYPO3. You can find an overview of all the features in our detailed Apache Solr feature list.
The following overview shows you the key features in detail and illustrates the potential that EXT:solr unlocks for your TYPO3 system.
AI Search / Vector Search Advanced search options Auto Suggest Boosting Content Elevation Faceted search & filters Front-end user group access restrictions Full-text search Geo-search Grouping High-performance search Metrics & aggregations Multilingual search & synonyms Pagination & “load more” Results highlighting Search in attachments Site Highlighting Sorting Spell check Stopword filtering Synonym Search Text and metadata extraction
AI Search / Vector Search
Vector search, as a form of AI search, does not only search for exact terms, but also for meanings that are similar in content. This allows search queries to be interpreted semantically and more relevant results to be found.
Auto Suggest
Auto Suggest displays relevant search suggestions as you type. This helps users find the right search query or go straight to the content they’re looking for more quickly. Optionally, Auto Suggest can also display the top results as suggestions or images with links.
Boosting
Boosting influences the relevance ranking of search results by giving greater weight to certain characteristics. This allows, for example, up-to-date, important or particularly relevant content to appear higher up in the results.
Content Elevation
Content Elevation allows specific content to be prioritised in the search results for defined search queries. This enables particularly important pages, promotions or information to be given prominence.
Faceted search & filters
Faceted search adds dynamic filters to the results list, for example by category, file type, time period or attributes. This allows even large sets of results to be narrowed down quickly and precisely.
Front-end User Group Access Restrictions
This feature ensures that only content for which a user actually has authorisation appears in search results. Protected pages or documents therefore remain invisible to unauthorised users.
Full-text search
The full-text search scans the entire content of web pages, records or documents, rather than just individual titles or keywords. This enables users to find relevant results even if the term they are searching for appears only in the body text.
Grouping
Grouping combines similar or related results into a single entry. This means that variants or duplicates are presented in a more compact way, and the results list remains clear and organised.
High-performance search
This feature ensures fast search results, even with large volumes of data. Optimised indexing and query processing guarantee high performance, which is particularly crucial when dealing with extensive content or high user traffic.
Metrics & Aggregations
Metrics and aggregations provide summarised values for search results, such as counts, averages or distributions. This allows results to be analysed directly within the search without having to export them.
Multilingual search
This feature allows users to search in multiple languages. It enables them to find content in different language versions without having to change the language manually.
Pagination & ‘Load more’
This feature controls how large sets of results are distributed across multiple pages or loaded incrementally. This improves clarity and ensures a user-friendly presentation of results.
Results Highlighting
Results Highlighting (Treffermarkierung) hebt Suchbegriffe direkt in der Trefferliste oder im Such-Snippet farblich hervor. Nutzer sehen dadurch sofort, warum ein Ergebnis zu ihrer Anfrage passt.
Sorting
Sorting determines the order in which search results are displayed, for example by relevance, date or alphabetically. This allows users to better tailor the results view to their current needs.
Spelling check
The spelling check detects potential typos in search queries and suggests appropriate corrections. This means that even an incorrect entry often still leads to useful results.
Stopword filtering
This function ignores common but meaningless words (e.g. ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘and’) in search queries. This makes the search more precise and efficient, as indexing focuses on the relevant terms.
Synonym search
Advanced search operators allow you to refine your search queries in a targeted manner, for example using phrases, exclusions, wildcards or field searches. This is particularly helpful for users who want to carry out very precise searches.
* Certain functions require additional extensions, further components or a project-specific implementation and are not included in the standard scope of EXT:solr alone.
For site highlighting, EXT:solr merely handles the passing of the search term; the highlighting on the target page itself must be carried out by the project team.
Searching within attachments is only available in conjunction with additional extensions such as solrfal and EXT:tika.
Text and metadata extraction requires EXT:tika; for newer setups, such as those using TYPO3 v14 and Apache Solr 10, an additional component may also be required.
Questions about Apache Solr for TYPO3
How can I use an Apache Solr index that is hosted by Hosted Solr in my TYPO3 installation?
After creating the Solr index using the web interface, please click on the button Tipps. There, we provide a TypoScript snippet that you need to paste into your website's TypoScript template configuration.
How do I configure the Hosted Solr cores via Site Configuration?
When using Site Configuration and the appropriate EXT:solr version 10+, the core configuration must be done in Site Configuration. However, the data required for Hosted Solr cannot be stored via Site Management, but requires a manual adjustment of the yaml file. As mentioned in the extension documentation, language-specific information can be stored there, e.g. via solr_host_read or solr_core_read.
In excerpts the configuration in the yaml file could look like this:
EXT:solr < 12.0
languages:
-
title: German
solr_host_read: node-x.hosted-solr.com
solr_core_read: core_de
solr_path_read: ##path##/solr/
solr_username_read: ##user_host_x##
solr_password_read: ##password_host_x##
-
title: English
solr_host_read: node-y.hosted-solr.com
solr_core_read: core_en
solr_path_read: ##path##/solr/
solr_username_read: ##user_host_y##
solr_password_read: ##password_host_y##
rootPageId: 1
solr_enabled_read: true
solr_scheme_read: https
solr_port_read: 443
solr_use_write_connection: false
EXT:solr >= 12.0
languages:
-
title: German
solr_host_read: node-x.hosted-solr.com
solr_core_read: core_de
solr_path_read: /##path##
solr_username_read: ##user_host_x##
solr_password_read: ##password_host_x##
-
title: English
solr_host_read: node-y.hosted-solr.com
solr_core_read: core_en
solr_path_read: /##path##
solr_username_read: ##user_host_y##
solr_password_read: ##password_host_y##
rootPageId: 1
solr_enabled_read: true
solr_scheme_read: https
solr_port_read: 443
solr_use_write_connection: false
The use of environment variables is also possible, see Using Environment Variables in Site Configuration in the EXT:solr documentation.
Important: The yaml file should be protected from external access.
SOLR_ENABLE_REMOTE_STREAMING and Hosted Solr
EXT:solr uses remote streaming, since Apache Solr 11.8.3 and 9.3.0 the use requires the setting of an environment variable. Hosted Solr cores support remote streaming and you can use all current EXT:solr versions.
EXT:solr 11.5.6 and 12.0.2 check the current status in the Reports module to show users any problems. Hosted Solr cores do not yet support the status check, although remote streaming is activated. You can ignore the message "Error determining system properties", in future a new creation of the core will provide a remedy.
Note on remote streaming, the use with EXT:solr and Hosted Solr is unproblematic, but with self-hosted Solr servers it must always be ensured that they are appropriately secured and not directly accessible to third parties
Is direct access to the Solr Admin UI possible?
For security reasons, access to the Solr Admin UI is restricted and not possible, but tools are available to perform core operations or check the index content.
Via hosted-solr.com you can trigger the core reload, e.g. when using synonyms, this is possible for each core via ‘Admin’ => ‘Reload Solr core’, as well as the complete emptying of the core (‘Admin’ => ‘Empty Solr index’). In the case of TYPO3, it is possible to view the index content via the ‘Apache Solr’ > ‘Info’ > ‘Index Documents’ module.
How does a core reload with Hosted Solr work?
Core reloads are rarely necessary, but actions such as changes to synonyms or stop words require a reload. For security reasons, however, access to the Apache Solr admin module is restricted and a reload is therefore not possible via the TYPO3 backend.
Of course, you can also trigger a core reload with Hosted Solr; this is possible with your Hosted Solr access at hosted-solr.com. You will find a corresponding option for each core under ‘Admin’ => ‘Reload Solr core’, as well as for completely emptying the core (‘Admin’ => ‘Empty Solr index’).
Does EXT:tika work with Hosted Solr?
In TYPO3 installations, EXT:tika allows metadata and text extraction from local files, which offers added value, especially in conjunction with the solrfal extension available via the dkd development contributions.
Of course, Hosted Solr also supports metadata and text extraction, which is configured in EXT:tika via the ‘Solr Server’ service and the associated options. It is important to ensure that the access data is also specified during the connection configuration; this could look like this
EXT:solr < 12.0 & EXT:tika < 12.0
| General.extractor | Solr Server |
| Server.solrScheme | https |
| Server.solrHost | ##user##:##pass##@##host## |
| Server.solrPort | 443 |
| Server.solrPath | /##user##/solr/##core## |
(Screenshot of a sample configuration)
EXT:solr 12.0+ & EXT:tika 12.0.1+
| General.extractor | Solr Server |
| solr.solrScheme | https |
| solr.solrHost | ##host## |
| solr.solrPort | 443 |
| solr.solrPath | /##user## |
| solr.solrCore | ##core## |
| solr.solrUsername | ##user## |
| solr.solrPassword | ##pass## |