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Details about File Search

Search Options

The following options can be set in seafevents.conf to control the behaviors of file search. You need to restart seafile and seahub to make them take effect.

[INDEX FILES]
## must be "true" to enable search
enabled = true

## The interval the search index is updated. Can be s(seconds), m(minutes), h(hours), d(days)
interval=10m

## this is for improving the search speed
highlight = fvh                              

## If true, indexes the contents of office/pdf files while updating search index
## Note: If you change this option from "false" to "true", then you need to clear the search index and update the index again.
index_office_pdf=false

## From 9.0.7 pro, Seafile supports connecting to Elasticsearch through username and password, you need to configure username and password for the Elasticsearch server
username = elastic           # username to connect to Elasticsearch
password = elastic_password  # password to connect to Elasticsearch

## From 9.0.7 pro, Seafile supports connecting to elasticsearch via HTTPS, you need to configure HTTPS for the Elasticsearch server
scheme = https               # The default is http. If the Elasticsearch server is not configured with HTTPS, the scheme and cafile do not need to be configured
cafile = path/to/cert.pem    # The certificate path for user authentication. If the Elasticsearch server does not enable certificate authentication, do not need to be configured

## From version 11.0.5 Pro, you can custom ElasticSearch index names for distinct instances when intergrating multiple Seafile servers to a single ElasticSearch Server.
repo_status_index_name = your-repo-status-index-name  # default is `repo_head`
repo_files_index_name = your-repo-files-index-name    # default is `repofiles`

Enable full text search for Office/PDF files

Full text search is not enabled by default to save system resources. If you want to enable it, you need to follow the instructions below.

Modify seafevents.conf

cd /opt/seafile-data/seafile/conf
nano seafevents.conf

cd /opt/seafile/conf
nano seafevents.conf

set index_office_pdf to true

...
[INDEX FILES]
...
index_office_pdf=true
...

Restart Seafile server

docker exec -it seafile bash
cd /scripts
./seafile.sh restart

# delete the existing search index and recreate it
./pro/pro.py search --clear
./pro/pro.py search --update

cd /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest
./seafile.sh restart

# delete the existing search index and recreate it
./pro/pro.py search --clear
./pro/pro.py search --update

Common problems

How to rebuild the index if something went wrong

You can rebuild search index by running:

docker exec -it seafile bash
cd /scripts
./pro/pro.py search --clear
./pro/pro.py search --update

cd /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest
./pro/pro.py search --clear
./pro/pro.py search --update

Tip

If this does not work, you can try the following steps:

  1. Stop Seafile
  2. Remove the old search index rm -rf pro-data/search
  3. Restart Seafile
  4. Wait one minute then run ./pro/pro.py search --update

Access the AWS elasticsearch service using HTTPS

  1. Create an elasticsearch service on AWS according to the documentation.

  2. Configure the seafevents.conf:

[INDEX FILES]
enabled = true
interval = 10m
index_office_pdf=true
es_host = your domain endpoint(for example, https://search-my-domain.us-east-1.es.amazonaws.com)
es_port = 443
scheme = https
username = master user
password = password
highlight = fvh
repo_status_index_name = your-repo-status-index-name  # default is `repo_head`
repo_files_index_name = your-repo-files-index-name    # default is `repofiles`

Note

The version of the Python third-party package elasticsearch cannot be greater than 7.14.0, otherwise the elasticsearch service cannot be accessed: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/latest/developerguide/samplecode.html#client-compatibility, https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-py/pull/1623.

I get no result when I search a keyword

The search index is updated every 10 minutes by default. So before the first index update is performed, you get nothing no matter what you search.

To be able to search immediately,

  • Make sure you have started Seafile Server
  • Update the search index manually:
docker exec -it seafile bash
cd /scripts
./pro/pro.py search --update

cd /opt/seafile/seafile-server-latest
./pro/pro.py search --update

Encrypted files cannot be searched

This is because the server cannot index encrypted files, since they are encrypted.