Quick Start, with Java, using Docker

This guide shows how to install and run Vespa on a single machine using Docker - it builds and deploys an application, feeds some data and issues queries. This application contains Java components, there's also a version that doesn't use Java. See Getting Started for troubleshooting, next steps and other guides.

This guide is tested with vespaengine/vespa:8.458.13 container image.

Running Vespa in Docker

  1. Validate the environment:

    Make sure you see at minimum 4 GB. Refer to Docker memory for details and troubleshooting: 

    $ docker info | grep "Total Memory"
or
$ podman info | grep "memTotal"

  2. Install the Vespa CLI:

    Using Homebrew:

    $ brew install vespa-cli

    You can also download Vespa CLI for Windows, Linux and macOS.

  3. Start a Vespa Docker container:

    $ docker run --detach --name vespa --hostname vespa-container \
  --publish 8080:8080 --publish 19071:19071 \
  vespaengine/vespa

    The port 8080 is published to make the query and feed endpoints accessible from outside the docker container, 19071 is the config server endpoint. Only one docker container named vespa can run at a time, change the name as needed. See Docker containers for more insights.

  4. Initialize myapp/ to a copy of a sample application package: 

    $ vespa clone album-recommendation-java myapp
$ cd myapp

  5. Build it:

    $ mvn install

  6. Deploy it:

    $ vespa deploy --wait 300

  7. Feed documents:

    $ vespa feed src/test/resources/*.json

  8. Issue queries:

    $ vespa query "select * from music where album contains 'head'"

    $ vespa query "select * from music where true" \
  "ranking=rank_albums" \
  "input.query(user_profile)={{cat:pop}:0.8,{cat:rock}:0.2,{cat:jazz}:0.1}"
    This uses the Query API.

Next steps

Check out getting started for more tutorials and use cases which Vespa is great for.

Explore the Vespa sample applications.