[GitHub] [metron] merrimanr opened a new pull request #1374: METRON-2061: Solr documents with date fields cannot be updated with Dao classes

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merrimanr opened a new pull request #1374: METRON-2061: Solr documents with date fields cannot be updated with Dao classes
URL: https://github.com/apache/metron/pull/1374
 
 
   ## Contributor Comments
   The initial purpose of this PR is to explain the cause of the problem described in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/METRON-2061 and facilitate discussion on an optimal solution.  A solution is presented here but I expect we will explore other solutions as well.  
   
   ### Problem
   
   Date type fields are a problem for our `UpdateDao` classes because of the logic used to update documents.  Currently the process is this:
   
   1. Get the latest document using either the Elasticsearch or Solr client API.  This document is returned as a Java object.
   2. Convert both the document object and patch object to a `JsonNode` object using Jackson.  This includes serializing/deserializing the objects internally.
   3. Apply the patch using the `JsonPatch` API.
   4. Convert the patched `JsonNode` back to a document object.
   5. Index the document object into Elasticsearch or Solr.
   
   The problem is that the date type is lost during serialization.  Jackson automatically converts it to epoch long by default: https://fasterxml.github.io/jackson-databind/javadoc/2.7/com/fasterxml/jackson/databind/SerializationFeature.html#WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS.  There is also an option of converting the value to a date string.  The error happens because the original date field now contains a long when a document is indexed.
   
   ### Possible Solutions
   I think there are several ways to solve this problem and I will present some options here.  Others are welcome to propose additional solutions.
   
   1. Add special handling for date fields - We could detect date fields and handle the conversion.  We would need to manage the Jackson date format and ensure it lines up with the date format Elasticsearch or Solr expects.
   2. Handle the patch with a custom utility (the initial solution in this PR) - The JSON Patch specification (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6902) is fairly simple and straightforward.  Instead of using a 3rd party library that requires `JsonNode` objects and serialization/deserialization, we could apply the patches directly to the objects.
   3. Partial updates - I believe both Elasticsearch and Solr provide support for partial updates.  In this case we would only need to handle date type fields when those specific fields are being updated.
   
   I chose option #2 because it is simple and avoids any future document field type issues.  I believe we should move away from the `JsonPatch` API and serialization/deserialization altogether because there is potential for other Jackson issues and it is inefficient.  This rules out option #1 for me.  Option #3 is attractive for obvious reasons but may require significant changes to our API.
   
   ### Testing
   The initial solution included here has been tested in full dev.  We can use this test script regardless of the solution we choose.
   
   1. Spin up full dev and enable Solr using the instructions in the metron-solr README.
   2. Stop the Storm topologies.  This will make it easier to isolate our test to a single document.
   3. Pick a schema and add a date type field to it:
   ```
   <field name="timestamp_solr" type="iso_timestamp" indexed="true" stored="true" />
   <fieldType name="iso_timestamp" stored="true" indexed="true" multiValued="false" class="solr.TrieDateField" sortMissingLast="false" docValues="true"/>
   ```
   4. Clear out the collection corresponding to the changed schema and index a document with a `timestamp_solr` value:
   ```
   {
     "guid":"some-guid",
     "source.type":"yaf",
     "timestamp_solr":"2019-04-04T00:00:00Z"
   }
   ```
   I did this using the "Documents" menu item in the Solr UI at `http://node1:8983`.
   
   5. Attempt to patch an unrelated field:
   ```
   curl -X PATCH --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --header 'Accept: application/json' -d '{
     "guid": "some-guid",
     "patch": [
       {"op":"add","value":"DISMISS","path":"/alert_status"}
     ],
     "sensorType": "yaf"
   }' 'http://user:password@node1:8082/api/v1/update/patch'
   ```
   This request should succeed without error and the updated document should be returned with the new field.  Before this PR a 500 error was returned with a message similar to:
   ```
   Error from server at http://node1:8983/solr/yaf: Invalid Date String:'75231198000'
   ```
   6. This can also be tested in the Alerts UI by filtering on the guid and changing the status in the details panel.
   
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