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This page describes how to speed up execution of DSpace command-line scripts (class launcher) using Nailgun by Martian Software, Inc.

The reason why even the simplest DSpace command-line scripts usually take several seconds to run is because the Java class launcher has to create a new JVM instance every time it's run. Nailgun has a client/server architecture and implements a very lightweight JVM in the server part, which keeps running as a service and therefore doesn't have to be started up every time. You then use the command line nailgun client (ng) to connect to it to launch a class, which is considerably faster than starting up the JVM.

1. Download and build the nailgun client and server (this assumes that dspace is installed in /dspace, that you have gcc installed and that you can run binaries from ~/bin):

   Code Block
   git clone git://github.com/martylamb/nailgun.git cd nailgun mvn clean install cp nailgun-server/target/nailgun-server-0.9.2-SNAPSHOT.jar /dspace/lib/ cp nailgun-server/target/nailgun-server-0.9.2-SNAPSHOT.jar /dspace/webapps/xmlui/WEB-INF/lib/ cd nailgun-client gcc ng.c -o ng cp ng ~/bin # exit your shell and launch it again

2. Start the nailgun server and add DSpace to its classpath:

   Code Block
   java -classpath /dspace/lib/nailgun-server-0.9.2-SNAPSHOT.jar com.martiansoftware.nailgun.NGServer & ng ng-cp /dspace/lib/*.jar /dspace/config ng ng-alias dspace org.dspace.app.launcher.ScriptLauncher

3. Run the client:

   Code Block
   # instead of this: /dspace/bin/dspace # use this: ng dspace   # Example. Instead of /dspace/bin/dspace update-discovery-index # use this ng dspace update-discovery-index

4. After you're finished running multiple invocations of the DSpace command-line scripts, you can stop the Nailgun server:

   Code Block
   ng ng-stop