Absence of --dump-import as a environment variable makes version updates complex

[bidoubiwa]

Describe the bug
The flag --dump-import has no related environment variable (see doc). This causes the import dump process in environments where meilisearch runs a service to be complex.

For example, if MeiliSearch runs with systemctl the launch command is located in the following file:
/etc/systemd/system/meilisearch.service

In this file the following line is present:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/meilisearch --env production --db-path /var/lib/meilisearch/data.ms

I could edit the file with a script but it would mean I have to edit it once to add --import-dump flag and once to remove it.

So this is another solution I used to avoid file parsing, and string manipulation:

Imagine I want to update my MeiliSearch version and create a dump before hands. This is the current script:

1. create dump
2. Stop the service
3. delete data.ms
4. Download new version of meilisearch
5. launch meilisearch where it has been downloaded using --import-dump with the dump id of step 1
   ./meilisearch --import-dump --db-path /var/lib/meilisearch/data.ms
6. wait for import
7. Close MeiliSearch local instance
8. move local meilisearch binary into /usr/bin/meilisearch to override previous version
9. restart meilisearch service
10. delete dump file

It is now updated to the new MeiliSearch version

If we had MEIL_DUMP_IMPORT the migration would have been as follow:

1. create dump
2. stop service
3. delete data.ms
4. download new MeiliSearch version
5. move meilisearch binary into /usr/bin/meilisearch to override previous version
6. create MEIL_DUMP_IMPORT with correct dump path
7. restart meilisearch service
8. Remove env variable: MEILI_DUMP_IMPORT
9. delete dump file

MeiliSearch version: v0.22.0

[curquiza]

Feature request and feedback are not in this repo anymore but in the product one :) I move it!

[gmourier]

Thanks, @bidoubiwa!

If there was such an environment variable, it would make little sense to point it to a .dump file specifically. On the other hand, in a more general way, we could have an upgrade CLI command which could, for example, list the different dumps contained in a folder and display a prompt to choose the desired file in order to import a specific dump if the most recent one is not wanted.

This environment variable allows to do this in an ad-hoc way and seems to make sense to facilitate the precise import of a dump, which seems to be an operation that is not repeated multiple times for the same exact dump.

[bidoubiwa]

Thanks @gmourier, I also changed my mind on the risks of having a --dump-import. It is indeed not a good idea as you pointed out.

An upgrade CLI command would be very nice!

[gmourier]

FYI @bidoubiwa

As we will work on a configuration file for v0.30, we will also consider introducing the following consistency rule.

All configuration variables must be modifiable via the configuration file, as an env var and as a cli option.

Sometimes the cloud team asks us env vars that they need that are only accessible via a CLI option when requested. e.g meilisearch/meilisearch#2721

By introducing that consistency rule, we'd like to avoid this kind of back and forth and make everyone's job easier.

[gmourier]

Hey 👋

Locking this discussion since it has been released with v0.30

📚 https://docs.meilisearch.com/learn/configuration/instance_options.html#import-dump