Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 10.4. A typical Neo4j server setup with client access via the standard REST API
TheNeo4jserverisitselfsimplyaJVM-basedapplication.Underthecovers,itprovidesits
functionality by wrapping an appropriate instance of the
GraphDatabaseService
in-
terface (
EmbeddedGraphDatabase
or
HighlyAvailableGraphDatabase
), ex-
posing the functionality to the outside world through a well-defined REST interface.
To be able to listen to and react to REST requests made to the server by clients, all Neo4j
serverinstanceswillstartupanembeddedwebserver(currentlyaJettyserverlistening,by
default, on port 7474).
Installing and Using Neo4j Server
To install the Neo4j server, you'll need to download the appropriate tar or zip file for your
particularOS,uncompressit,andthenmakeuseoftheOS-specificscriptstostartandstop
the server.
Appendix A
details the exact steps required to do this.
From the client perspective, you don't necessarily need any specific Neo4j libraries. As
long as you can make HTTP requests, you're good to go. If you're in a Unix environment,
the curl client will do this for you. However, the raw REST API is very verbose, and more
oftenthannotyou'llwantsomeclientlibrariesthatcanmakeyourlifealittleeasierbytak-
