WS 7.0 Administration

WS 7.0 Administration...It's different

In WS 6.x the administration was simple. There are instances that can be created & configured and then the changes can be applied by clicking the 'Apply changes' button. In WS 7.0 the administration model has changed. Before we start looking at how to administer WS 7.0 we shall look at a few concepts and terminology that are new in WS 7.0.
Configuration - A configuration is the set of all configurable elements of an instance such as web apps., config files (server.xml, magnus.conf, obj.conf, etc.), search collection indexes, etc. A configuration can be created/modified/deleted. There can be more than 1 configuration that can be managed.
Config-store - This is the filesytem-based repository where all the configurations will be stored.
Instance - An instance is the same as the 6.x instance. An instance can be created given a configuration. This is the association between an instance and a configuration. A configuration has all the manageable/configurable elements and then we create an instance by specifying the name of the configuration. Every time the configuration is modified it can then be deployed. This will update the instance of that configuration with the latest in the configuration.
Server farm - The set of all server host machines which will be managed by a single admin server.
Admin server - The same as the 6.x administration server. One logs into the admin server and then performs any administration activities such as modifying configurations, creating/updating/deleting instances, etc.
Admin agent - This is new in WS 7.0. In WS 7.0 there is support for implicit clustering. An admin agent is nothing but an admin server configured differently. An admin agent does not provide a GUI interface. It is simply an agent for the admin server to command. One node in the server farm has the admin server installed. All other nodes in the server farm will have admin agents installed. An admin agent is registered with an admin server upon installation. This will make the admin server aware of that admin agent.

What's new in WS 7.0 administration (highlights)

1. Apart for the above concepts and terminology WS 7.0 administration boasts of an extensive, powerful and complete command line interface. With WS 7.0 admin all the administration activities that is possible with WS 7.0 can be done from the powereful command line interface.
2. WS 7.0 also has a completely revamped and redesigned GUI with the focus of making the GUI more user friendly with easier navigation, a task page with a list of common/frequent tasks, etc.
3. WS 7.0 has support for implicit and easy clustering of web server instances.

The administration model

"A picture is worth a thousand words" say the wise.

Some useful commands.

Let me start you with a basic walkthru of the command line interface usage by illustrating the usage of a few basic commands.
I will let you explore to discover the remaining commands and their usage.

bash-3.00$cd <installroot> bash-3.00$bin/wadm --user admin Please enter admin-user-password> Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 B05/10/2006 14:54 wadm>help User Commands                                             help(1) NAME      help - display a list of all commands SYNOPSIS      help [--help|h] DESCRIPTION      Use this command to view a list of command line interface in      Web Server 7. The command line tool is be called wadm, which      can be used in three modes, that is, single, shell, and file      mode. .... ....      The following list describes all commands in an alphabetical      order.      add-search-docs            adds search documents [<space> to continue, q or Q to quit]: Sun Java System Web Server 7-Last Updated: May 2006                     2      add-webapp            adds a web application      copy-config            copies an existing configuration to create a new  con-            figuration      copy-vitrual-server            copies a an existing virtual server to  create  a  new            virtual server ... .. wadm>create-config Usage: create-config [--user=admin-user] [--password-file=admin-pswd-file] [--host=admin-host] [--port=admin-port] [--no-ssl] [--rcfile=rcfile] [--echo] [--no-prompt] [--verbose] [--document-root=serverdocroot] [--jdk-home=JAVA_HOME] [--server-user=userid] --http-port=port [--ip=ip] --server-name=servername config-name CLI020 Operand is required. wadm>create-config --http-port=9090 --server-name=myhost.domain newconfig001 CLI201 Command 'create-config' ran successfully wadm>list-configs test newconfig001 wadm>create-instance --config newconfig001 localhost CLI201 Command 'create-instance' ran successfully wadm> list-instances -c newconfig001 blr03-dhcp-223-138 wadm> list-instances -c newconfig001 -l blr03-dhcp-223-138      stopped wadm> list-instances -c newconfig001 -l --verbose node-name       state --------------- blr03-dhcp-223-138      stopped wadm>list-virtual-servers --config newconfig001 -l --verbose name    http-listener-name ----------------------- newconfig001    [http-listener-1] wadm>get-http-listener-prop --config newconfig001 --http-listener http-listener-1 blocking-io=false default-virtual-server-name=newconfig001 family=default enabled=true server-name=myhost.domain acceptor-threads=1 listen-queue-size=128 name=http-listener-1 ip=* port=9090 wadm>start-instance --config newconfig001 CLI204 Successfully started the server instance. wadm> list-instances -c newconfig001 -l --verbose node-name       state --------------- blr03-dhcp-223-138      started wadm>stop-instance --config newconfig001 CLI205 Successfully stopped the server instance. wadm> list-instances -c newconfig001 -l --verbose node-name       state --------------- blr03-dhcp-223-138      stopped wadm>exit bash-3.00$ bash-3.00$

In my next posting I will discuss basic clustering using a server farm of 2 server host machines.

Until then Happy WS 7.0 adventuring .... Oops! Happy WS 7.0 administering....