Sriram Natarajan's Weblog: Do more with Web Server

Large center deployments require the ability to simply layout the product binaries through automated data center tools like Sun N1 Service Provisioning System or  HP (formerly known as Opsware) Server Automation software . This allows server administrators managing large data center to replicate or provision new servers on need basis with very little overhead. 

Sun Java System Web Server 7 has always provided the ability to automate its installation through our silent state file mode. In this mode, web server 7 can non interactively layout the binaries as well as configure the installation in a single step. Sun N1 Service Provisioning System uses Web Server 7 silent state file based installation to provision servers in data centers.

However, some enterprise customers wanted the ability to simply layout Web Server 7 binaries and without actually configuring them. With  Web Server 7 Update 3, we have now provided the ability to simply layout our binaries - a typical requirement in data center based deployments using Opsware Server Automation center.  For this mode, a new state variable known as CONFIGURE_LATER  has been introduced. Now, once this variable is defined within the Web Server 7 state file , Web Server 7 installer will simply layout the binaries without configuring Web Server 7 administration server or an actual server instance. Customers will then need to run 'configureServer' to actually configure a server instance and administration server or node.

Here is a quick write up on how to do this.

• Download Web Server 7 Update 3 from here and unpack the zip into a temporary location (say /tmp)
• Now, you will need to create a state file as shown in our docs
  
• Within this state file, also include another variable as 'CONFIGURE_LATER' and set it to True
• Using this state file , you can now install to a given location without actually configuring an administration server or a server instance as shown below :
  
• run ./setup -silent <statefile>  command from the command line
  
• Once the installation is completed successfully, you can now non-interactively configure Web Server 7 with an administration node or server and a server instance. If you are confused as to what is this administration server or node, please check out this Understanding Web Server 7 guide for some back ground. 
  
• Getting back to the topic on completing configuration for Web Server 7 , you can either choose to edit 'configureServer.properties' file found under under <install-root>/setup directory as shown in Configure Later  section. (Please remember to set WS_IS_JES to False ) . A sample configuration file is already created for you with all values filled within <install-root>/setup/configureServer.properties. You can feel free to customize this as well.
  
• Finally, you can run the <install-root>/lib/configureServer script to complete the configuration as shown below
• <install-root>/lib/configureServer -inputfile <config-file>
• For example, if you installed non interactively under /sun/webserver7, then you would do something like below
  
• /sun/webserver7/lib/configureServer -inputfile /sun/webserver7/setup/configureServer.properties -verbose -logfile /sun/webserver7/setup/configure.log
  

Note:  Please find attached a sample script for UNIX/Linux platforms to non interactively layout and configure the binaries . Feel free to download , read through and customize this script to suite your needs.