Rakesh's web blog: Web Server 7 stuff

Are you using 6.0 or 6.1 version of Web Server? Do you wanna try the new and cool features of Sun Java System Web Server 7 with the settings of your 6.0 or 6.1 version?, then use the migration option provided in Sun Java System Web Server 7 (Download).

• Configurations-For every instance of 6.0/6.1, a new configuration will be created in webserver 7.0 (Please refer to migration logs <default location is admin-server/logs/MIGRATION*.log>  for more information on the files that will be/will not be migrated).
• Search -  Search collections can be migrated physically.
  
• Web-apps-  Web-app entries in server.xml will be migrated. If the web-apps directory resides under config-root of the migrating instance, it will be copied to the config-root of the new configuration.
  

You can use either GUI or CLI to migrate.

Using GUI: Click on Migrate Configuration link from the Common Tasks page to open a wizard, which will guide you through the migration process.

Using CLI: Connect to wadm as shown below. (Note : wadm is located under the bin directory of your web server 7.0 installation root)

--config is the new configuration name and --instance is the 6.x instance that you want to migrate. If you do not specify the --config option, a new config will be created from the instance name with 'https-' stripped from it (rakesh in this case).

(1) If the search collection path is outside the 6.x instance, then migrated collection path will point to the same directory.

(2) (a)  If the search collection path is within the 6.x instance, and the user enters a valid value for search-collection-copy-path option, then the migrated collection path will be
    <search-collection-copy-path>/<instance name>/<vs id>/<collection name>
and migration will copy the collection to that directory.
(2) (b) If the search collection path is within the 6.x instance, and the user enters a wrong value for search-collection-copy-path option, then no collection will be created and a log message will be recorded.

(3) If the search collection path is within the 6.x instance, and the user does not enter any value for search-collection-copy-path option, then the migrated collection path will be
    ../collections/<vs id>/<collection name>
and log message will be recorded(asking the user to add the documents manually). Admin will create the "../collections/<vs id>/<collection name>" directory.

You can specify the directory in which you want the migration logs to be present.Otherwise, the default directory will be used which is,

        'INSTALL_ROOT/admin-server/logs'.

Migration of instances would simply create new configurations on webserver 7.0. User has to manually create instances for these configurations by using Create Instance command.

Eg: Migration of an instance, say "https-rakesh" from 6.0/6.1 would create a new configuration "rakesh" on 7.0. When the user creates an instance for "rakesh", it would be https-rakesh on web server 7.

Attention Windows operating system users!, you have to take care of certain things while migrating from 6.x to 7.0. Please, refer to the "Resolving Service ID conflicts during migration  on Windows Platform" section, to avoid service id conflicts as shown below.

Let us start from migrating a 6.x instance, say "https-rakesh". Migration using GUI would default the new configuration name to "rakesh", ie. it strips off 'https-'.On Windows platform, creation of instance for any config ("rakesh") will try to register a service-id ("https-rakesh") with Windows  Services. But, the service id "https-rakesh" is already taken by the existing  6.x instance, which is "https-rakesh" (plese, don't get confused by "https-rakesh" being used at two places, first one refers to service-id and the second one refers to instance). Hence, there would be a service-id conflict and creation of instance would fail for the migrated config.

There are two ways to handle this scenario. The first one can be used while migrating, whereas the second one can be used after migration.

1). Change the config name at the time of migration. Ensure you pick a name for which the service ID will be available.

    CLI: use the –config option of the migrate-server
    command.

    GUI: rename the default config name in the migrate
    server wizard.

2).If you've forgotten to change the config name or used --all option of while migrating, then creation of instances would fail. As a workaround copy  the configuration using the copy-config feature of web sever 7.0 to copy this configuration(rakesh) to a different and unique configuration(say rakesh-6x) and make sure that the service-id https-rakesh-6x is not taken already.

    CLI:

    GUI: Go to Configurations page, click on 'copy' of
    Configurations table, enter a new config name and
    complete the copying  of configuration.

Feel free to shoot any questions on migration or related topics.