WebLogic Admin Tricks & Tips

Problem: Closing startWebLogic.cmd execution window - SHUTDOWN server We were working on Oracle Fusion Middleware environment, where the WLS_FORMS managed server was down. We need to bring it up by starting the server immediately, because it is live we have tried to start with nodemanager. But, it is failed! due to the stdout log rotation failure unable to start the managed server. The servers running on the same Windows machine are well and RUNNING state. Production environments we cannot keep a server DOWN for longer time. So first we tried with immediate temporary solution is to start the managed server from the domain home we need to keep a CMD window open. If someone logged in and closed the window the server will be down again! In UNIX we have nohup and &(ampersand) to run in the background. Now we need similar solution in Windows platform. After working in Unix platform for many years, felt Windows is hard to us!!! There is always a way for this problem. Solution we iden...

As a Middleware Admin, we might need to check the mail service is working or not on the Linux machine or Soloris machine on which our Weblogic running. To monitor and send the traps for issues we must have mail service enabled. In Linux how to check mail service up? We have tried to test the sendmail command from the Linux machine. with the following command: echo "This is the body."| mailx -s "mailx Test1" bhavanishekhar@gmail.com echo "test" | mailx -s "test_sub" bhavanishekhar@gmail.com When I tested with the above test message got the error saying as follows: postdrop: warning: unable to look up public/pickup: No such file or directory. There is no mail service is running you validate the same with the following: We have several options checking the processes list for the pattern 'mail'. $ ps aux | grep mail |grep -v grep $ or use other option is usually the mail service on Unix machine runs on port 25, so grep it fro...

We had an issue on production environment. Suddenly one of the webserver got crashed that no one aware of it. That was happen in the Weekend there were no users accessing at that time. When the business hour started Monday morning customer reported to service desk that one of the URL is not working for them. We middleware support team check the URL and identified that the HTTP server not working. Next action items as you know taking the logs backup and starting the HTTP server done. As part of issue management preventive action to this there could be a monitoring of the URLs. All the web servers hosted application, load balancer that is serving the application or Application server that hosted the web application must be checked randomly or every day before business hours starts. To do this monitoring team started working on listing out all loadbalancer URL, primary, secondary webserver URLs and also Application server hosted URL lists and checking on the browser each URL. Here is t...

Middleware Admin means the day runs with Emergency calls or On-calls, supporting team task always under high pressure cooker -- many of them feel tension tension due to heat in the head many got into hair-fall!!! ... Its a challenging task, only those who can handle the jobs under pressure can do this with tricks. But When you don't have calls you might think to reduce your stress in the work with smart automation scripting to make life more easier. Best Practices for WebLogic Logs If the environment is shorter let say it is size of 10 - 20 managed servers, then the best idea is to implement is that all these managed server logs, JMS stores must shared a common mount point . When application support team run into issues, this will give you the flexibility to search the logs easily and faster way to get rid of issues with this unique log location. In most of your project environments you might find the multiple logs such as application reated, JMS message stores or some tran...

If you digest Operating Systems basics or SHELL basics, you might think much effectively and you can make  more optimized ways to leverage your work, you can design your script with enhanced ability with productivity. Once you taste that flavor in my scripts, you can feel that and understand that why did I told those exaggerated words. Let me share my experience on this. In every J2EE production environment is going to have an application code (most of the developer say it the composition of 'dist' and 'properties'), which could be no-stage mode deployment style. Where you need to have a copy of code on every WebLogic server running machine. For every production release there could be success or fail. A wise WebLogic Administrator always takes the backup of the existing code and then go further to do fresh code deployment. According to the best practices of WebLogic deployment process, First time you will do the sample test on the production environment by making ...

In the last post I was made deeper research on getting the process id of all WebLogic instances with a script. After looking to that script, My asked me 'Why don't you try for a script for bouncing a WebLogic instance?'. I thought that's really good idea, this makes WebLogic Admin life more easier, which is very much need for every WebLogic Admin. Let me get all the clues before putting the logic into the script. The bounce script will take the input as WebLogic instance name. Then the script should do search for the corresponding Java Process id of given WebLogic instance. That Java Process ID can be used for finding: 1. Thread dump 2. Domain directory 3. Shutdown instance (kill the process) Above 1, 3 are commonly used commands but 2nd one required when situation like this, on the same machine if there exists multiple WebLogic domain instances then how to find the WebLogic instance started from? Here, I need to find the origin directory of startManaged...

You might be wonder what is fun in this blog looking for X11 forwarding on Solaris 5.10!! You might be excited to see the beauty of colorful Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic 11g installation window when you executable binaries (wls1033_solaris32.bin), You might wish to see Oracle WebLogic domain configuration Wizard (config.sh), Oracle WebLogic Domain Template builder (config_builder.sh), BEA Smart Update (bsu.sh) windows or your Oracle Database 11g while you work on a remote UNIX machines. After spending few hours on the Internet found many blogs written on their experiences, few document on websites, which illustrated about SSH, X11 forwarding in UNIX. I understand that what I need to do? To achieve my objective X11 Forwarding using SSH window, I must have a X emulating software installed on my desktop. you guys have this on your desktop?? If not install Hummingbird Connectivity (Xming is alternative) My experimenting environment is Solaris 10, Oracle WebLogic, SSH ...