Updating portal/wcm properties via config engine tasks

Websphere portal maintains lot of configurations in property files and resource environment entries. One way to edit them is via logging into was console other way is to edit the property files. Values in was console rep entries will take higher order than property files.If you want to modify large number of values in property files then you can perform the changes and run appropriate task based on properties belong to portal or wcm config.

For changes to WebSphere Portal properties files to take effect, run the following task from the  wp_profile_root/ConfigEngine directory.

Windows: ConfigEngine.bat update-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

AIX® Linux Solaris: ./ConfigEngine.sh update-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

IBM i: ConfigEngine.sh update-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

z/OS: ./ConfigEngine.sh update-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

For changes to Web Content Manager properties files, run the following task from the wp_profile_root/ConfigEngine directory.:-

Windows: ConfigEngine.bat update-wcm-service-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

AIX Linux Solaris: ./ConfigEngine.sh update-wcm-service-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

IBM i: ConfigEngine.sh update-wcm-service-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

z/OS: ./ConfigEngine.sh update-wcm-service-properties -DPortalAdminPwd=password -DWasUserid=username -DWasPassword=password

List of possible configuration parameters :- 

WebSphere Portal service	Service name in the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console	WebSphere Portal properties file
Administrator Unique Names Mapping Service	WP AdminUniqueNamesMappingService	AdminUniqueNamesMappingService.properties
Cache Manager Service	WP CacheManagerService	CacheManagerService.properties
Common Component Configuration Service	WP CommonComponentConfigService	CommonComponentConfigService.properties
Configuration Service	WP ConfigService	ConfigService.properties
CP Configuration Service for tagging and rating	WP CPConfigurationService	CPConfigurationService.properties
Content Access Service	WP PortletServiceRegistryService See Content Access Service.	PortletServiceRegistryService.properties See Content Access Service.
Data Store Service	WP DataStoreService	DataStoreService.properties
Deployment Service	WP DeploymentService	DeploymentService.properties
HTTP Client Service	WP HTTPClientService	HTTPClientService.properties
Live Object Service	WP LiveObjectService	LiveObjectService.properties
Loader Service	WP LoaderService	LoaderService.properties
Localizer Service	WP LocalizerService	LocalizerService.properties
Model WebDAV Service	WP ModelWebDAVService	ModelWebDAVService.properties
Navigator Service	WP NavigatorService	NavigatorService.properties
Pipe Pool Service	WP PipePoolService	PipePoolService.properties
Portlet Container Service. See also Enabling parallel portlet rendering	WP PortletContainerService	PortletContainerService.properties
Project Identification Service	WP ProjectIdentificationService	ProjectIdentificationService.properties
Registry Service	WP RegistryService	RegistryService.properties
State Manager Service See also URL normalization for search of portal pages by external search engines	WP StateManagerService	StateManagerService.properties
Virtual Portal Configuration Service	WP VirtualPortalConfigService	VirtualPortalConfigService.properties

Table 2. WebSphere Portal security services

WebSphere Portal security service	Service name in the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console	WebSphere Portal properties file
Authentication Service	WP AuthenticationService	AuthenticationService.properties
Credential Vault Service	WP VaultService	VaultService.properties
Portal Access Control Services
Access Control Data Management Service	WP AccessControlDataManagementService	AccessControlDataManagementService.properties
External Access Control Service	WP ExternalAccessControlService	ExternalAccessControlService.properties
Auditing Service	WP AuditService	AuditService.properties
Access Control Service	WP AccessControlService	AccessControlService.properties
Access Control WarmUp Service	WP AccessControlWarmUpService	AccessControlWarmUpService.properties
PAC Group Management Service	WP PACGroupManagementService	PACGroupManagementService.properties
Puma Store and Validation Services
Puma Store Service	WP PumaStoreService	PumaStoreService.properties
Puma Validation Service	WP ValidationService	ValidationService.properties

Table 3. Other WebSphere Portal configuration services

WebSphere Portal service	Service name in the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console	WebSphere Portal properties file
Credential Type Registry Service	WP CredentialTypeRegistryService	CredentialTypeRegistryService.properties
Dynamic UI Manager Factory Service	WP DynamicUIManagerFactoryService	DynamicUIManagerFactoryService.properties
Identification	WP Identification	Identification.properties
Plugin Manager Service	WP PluginManagerService	PluginManagerService.properties
Portal Filter Service	WP PortalFilterService	PortalFilterService.properties
PortletFilterService	WP PortletFilterService	PortletFilterService.properties
Site Analyzer Log Service	WP SiteAnalyzerLogService	SiteAnalyzerLogService.properties
Virtual Portal Identification Service	WP VirtualPortalIdentificationService	VirtualPortalIdentificationService.properties
WSRP Web Service Security	WP WSRPWebServiceSecurity	WSRPWebServiceSecurity.properties
Web Content Service	WP WebContentService	WebContentService.properties
Work Manager Service	WP WorkManagerService	WorkManagerService.properties

Table 4. Web Content Manager services

Web Content Manager service	Service name in the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console	Properties file
Configuration Service	WCM_WCMConfigService	WCMConfigService.properties
Messaging Service	WCM_MessagingService	MessagingService.properties
Prerendering Srvice	WCM_PrerenderService	PrerenderService.properties
Search Service	WCM_SearchService	SearchService.properties

Handling portal caches across cluster websphere portal

Cache :- Portal has built in cache mechanism like dynamic cache , distributed map,distributedCacheObject . Where you can share objects which saves time by retrieving it from cache instead of database call. If client has four nodes under a cluster how does then cache will be shared across the nodes. This should be fundamental point any web-sphere administration should never forget.To avoid this portal has data replication system which helps in replicating the data between all nodes.

Data replication service (DRS) is an internal WebSphere Application Server component that replicates data. Transport for sending data or objects or events from one managed server to another.This take care of syncing data between two nodes.

• Uses HAManager and DCS data stack frameworks to accomplish replication. 
• Has the notion of replicas; however DynaCache only works with Entire Domain.
• Total Number of replicas = Number of servers in the replication domain -1 
• Responsible for serialization and de-serialization of messages. 
• DRS Bootstrap will be expensive, if aggressive replication occurs during startup.
• DynaCache, HTTPSession, Stateful Session Beans and SIP are major consumers. 
• Data transfer channel can be encrypted. In practice no-one does this. 
• DCS uses a star topology for synchrony resulting in scalability bottlenecks

WAS console :- Navigate to web-sphere application server console -> Resources -> object cache instances -> click on cache instance . Then select enable data replication then select replication type based on your requirement. Better suggested in Not_Shared if required use push or push_pull but don't go with pull option its very expensive.

In all of the following modes, the invalidation's will be sent across servers for data consistency. :-
 PUSH mode :- Both cacheId and CahceData will be sent to all servers in cluster
 PULL mode (Not recommended) :- Server requests the data from other servers in cluster, when not present in its cache
 PUSH PULL mode:- Only cacheId will be sent to all servers in cluster. When a server need an entry that is in PushPull table, it requests the server that has copy.
Not Shared :-In this mode the cache data will not be shared across servers. But the invalidation events are sent to all servers.

Source :- 
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27017355&aid=1

Using release builder in WebSphere portal

ReleaseBuilder :- This command line tool compares different XMLAccess exports taken over time, generating a difference XMLAccess file that can be used to move the changes made to the next environment.
The tool is used in staging to production scenarios.

Use-case :- A company infrastructure has staging and production environments lot of changes will be changed in staging server later they want to  move those changes to production server. in this case we can use ReleaseBuilder to pick the changes which were modified and migrate only those changes.


Step 1 :-
Open a command prompt and change to /opt/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/bin
Generate the release export by invoking following command -

./xmlaccess.sh -in /opt/WebSphere/Portal/doc/xmlsamples/
ExportRelease.xml -out ChangedRelease.xml -url
http://localhost:10039/wps/config -user wpsadmin -password wpsadmin

Step 2 :- 
Now we generate the difference between the release export we did before performing changes in staging server(ReleaseDiff.xml). To do this, execute the following command :-

./releasebuilder.sh -inOld InitialRelease.xml -inNew ChangedRelease.xml -out ReleaseDiff.xml

Step 3 :-
Now pull the differences files and run xmlaccess.sh to move changes to prod environment

./xmlaccess.sh -in outputfile.xml -user wpsadmin_user_ID -password wpsadmin_pwd -url "http://productionserver.example.com:port/wps/config"

WebSphere portal scripting interface

Portal Scripting Interface :-  Using this interface we can write scripts which can automate the process of configurations. Developers can create these scripts and provide it to deployment team , So that the dependency between two teams will be decreasing.

Two languages used for scripting :- We will have a look at Jython it will be easy to understand because its close to programming language
1) Jython (Object.method(arg1, arg2))
2) Jacl ($Object method arg1 arg2)

Jython :- Its a scripting language which is used on wsadmin tool to perform portal operations.Closely related to object oriented concepts and uses portal script beans to perform operations.

The available beans are:- 
Portal
Content
Layout
Portlet
Look
Access
PacList
Application
ArchivedApplication
ApplicationCategory
TemplateCategory
Publish

Sample script :-  UpdateLayout.py
# login to portal
Portal.login("wpsadmin","wpsadmin")
print " 1. login done."
# select page
Content.select(Content.find("all","uniquename","wp.test.page"))
print " 2. page selected"
# search portlet
portletA = Portlet.find("portlet", "name", "Struts Standard Stock Quote")
print " 3. portlet found: " + portletA
# create a vertical container
Layout.create("container", "vertical", "select")
print " 4. vertical container created."
# create a control with the portlet
Layout.create("control", portletA)
58
print " 5. create control with stock portlet."
# logout again
Portal.logout()
print " 6. logout."
print
print " Processing done."

where “#” denotes a comment, “print” prints a message to the command line

Sequence of the script is:-
Login
Locate the page
Create a container on the page to hold the portlet
Put the portlet into the container
Logout

Invoke the script to set the layout for the new test page:-
./wpscript.sh -user wpsadmin -password wpsadmin -lang jython -f
UpdateLayout.py

Deploy portlet via XML access websphere portal

Overview :- Deploy a sample portlet with the XMLAccess input script shown in listing

Step 1 :-  Create DeployPortlet.xml as given below to deploy the portlet ear

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<request
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_8.0.0.xsd"
type="update"
create-oids="true">
<portal action="locate">
<web-app action="update" active="true"
uid="SPFStandardStockQuote.war.webmod">
<url>file:///$server_root$/installableApps/NameOfWarFile.war</url>
<portlet-app action="update" active="true"
uid="NameOfWarFile.war">
<access-control externalized="false" owner="undefined"
private="false">
<role actionset="Privileged User" update="set">
<mapping subjectid="all authenticated portal users"
subjecttype="user_group" update="set"/>
</role>
</access-control>
</portlet-app>
</web-app>
</portal>
</request>

Step 2 :- Open command line, change to /opt/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/bin,
copy the war file to installableApps and DeployPortlet.xml xmlaccess file on to desktop, and
trigger following command
./xmlaccess.bat -in ~/Desktop/DeployPortlet.xml -out
DeployPortlet_out.xml -url http://localhost:10039/wps/config -user
wpsadmin -password wpsadmin

Step 3 :- Check the output file, DeployPortlet_out.xml in the
/opt/WebSphere/wp_profile/PortalServer/bin directory

Result :-
The portlet is now imported and can be verified from portal administration by adding it to a page.

Compressing files on IBM HTTP server

# compress everything but images
LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
DeflateFilterNote Input instream
DeflateFilterNote Output outstream
DeflateFilterNote Ratio ratio

# log some info
#LogFormat '"%r" %{outstream}n/%{instream}n (%{ratio}n%%)' deflate
#CustomLog logs/deflate_log deflate

# Insert filter
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE

# Netscape 4.x has some problems...
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
# Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
# MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

# Don't compress images
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \
\.(?:gif|jpe?g|png|exe)$ no-gzip dont-vary

Heap dumps and java core files websphere portal

Memory issues :- Most of the applications have memory consumption issues. JVM unexpectedly shutdowns due to memory issues. To identify these type of issues we can check java core and heap dump values.

Java core :- When JVM gets stopped unexpectedly javacore files will be generated it contains the mutliple threads which got hung during multiprocessing.

Heap dump :- Heap dump contains thread information with memory information these files can be manually read or imported in tools available online to identify the memory leak.

Process to generate heap dumps :- Up and running websphere portal is represented by PID. If we kill this process heap dumps will be generated.

Unix/linux ;-
kill -3 <PID>

Windows :- 
In task manager kill java.exe file

Location of heap dumps :- Under this location /IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/wp_profile/ we can find heap dumps.

Note:- native_stderr.log, containing the JVM messages, including garbage collection data if verbose
garbage collection is enabled. It's possible to configure a separate file to contain the verbose
garbage collection data, which would have a custom name, for example, Verbosegc.