Administration Guide

Using the WebLogic Server Console

This chapter introduces the WebLogic Server Administration Console, and explains how to start and stop the WebLogic Server.

The chapter contains the following sections:

Using the Administration Console to Manage Data Services Platform-enabled Applications

When deployed on a AquaLogic Data Services Platform provisioned domain, Data Services Platform-enabled applications become managed resources known to the WLS JMX management framework. This means that you can manage many of the runtime properties of a deployed Data Services Platform application using the WebLogic Administration Console.

Before you can configure or manage a Data Services Platform application, you must start the WebLogic Server on which it is deployed. When you run the startWebLogic.cmd (Windows) or startWebLogic.sh (UNIX) command for a domain, WebLogic Server is started, and the Data Services Platform applications and resources specified in the configuration file for the domain are automatically deployed on the server.

Note: The instructions that follow are tailored for starting the WebLogic Server in conjunction with Data Services Platform. For general information on starting the WebLogic Server, see Starting and Stopping WebLogic Servers in the WebLogic Server documentation.

Starting the WebLogic Server

The instructions in this section describe how to start WebLogic Server (WLS) in a standalone WebLogic domain.

Note: If you are already running an instance of WebLogic Server that uses the same listener port as the one to be used by the server you are starting, you must stop the first server before starting the second server.

To start the server:

At the command prompt, navigate to the domain directory.

The domain directory is BEA_HOME/user_projects/domain_name. An example could be c:\bea\user_projects\mydomain.

Run the server startup script: startWebLogic.cmd (Windows) or startWebLogic.sh (UNIX).

The startup script displays a series of messages, finally displaying a message similar to the following: <Dec 8, 2004 3:50:42 PM PDT> <Notice> <WebLogicServer> <000360> <Server started in RUNNING mode>

After starting the server, you can start the WebLogic Administration Console.

Launching the Administration Console

The Administration Console is the web-based management interface for a WebLogic domain.

To launch the Administration Console:

Start the WebLogic Server in the WebLogic domain in which Data Services Platform is deployed.

For more information, see Starting the WebLogic Server.

Using a web browser, open the following URL:

http://hostname:port/console

Where

hostname is the machine name or IP address of the host server
port is the address of the port on which the host server is listening for requests (7001 by default)

For example, to start the Administration Console for a local instance of WebLogic Server (running on your own machine), type the following URL in a Web browser address field: http://localhost:7001/console/
If you started the Administration Server using Secure Socket Layer (SSL), you must add s after http, as follows: https://hostname:port/console

When the login page appears, enter the user name and password you used to start the Administration Server.

If you have your browser configured to send HTTP requests to a proxy server, then you may need to configure your browser so that it does not send Administration Server HTTP requests to the proxy. When the Administration Server is on the same machine as the browser, ensure that requests sent to localhost or 127.0.0.1 are not sent to the proxy.

Exploring the Administration Console

The WebLogic Administration Console uses the following panes to enable you to navigate and display information about entities in a WebLogic domain:

Navigation pane. Enables you to browse servers, clusters, deployments, applications, and more.
Content pane. Displays detailed information about entities selected in the Navigation pane.

Figure 2-1 illustrates the WebLogic Administration Console user interface.

Figure 2-1 Home Page of the WebLogic Server Administration Console

Home Page of the WebLogic Server Administration Console

When you start WebLogic Administration Console, the general administration page is shown in the Content pane, as illustrated in . You can use the topic links on the home page initially to navigate to top level resource nodes, or use the Navigation pane which contains a hierarchical tree — a domain tree — for navigating to tables of data, configuration pages and monitoring pages, or accessing logs.

Selecting an item in the domain tree enables you to display a table of data for resources of a particular type (such as WebLogic Servers) or configuration and monitoring pages for a selected resource.

You can expand and collapse nodes in the tree by clicking the + and - signs next to the nodes as follows:

A plus sign is (+) next to a node indicates that the node contains subnodes; it is expandable. To expand a collapsed container node, click on the + beside it. Its next level subnodes appears.
A minus sign (-) next to a node indicates that the node is a container that is fully expanded. To collapse an expanded container node, click on the - beside it.
A node with neither - or + beside is either an empty folder with no resources as yet or a fixed resource with no subnodes. As you add resources to folders, these will become expandable containers.

To manage Data Services Platform, you will need to access and use console pages for standard WebLogic Server resources as well as console pages specific to Data Services Platform resources.

For a detailed overview on using the Administration Console, see Starting the Administration Consolein the WebLogic Server documentation.

Finding the Data Services Platform Application Node

Data Services Platform applications appear under the Deployment —>Applications node of the domain in the Navigation pane of the WebLogic Administration Console. Figure 2-2 illustrates deployed applications in the domain.

Figure 2-2 Data Services Platform Resources in the WebLogic Administration Console

Data Services Platform Resources in the WebLogic Administration Console

Stopping the WebLogic Server

You can stop a WebLogic Server running a Data Services Platform application from the WebLogic Administration Console.

Note: It is recommended that you use the Administration Console to shut down the server gracefully rather than shutting down from a DOS window or UNIX shell.

To stop the WebLogic Server:

Start the Administration Console in a web browser by opening the following URL:

http://<HostName>:<Port>/console

For example, to start the Administration Console for a local instance of WebLogic Server (running on your own machine), type the following URL in a web browser address field: http://localhost:7001/console/

Expand the Servers node under the domain in which the Data Services Platform application runs, and click the name of the server that you want to stop.

Click the Control tab.

The Start/Stop page appears, as illustrated in Figure 2-3. Figure 2-3 Graceful Shutdown of a Server

Click the Graceful shutdown of this server link.

Click Yes to confirm.