8.1 Supported Configurations: IBM AIX 5.1 on pSeries

IBM AIX 5.1 on pSeries with 8.1 SP3

Provides full support for WebLogic Server and run-time support for WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Integration, and WebLogic Portal. See below for Design and Development Tools support.

This section provides the following information:

Related Information

For information about supported database configurations, Web servers, and browsers, plus support for interoperability tools and WebLogic Platform product support information, see WebLogic Platform 8.1 Supported Configurations.
For information about IBM AIX 5.1, visit IBM's Web site: http://www.ibm.com.

Configuration Requirements

Table 4-1 Requirements for 8.1 SP3 on IBM AIX 5.1 on pSeries

Operating System Version and Patches	AIX 5L v5.1-ML6 and higher MLs
Chip Architecture and Minimum Processor Speed	POWER3 (450 MHz) POWER4 (1.1 GHz) POWER5 (1.5 GHz)
SDK	IBM SDK 1.4.2 32-bit Java^TM 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2) Classic VM (build 1.4.2, J2RE 1.4.2 IBM AIX build ca1420-20040626 (JIT enabled: jitc))	Download the IBM SDK from the IBM Web site and install it, manually, before installing WebLogic Server. For instructions, see Download and Installation Instructions. Use of JVM debug mode with the IBM JVM significantly degrades application performance and debugging effectiveness. The JVM debug mode is enabled by default on WebLogic Platform; BEA strongly recommends that you manually disable it when running WebLogic Platform on AIX. For instructions, see JVM Debug Mode Impact.
Design and Development Tools	The WebLogic Workshop IDE and WebLogic Integration Format Builder are not supported on IBM AIX systems. IBM AIX is supported for the production deployment of applications developed in the WebLogic Workshop IDE. Debugging of applications developed in the WebLogic Workshop IDE, for deployment on AIX, should be accomplished to the extent possible on the Workshop development system; use of JVM debug mode with the IBM JVM significantly degrades application performance and debugging effectiveness. IBM AIX is also supported for the development and production deployment of WebLogic Server applications developed with other tools.
RAM	512 MB required; 1 GB recommended
Performance Pack	Included	`lib/aix/libmuxer.so`
Node Manager	Included	Native
BEA jDrivers for Oracle	For this Oracle client version:	The following shared libraries are provided:
	Oracle 8.1.7	`lib/aix/oci817_8/libweblogicoci39.so` `lib/aix/oci817_8/libweblogicoxa39.so`
	Oracle 9.2.0	`lib/aix/oci920_8/libweblogicoci39.so` `lib/aix/oci920_8/libweblogicoxa39.so`

Known Issues

This section provides workarounds for the following problems:

For more information about known issues with this release, see the Release Notes for WebLogic Platform 8.1 or the appropriate product component of WebLogic Platform. For a list of available Release Notes documents, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/interm/relnotes.html

IBM JVM Updates For DST

IBM has released a Timezone Update Utility to update DST data without the need to upgrade Java. See IBM Time Zone Update Utility for Java^TM.

WebLogic Server Clustering Limitation

If you want to support WebLogic Server clustering on an AIX 5.1 configuration, open the file $BEA_HOME/weblogic81/common/bin/commEnv.sh in a text editor, and append the following line to the IBM section under $JAVA_VENDOR:

export JAVA_OPTIONS="$JAVA_OPTIONS -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true"

IIOP Thin Client Not Supported

The IIOP thin client is not supported on AIX due to dependencies on the JVM. Only thin-client applications are affected by this issue.

To work around this issue, run WebLogic Server on AIX and your thin client on another operating system.

Insufficient Buffer Size for UDP_SENDSPACE

The default buffer size for UDP_SENDSPACE is 9216 (9 KB), but WebLogic Server sends fragments, up to 32 KB in size, to UDP_SENDSPACE. As a result, use of a buffer size smaller than 32 KB may cause an I/O exception.

To prevent such I/O exceptions:

Set the buffer size to 32 KB:

no -o udp_sendspace=32768

Reboot WebLogic Server.

JVM Debug Mode Impact

Use of the JVM debug mode with the IBM JVM significantly degrades application performance. Therefore, whenever you run WebLogic Platform on an AIX configuration, BEA strongly recommends that you disable the JVM debug mode (which, by default, is enabled by WebLogic Platform). Disabling debug mode is recommended for all domains, both existing ones and domains created using the Configuration Wizard.

If you would still like to enable JVM debug mode, see How to Enable JVM Debug Mode for the procedure.

How to Disable JVM Debug Mode

To disable JVM debug mode, you have a choice of two methods, which are described in the following sections.

Method 1

Go to the target domain directory.

In the setDomainEnv.sh file, find the first occurrence of debugFlag=true.

Change it to: debugFlag=false.

If you are going to use QuickStart, repeat steps 2 and 3 in the setDomainEnvQS.sh file.

Note: If you are going to perform this procedure, you must do so before launching QuickStart.

Method 2

Pass the 'nodebug' command-line argument to the server startup script. For example:

$ ./startWebLogic.sh nodebug

How to Enable JVM Debug Mode

Note: Enabling debug mode is not recommended because this mode affects server performance.

In a text editor, open the setDomainEnv.sh script and comment the following line:

JAVA_OPTIONS="${JAVA_OPTIONS} -ea -da:com.bea... -da:javelin ... -da:weblogic ..."

Save your changes. Then start (or restart) the WebLogic domain.

JAXP Incompatibility Causes Portability Issues with WebLogic Server 8.1 SP3

Note: This limitation is reported, in CR135846, in the "Known Limitations" section of the WebLogic Platform 8.1 Release Notes.

Because the Xalan transformer shipped with the IBM SDK 1.4.2 is JAXP 1.2-compliant, but WebLogic Server only supports applications based on JAXP 1.1, you must set the Transformer Factory to weblogic.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl.

To set the XML Transformer and Parser Factories, you have a choice of three methods:

A procedure for each method is provided in the following sections.

Method 1: Edit setDomainEnv.sh

In a text editor, open the setDomainEnv.sh script.

Append the following values to JAVA_OPTIONS:

"-Djavax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory=weblogic.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl
-Djavax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory=weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl
-Djavax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory=weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl"

Method 2: Uncomment JAXP Properties Lines for JAXP 1.1 Parser and Transformer Factories

Copy the $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/jaxp.properties.sample file to $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/jaxp.properties.

Uncomment the last three lines so that they point to JAXP 1.1 parser and transformer factories. The JAXP 1.1 parser and transformer factories provided by WebLogic Platform are:

javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory=weblogic.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl
javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory=weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl
javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory=weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl

Method 3: Create the XML Registry

If WebLogic Server boots successfully, create the XML Registry, using the WebLogic transformer and parser factories for the required values.
If WebLogic Server fails to boot and you cannot create an XML Registry, you can manually add the XML Registry to the config.xml file. In a text editor, open config.xml and make the following changes:

Change the Server Tag to the following format:

<Server Name="Server_Name"

XMLRegistry="SampleXMLRegistry">

Add the XML Registry entry for SampleXMLRegistry, as follows:

<XMLRegistry Name="SampleXMLRegistry" 
TransformerFactory="weblogic.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl" 
SAXParserFactory="weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.SaxParserFactoryImpl" 
DocumentBuilderFactory="weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl"/>

For more information, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/ConsoleHelp/xml.html

Upgrade from WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP2 to 8.1 SP3 Requires Library Cleanup

Before you can upgrade your WebLogic Platform system from 8.1 SP2 to 8.1 SP3 on AIX, you must clean out any unused libraries manually. For instructions, see the Release Notes for WebLogic Platform 8.1:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/relnotes/relnotes.html#cr206782

Download and Installation Instructions

Complete the following procedures:

Downloading and Installing IBM SDK 1.4.2

Complete the following procedure to download and install the IBM SDK 1.4.2 on IBM AIX (32-bit) build ca1420-20040626:

Go to the IBM download site:

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/aix/service.html

Download the IBM SDK 1.4.2 (GA version).

Note: Currently there is no APAR or PTF for the IBM SDK 1.4.2; you do not need to apply any patches on top of this SDK.

Install the IBM SDK 1.4.2 on your system.

For caveats about using WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 on an IBM AIX 5.1 configuration, see Known Issues.

Downloading and Installing WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3

To install WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 on an IBM AIX 5.1 configuration:

Go to the BEA download site:

http://commerce.bea.com

Download the WebLogic Platform package installer for IBM AIX 5.1.

Install WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 for IBM AIX 5.1 using the instructions provided for .jar installation files, as described in Installing WebLogic Platform. For example, if you are installing in console mode, enter the following on the command line:

$ java -jar pj_platform813_generic.jar -mode=console
For detailed instructions, see "Starting Console-Mode Installation on UNIX Systems" in Installing BEA WebLogic Platform:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/install/console.html#instcon003

Note: When using an Asian version of an installer (such as an installer for Japanese, Korean, or Simplified Chinese), you need to increase the maximum heap size to 256 MB by specifying the -Xmx256m argument on the command line. For example, if you are using a Japanese installer, enter the following command:
$ java -Xmx256m -jar pj_platform813_ja_generic.jar -mode=console

For more information, see Installing BEA WebLogic Platform.