Managing Server Startup and Shutdown
Introduction and Roadmap
The following sections describe the contents and organization of this guide—Managing Server Startup and Shutdown.
Document Scope and Audience
This document describes how you manage BEA WebLogic Server® startup, shutdown, and server life cycle. It also describes WebLogic features that you help prevent and recover from server failure.
This document is a resource for system administrators and operators responsible for monitoring and managing a WebLogic Server installation. It is relevant to all phases of a software project, from development through test and production phases.
It is assumed that the reader is familiar with J2EE and Web technologies, object-oriented programming techniques, and the Java programming language.
Guide to This Document
The document is organized as follows:
Related Documentation
New and Changed Features for Managing Server Life Cycle
WebLogic Server 9.0 includes a number of new and changed features:
- The WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) command-line interface to manage server life cycle—WLST starts, stops, suspends, and resumes Administration and Managed Servers. Use WLST commands to control the life cycle states through which a server instance transitions and retrieve information about the runtime state of WebLogic Server instances.
WLST can serve as a Node Manager command-line client. Use WLST commands with Node Manager to start, stop, and restart Administration and Managed Server instances locally or remotely. See "Managing Servers and Server Life Cycle" in Weblogic Scripting Tool.
- New configuration directory—The
config.xml
file is stored in the new DOMAIN_NAME
\config
directory, where DOMAIN_NAME
is the root directory of the domain. In addition, the config
directory contains new domain configuration files. See "WebLogic Domain Directory Structure Enhancements" in Upgrading WebLogic Application Environments and "Domain Configuration Files" in Understanding Domain Configuration.
For new backup procedure recommendations, see Directory and File Backups for Failure Recovery.
- Managed Servers cache configuration—In previous versions, a Managed Server only saved a copy of its configuration data if Managed Server Independence was enabled. In WebLogic Server 9.0, Managed Servers automatically maintain a local copy of the domain configuration. Each time a Managed Server starts up, it downloads changes made to the domain configuration since it last updated its local copy. The
ServerMBean
attribute that previously controlled whether a Managed Server maintained a local version of its configuration—MSIFileReplicationEnabled
—no longer exists. See Understanding Managed Server Independence Mode.
- Server exit codes for failure detection—New exit codes help administrators and system support personnel determine whether a server instance exited as a result of failure. See WebLogic Server Exit Codes and Restarting After Failure.
- Enhanced life cycle management functions—A new life cycle state,
ADMIN
, facilitates application redeployment, maintenance, and troubleshooting. In the ADMIN
state, WebLogic Server is running, but available only for administration operations, allowing you to perform server and application-level administration tasks without risk to running applications. For more information, see Understanding Server Life Cycle.
A number of enhancements make Node Manager more versatile and easier to use:
- Shell Script Node Manager—A new version of Node Manager, implemented as a shell script, provides the same functionality as the Java Node Manager and can be used with the Secure Shell (SSH) or Remote Shell (RSH) protocol for secure remote control of server instances running on UNIX or Linux systems.
- WLST commands access Node Manager—Start, stop, and suspend server instances remotely or locally; obtain server status; and retrieve the contents of the server output log, without requiring the presence of a running Administration Server. In addition, you can enroll the machine on which WLST is running to be monitored by Node Manager. See WebLogic Scripting Tool.
- Administration Server control—Node Manager can start, stop, and restart Administration Servers. In previous versions, Node Manager required access to a running Administration Server, and could control and monitor only Managed Servers.
- Node Manager and server migration—Node Manager can migrate migratable servers in a WebLogic Server cluster. See "Server Migration" in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.
- Improved diagnostics and logging—Node Manager diagnostics are improved, and the logging strategy for Node Manager and the server instances it controls are simplified.
- Simplified setup—Node Manager setup is simplified; in particular, Node Manager no longer requires two-way SSL. Only one-way SSL is required.
- Node Manager runs as a Windows service—The WebLogic Server custom installation process optionally installs and starts Node Manager as a Windows service on Windows systems. BEA Systems recommends running Node Manager as an operating system service so that it automatically restarts in the event of system failure or reboot and recommends using Node Manager to start and restart servers. See "About Node Manager Installation as a Windows Service" in the Installation Guide.