Planning Ahead

As applications get deployed, undeployed, and redeployed, and as you experiment with different server configuration settings, there may be times when your server gets into a confused or unstable state. In such cases, it is useful to have a previously saved working configuration on which to fall back. This is not problem solving, per se, but rather a way to avoid problems in the first place.

The Application Server asadmin command includes a backup-domain option that backs up the domain(s) you specify. Use this option to take periodic “snapshots” of your server configuration. Then, if necessary, use the restore-domain option to restore one or more domains to a known working state.

Refer to the Application Server Administration Guide for complete instructions on using the asadmin backup-domain and restore-domain options. Briefly, however, for the purposes of this Troubleshooting Guide, use the following procedure to backup and restore a server configuration:

To back up and restore a server configuration

1. Start the Application Server.

   install_dir/bin/asadmin start-domain domain_name

2. Stop the domain.

   install_dir/bin/asadmin stop-domain domain_name

3. Back up the domain.

   install_dir/bin/asadmin backup-domain domain_name

   Backed up directories are stored by default in the install_dir/backups directory.

4. Make changes to the Application Server configuration and/or domain(s), as desired.

5. If necessary, restore the server and/or domain configuration to the state saved in Step 3, above.

   install_dir/bin/asadmin restore-domain --filename backup_file domain_name