Weblogic/WLST - Packing and Unpacking a Domain

When you start working with distributed domains there will come a time when you need to pack the domain and unpack it in its distributed areas.

Whether you create your domain via the GUI or by scripting, all you're actually doing is creating a series of configuration files. At this point you're not actually starting any servers - that comes later.

Lets consider the following architecture:

AdminServer = Machine A
Managed01   = Machine B
Managed02   = Machine C
Cluster01      = Managed01, Managed02


So, you run through the wizard and configured the domain above. You should now notice your domain has been created on Machine A, but if you log into Machine B or C nothing exists. This is where the need to Pack and UnPack comes in.

To pack the domain run the following WLST script:



This script opens the domain and extracts (as a jar) the configurations required for the servers that will reside on Machines B and C. It's a skeleton configuration because the Admin server information will be excluded - a domain only ever has 1 Admin server.

Now that we have a templateName.jar we can send it to the machines that the rest of the domain will reside on and run the unpack script on each machine:




Replace the dummy properties with the ones you want for your domain and the script will do the rest. Do this for each machine then you're done. Ensure you have a Nodemanager configured on each machine then start the admin server and administer the domain as per usual.

Weblogic/WLST - Remote Control of a Domain

One of the most frustrating parts of my job is the administration of a Weblogic domain when it resides on a Linux machine. A numpty has decided that my team isn't allowed to have any permissions on Linux boxes and so we cant gain access to our Weblogic files - this means we cant stop and start our domains using startWeblogic.sh.

One solution I found was to Administer the domain via the Nodemanager.

To start, any server that you wish to administer via the Nodemanager has to be associated with a machine and a nodemanager needs to be running. Once done, start a WLST session.

 nmConnect('username','password','wl.host','nm.port','domain.name','domain.dir','socket.type')  

The command above will allow you to connect to the nodemanager.

 nmStart('server.name')  

Start the server.

 nmServerStatus('server.name')  

Get server status.

 nmKill('server.name')  

Force shutdown.

 nmDisconnect()  

Disconnect from the nodemanager.