faq_install

Searching Sun Java System Web Server

Frequently Asked Questions about Installation

1. What are the various modes of installation that are supported?

Web Server 7.0 can be installed either using the package based JES5 installer or using the stand-alone zip-based installer. The JES5 installer installs Solaris packages/Linux RPMs and hence requires to be run as root. The Web Server 7.0 installers have 3 modes of installation:

*The GUI mode which has a install SDK/swing based graphical interface on all platforms
*The console mode which has a text interface for headless terminals
*The silent mode which takes input from a state file

2. What are the Configure Administration Instance as Administration Server and Configure Administration Instance as Administration Agent options on the installer?

These install options are used to setup a server farm wherein we have a centralized administration server and we have an administration agent on all the other nodes. Choose the Configure Administration Instance as Administration Server option to setup the centralized admin server instance. Once this is done, setup the rest of the nodes in the server farm as admin agents. Note that when you choose to setup the admin as a server, a default web server instance is also created and you will be prompted to enter configuration information for the same.

3. I dont care about multi-machine configuration, I just need to setup a plain and simple web server. What should I choose?

You can just choose the express install in this case wherein reasonable defaults are chosen for running a plain and simple web server. Even in case you wish to customize your installation, choose to configure the admin instance as an administation server.

4. If I am installing the admin agent, does the admin server need to be up?

The admin server needs to be up in order to register the admin agent with the admin server. If the admin server is not up, you can choose to skip the registration step and register the agent later using wadm register-agent command. Note that the admin agent cannot be started unless registration is complete.

5. Can I add any node to a server farm? Does the admin infrastructure support deployment across hardware running different operating systems?

Currently, the administration infrastructure supports management and replication of configuration only across nodes which are similar in their hardware and software configurations. This means that the operating systems and patch levels should be the same across the nodes in a server farm.

6. How do I enable start on boot for the server instances?

Installer provides a checkbox for "start on boot" in the Configuration panel. This checkbox will appear only when the installation is started as root. Once this option is choosen, all the server instances will start on system startup.

7. Is it possible to set up WS 7.0 in NFS mount directory?

It is possible to install WS7.0 in NFS mount directory provided you have
proper permissions in the NFS mounted directory in which you are installing.

8. How do I disable start on boot after the installation?

The list of scripts shown below are created during the installation, if start on boot option is selected.Solaris
"/etc/init.d/webserver7-*"

linux
"/etc/init.d/webserver7-*"

AIX
"/etc/rc.d/webserver7-*"

HPUX
"/sbin/init.d/webserver7-*"

To disable start on boot, the steps are shown below.

1. Locate the script shown above where " * " in the script-name refers to the unique hashcode generated for each installation.
(For example script name can be webserver7-77efea)

2. Make sure you are editing the right script by looking at WS_INSTANCE_ROOT. This should have the path where your instances are located.

3. Assign zero to WS_START_ONBOOT and close the script.

4. When you restart your system next time, server instances will not be started at boot time.

Note: One should be careful in choosing the right script if your m/c has multiple installations since, there exists a script corresponding to each installation with a different hashcode.

9. How do I upgrade to latest Web Server 7 when using Java ES 5

Not lot of people probably know that Sun Java System Web Server 7 is available as OS native packages (SVR4 packages for Solaris, RPM for Linux) etc within Java Enterprise System 5 release.  Accordingly, with every update release, you can download and install patches from Sun Solve - single place to download latest patches for Sun products.

For Web Server 7 Update 1, following patches are released on Sun Solve

125437-10- Solaris SPARC
125438-10 - Solaris x86 (Intel/AMD)
125439-10- Linux
125440-10- HP-UX
125441-10 - Windows

For Web Server 7 Update 2, following patches are released on Sun Solve

125437-13- Solaris SPARC
125438-13 - Solaris x86 (Intel/AMD)
125439-11 - Linux
125440-11 - HP-UX
125441-12 - Windows

Accordingly, following localization patches for Web Server 7 Update 2 is available on Sun Solve

126331-03 - Solaris SPARC
126332-03 - Solarix x86
126333-03 - Linux

Windows localization patch is included within Web Server 7 Update 2 as well .

For Web Server 7 Update 3, following patches are going to be released on Sun Solve (some time in first week of July'08)

125437-14- Solaris SPARC
125438-14 - Solaris x86 (Intel/AMD)
125439-12 - Linux
125440-12 - HP-UX
125441-13 - Windows
 

10. Is there a comparison chart between Web Server 6.1 Admin GUI and Web Server 7 Admin GUI ?

Here is a great blog describing the list of tasks on how you would do in 6.1 and comparing with Web Server 7 administration GUI. Also, this link compares the tasks between these 2 different version. Very helpful when planning the migration between 2 version.

11. Unable to install Web Server 7.0 on Mandriva. Getting "The Runtime User ID does not exist. Specify a valid UNIX user." error.

Mandriva i snot a supported platform as of now. Workaround is to create a softlink as shown below

  $ln -s /bin/id /usr/bin/id