Change application URLs 



Change the context root of URLs that point to IBM® Connections applications. 

Before starting

If you decide to change the context roots of the applications, do so before you map the applications to the IBM HTTP Server or before editing the IBM HTTP Server configuration file for any other reason, such as to redirect HTTP requests to support third-party authentication mechanisms. This is an optional task.

About this task

The web address for an IBM Connections application contains a default context root value. After installing the application, you can change this value to a different context root to conform to corporate restrictions or to policies that limit where server applications can be deployed and how they can be addressed.    

For example, the Blogs application is available from <your_host_server>/blogs by default. You can change that base Web address to <your_host_server>/IBMConnectionsBlogs to differentiate it from any other available blogging service or to conform to corporate guidelines.
To change the context root of an application...

Procedure

  1. Log into the WebSphere® Application Server Integration Solutions Console for the server hosting the IBM Connections application for which you want to change the context root.

  2. Expand Applications -> Application Types, and then select WebSphere enterprise applications.

  3. Click the name of the server hosting the application with the context root that you want to change, and then under Web Module Properties, click Context Root For Web Modules.

  4. Edit the values in the Context Root column of the table to change the term that identifies the application. The paths must continue to begin with a forward slash (/) and must not contain spaces.

      Do not specify a single forward slash (/) as the full context root because it prevents applications from being able to retrieve Atom feeds properly. Using the default application context ("/") is not supported.

  5. Click OK, and then click OK from the server properties page to save the change.

  6. Start the wsadmin client from the following directory of the system on which you installed the deployment manager:

      app_server_root>\profiles\<dm_profile_root>\bin

      Note: You must start the client from this directory or subsequent commands that you try to run will not execute properly. See Starting the wsadmin client for more details.

  7. Update the IBM Connections configuration file to reflect this context root change. Use the wsadmin client to access and check out the IBM Connections configuration files.

    1. Enter the following command to access the IBM Connections configuration file: execfile("connectionsConfig.py")

        If prompted to specify a service to connect to, type 1 to pick the first node in the list. Most commands can run on any node. If the command writes or reads information to or from a file using a local file path, pick the node where the file is stored. This information is not used by the wsadmin client when you are making configuration changes.

    2. Check out the IBM Connections configuration files:

        LCConfigService.checkOutConfig("<working_directory>","<cell_name>")

        where:

        • <working_directory> is the temporary working directory to which the configuration XML and XSD files are copied and are stored while you make changes to them. Use forward slashes to separate directories in the file path, even if you are using the Microsoft Windows operating system.

            AIX and Linux only: The directory must grant write permissions or the command does not run successfully.

        • <cell_name> is the name of the WAS cell hosting the IBM Connections application. This argument is case-sensitive, so type it with care. To obtain the cell name:print AdminControl.getCell()

        For example:

        • AIX or Linux:LCConfigService.checkOutConfig("/opt/temp","foo01Cell01")

        • Microsoft Windows:LCConfigService.checkOutConfig("c:/temp","foo01Cell01")
           

  8. Update the value of the href prefix using the following command:
    Application or Service name Web modules
    Activities activities
    Blogs blogs
    Communities communities
    Dogear dogear
    Files files
    Forums forums
    Home page homepage, news
    Mobile mobile
    Profiles personTag, profiles
    Search search
    Wikis wikis 

      LCConfigService.updateConfig("<web_module_name>.href.prefix",
      "<new_context_root_value>")

      where:

      <web_module_name>

      • Name of the web module for the application. Each application has one or more web modules that are configured in WAS. The options are the following:

      Table 1. Application web modules

      <new_context_root_value>

      • Value you defined for the application's web UI context root in Step 4.

        Note: Do not specify a single forward slash (/) as the full context root because it prevents applications from being able to retrieve Atom feeds properly.

      For example, to change the context root of the Profiles application, you would use the following commands: 

      LCConfigService.updateConfig("profiles.href.prefix","/contacts")
      LCConfigService.updateConfig("personTag.href.prefix","/contacts")

  9. Save your changes to the LotusConnections-config.xml file.

  10. After making changes, check the configuration files back in and do so during the same wsadmin session in which you checked them out for the changes to take effect. See Apply common configuration property changes for information about how to save and apply your changes.

  11. Files and Wikis only: Perform the following steps:

    1. Check out the Files and Wikis configuration files. See the topic Change configuration property values in the Administer Files and Administer Wikis sections of the product documentation.

    2. Locate the following property: 

        <security>
        <logout href="/files/ibm_security_logout" /> </security>

    3. Change it to this: 

        <security>
        <logout href="<new_context_root_value>/ibm_security_logout" /> </security>

  12. Perform either of the following actions to update existing links to uploaded files:

    • Update the old links manually.

    • Redirect requests made to links that contain the old context root to links with the new one by completing the steps below.

        Note: You can only use this option if the old and new context roots are defined on the same IBM HTTP Server.

        1. Open the configuration file for the IBM HTTP Server. It is called httpd.conf and is located in the following directory:

            AIX: /usr/IBM/HTTPServer/conf

            Linux: /opt/IBM/HTTPServer/conf

            Microsoft Windows: C:\IBM\HTTPServer\conf

        2. Uncomment the following line or add it if it is not present: 

            LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

        3. Add redirection rules for each application for both HTTP and secure HTTP. The following XML is an example of redirection rules added for the Blogs application: 

            Listen 0.0.0.0:443
            <VirtualHost *:443> RewriteEngine on RewriteRule /blogs/(.*) https://<your_host_server>/LotusConnectionsBlogs/$1 [R,L] ServerName <your_host_server> SSLEnable </VirtualHost> SSLDisable RewriteEngine on RewriteRule /blogs/(.*) http://<your_host_server>/LotusConnectionsBlogs/$1 [R,L]

        4. Save and close the httpd.conf file, and then restart the IBM HTTP Server.

  13. Regenerate the plugin-cfg.xml file for the IBM HTTP Server in the WAS admin console. To do so...

    1. Open the WAS admin console.

    2. Expand Servers -> Server Types, and then select Web servers.

    3. Select the check box beside the IBM HTTP Server name. For example: webserver1.

    4. Click Generate Plug-in to regenerate the plugin-cfg.xml file.

    5. If necessary. click Propagate Plug-in to copy the plugin-cfg.xml file from the local directory where the Application Server is installed to the remote machine.

  14. Restart the IBM HTTP Server.

  15. Rebuild the search index by deleting the index and letting the indexing task recreate it when it runs. By default, the indexing task runs every 15 minutes. See Delete the index for more information.

  16. Update any non-browser clients to point to the new URL. See the client documentation for required steps.

  17. Run the BlogsAdminService.fixBrokenUrls command to fix the absolute URLs used by embedded images and attachments in Blogs. See Replacing URLs in Blogs.

  18. If you have many users with bookmarks or email links to the original URL, consider creating a landing page for the old URL that redirects to the new URL.



Parent topic

Administer applications
Related concepts
Optional post-installation tasks

Related tasks
Starting the wsadmin client
Apply common configuration property changes
Delete the index
Change Files configuration property values

Change Wikis configuration property values  Replacing URLs in Blogs  

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