Troubleshooting failure to authenticate to Application Center, and applications that use the basic registry element

Authentication fails when attempting to log in to the Application Center, and other applications that run on WAS Liberty profile and use the basicRegistry element.

When IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is installed with Application Center on WAS Liberty profile, it adds a basicRegistry element in the server.xml file of the Liberty server instance, with demo users, even if a basicRegistry element already exists. Authentication into the Application Center, and other applications that use users from the basic registry no longer works. For example, after an attempt to log in to the Application Center, the following error message is displayed:

Error 404: java.io.FileNotFoundException: SRVE0190E: File not found: /j_security_check

The liberty server log file contains the following error message:

[ERROR] CWWKS3006E: A configuration exception has occurred. There are multiple available UserRegistry implementation services; the system cannot determine which to use.

When IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is uninstalled, the basic registry created during the installation by the MPF Server installer is removed from the server.xml file, even if other users have been added to that basic registry. If other applications than Application Center use the basic registry, authentication on these applications is no longer possible. This issue might include installations of the MPF operations console and administration services.

1. Move the content of the basic registry created by IBM Installation Manager in the initial basic registry element. For an installation that is not for test purposes only, do not copy the users demo and appcenteradmin, and remove them from the appcentergroup. Remove the following code from the server.xml file:

   <!-- Declare the user registry for the Application Center. -->
   <basicRegistry id="applicationcenter-registry" realm="ApplicationCenter">
     <!-- The users defined here are members of group "appcentergroup", thus have role "appcenteradmin", and can therefore perform administrative tasks through the Application Center console. -->
     <user name="appcenteradmin" password="admin"/>
     <user name="demo" password="demo"/>
     <group name="appcentergroup">
       <member name="appcenteradmin"/>
       <member name="demo"/>
     </group>
   </basicRegistry>

2. When we uninstall IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation, the uninstaller of MobileFirst Server creates a backup of the server.xml file under the name server.xml.saved2. Open the server.xml.saved2 file, and copy the basicRegistry element back in the server.xml file. Remove the users and groups that were only needed by the Application Center.

Parent topic: Troubleshooting