Uninstalling WebSphere Portal from a cluster

1: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal

   1.1: Approach 1. Uninstall WebSphere Portal only

   1.2: Approach 2. Remove the node and uninstall WebSphere Portal

2: Removing a WebSphere Portal node from a cluster

Important uninstallation note: Do not uninstall WebSphere Portal from a primary node in the cluster, if there are still other secondary nodes in the cluster. The primary node should only be uninstalled when it is the last node remaining in the cluster.

 

1: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal

When uninstalling WebSphere Portal from a cluster, you can approach the uninstallation process in two ways:

 

1.1: Approach 1. Uninstall WebSphere Portal only

When to use this approach:

  • WebSphere Portal was installed on a federated node.

  • WebSphere Portal was installed on a stand-alone node, but you require that the node continue to be federated after you uninstall WebSphere Portal.

 

1.1.1: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal from the node

  1. Uninstall the product files from the node by following the instructions in Uninstalling WebSphere Portal.

  2. Delete the corresponding cluster member, if it exists, from the deployment manager configuration.

  3. Delete the corresponding WebSphere Portal appserver from the deployment manager configuration.

 

1.2: Approach 2. Remove the node and uninstall WebSphere Portal

When to use this approach:

  • WebSphere Portal was installed before the node was federated.

  • WebSphere Portal was installed on a federated node, but you do not require that the node continue to be federated after you uninstall WebSphere Portal.

Removing a federated node from the cell both removes the node from the cluster and restores the node to its previous stand-alone configuration. If all instances of WebSphere Portal are being removed from the deployment manager and you also intend to remove the cluster definition, additional cleanup is necessary to ensure that all of the enterprise applications and resources associated with WebSphere Portal are removed from the cell's master configuration.

 

1.2.1: Removing the node from the cell

  1. Remove the node before uninstalling WebSphere Portal by following the instructions in Removing a WebSphere Portal node from the cell.

  2. Edit the wpconfig.properties file on the node, and change the value of the CellName property so that it matches the cell name of the node itself.

    • When you remove the node from the cell, the cell name for the node reverts to the cell name that was used before you federated the node.

    • The cell name can be identified by the was_root/config/cells/cell_name directory on the node, where cell_name indicates the cell to which the node belongs.

 

1.2.2: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal from the node

  1. Ensure that you have removed the WebSphere Portal node from the cell.

  2. Uninstall the product files from the node by following the instructions in Uninstalling WebSphere Portal.

    If you originally installed WebSphere Portal on a federated node, perform the uninstallation by running the following command:

    • Windows: uninstall -W defaults.removeWasConfig="false"

    • UNIX: ./uninstall.sh -W defaults.removeWasConfig="false"

 

1.2.3: Removing all portal resource definitions from the cell

When the first WebSphere Portal node is added to the cell using the addNode command with the -includeapps option, all of the product's applications (portlets, servlets) and their associated resources (shared libraries, datasource providers, and variable definitions) are added to the deployment manager's master configuration as well. Removing a WebSphere Portal node from the cell will cause the removal of its resources, but not its enterprise applications. Therefore, to totally remove the product from the deployment manager configuration, additional steps are needed to remove these items. If these items are not removed and the product is added back into the cell, there could be configuration conflicts.

Do not perform these steps unless you have removed all instances of WebSphere Portal from the deployment manager.

Complete the following steps to completely remove WebSphere Portal from the deployment manager configuration:

  1. There is a separate enterprise application definition for each portlet application, as well as several additional enterprise applications for other portal services. These all must be removed. In the deployment manager administration console, navigate to the Applications > Enterprise Applications view.

    1. Using the Filter, search for all enterprise applications using the string "*(PA_*)" since all portlet applications are deployed with a naming convention that includes this string. Apply the filter, then select all enterprise application entries in the resulting table and click Uninstall.

    2. The remaining enterprise applications must be identified and uninstalled manually. Use the following list as a reference.

      • Presentation.war

      • RichTextEditor.war

      • SpreadsheetBlox.war

      • Pdmauthor

      • wmmApp

      • wps

    3. If you have deployed your own enterprise applications, these should be uninstalled as well.

  2. In case of an installation or configuration problem, some of the portal resources might exist in the deployment manager configuration. It is a good idea to ensure that these are cleaned up before attempting to add a WebSphere Portal node back into the cell.

    1. Remove the JDBC Providers. These JDBC providers are specified in the wpconfig.properties file by the values of the following properties:

      Note that by default these properties are set to use the same JDBC provider.

      To remove the JDBC providers, navigate to the Resources > JDBC Providers view and browse all nodes in the cell's scope looking for the JDBC provider definitions. Select the providers and click Delete.

    2. Remove the shared library definitions. Navigate to the Environment > Shared Libraries view and browse all nodes in the cell's scope looking for the following shared library definitions:

      • CloudScapeLib

      • WPSlib

      • SDOMediatorsLib

      • LotusWorkplaceLib

      • JcrLib

      • contentlib

      • WcmLib

      Select the libraries and click Delete.

    3. Remove the variable definitions. Navigate to the Environment > Manage WebSphere Variables view and browse all nodes in the cell's scope looking for the <WPS_HOME> variable. Select the variable and click Delete.

    4. Remove the J2C authentication data entries associated with WebSphere Portal. Navigate to the Security > JAAS Configuration > J2C Authentication Data Entries view and browse the authentication data entries looking for the following aliases:

      • fbkDBAuth

      • jcrDBAuth

      • lmDBAuth

      • node/BPEAuthDataAliasEmb_node_server1

      • wmmDBAuth

      • wpsDBAuth
      Select the entries and click Delete.

    5. After all changes have been made, click the Save link from the last change to commit the changes to the cell's master configuration.

 

2: Removing a WebSphere Portal node from a cluster

 

2.1 Before you begin

Once you have a working WebSphere Portal cluster, all nodes in the cluster will be sharing a common database. Hence, extreme care needs to be taken when removing a node from the cell. For example, if you have a WebSphere Portal node and any portlets are deployed to the cluster while the node was part of the cluster, once that node is removed from the cell, those portlets are not available to the node as a stand-alone server, yet their configuration will be in the database shared by the rest of the nodes including the one that was removed from the cell. As a result, not attempt to start WebSphere Portal on this node or attempt to update its configuration using the XML configuration interface. These actions will introduce conflicts between this node and the other nodes still in the cell.

If you plan to use a WebSphere Portal node after removing it from a cluster, it is recommended that after the node is removed from the cell and before it is started or modified, it should be reconnected to another database that represents the portlet and page configuration of that node before it was added to the cell. For example, reconfigure WebSphere Portal to use a different database than the default Cloudscape database. If you intend to use WebSphere Portal again as a stand-alone server, use the same procedure to reconnect WebSphere Portal to the Cloudscape database.

Note on removing nodes: When you remove a node from a managed cell, the appserver on that node reverts to the state it had at the time it was originally federated. If you installed WebSphere Portal on a node that had already been federated, the product will not be usable on the resulting stand-alone server if you remove the node from the cell.

 

2.2 Removing a node from the cell

Removing a WebSphere Portal node from the cell does not affect the cluster definition you originally created for your cluster. The cluster definition remains intact even after removing all WebSphere Portal nodes from the cell. In addition, removing a WebSphere Portal node from the cell does not remove the product's enterprise applications from the deployment manager. The enterprise applications remain and continue to be associated with the cluster definition. This enables you to remove WebSphere Portal nodes (including the node that served as the primary node when defining the cluster) from the cell to apply corrective service or change its configuration and then add them back to the cell without having to create cluster definitions each time.

Complete the following steps to remove a WebSphere Portal node from the cluster:

  1. Ensure the server you want to remove from the cluster has been stopped. In the deployment manager administrative console, navigate to the Servers > Clusters > <cluster_name> > Cluster members view, where <cluster_name> is the name of your cluster. Select the server to stop and click Stop.

  2. Remove the node from the cell by navigating to the System Administration > Nodes view, selecting the node containing the server you want to remove from the cell, then clicking Remove Node.

    Notes:

    • Make sure that you choose the Remove Node option to remove the node from cell and not the Delete option on the Cluster members view. Using the Delete option completely deletes the node, which removes the existence of the server from the deployment manager and does not leave a means for restoring the WebSphere Portal node to a stand-alone system. Using the Delete option can prevent the WebSphere Portal server from working after it is deleted from the cluster.

    • If the addNode command failed, resulting in a partially deployed node, you can use the -force option on the removeNode command to force the node out of the managed cell and return the node to its original state as a stand-alone node. The removeNode command must be run from a command prompt instead of the administrative console.

  3. Click the Save link to save the changes made to the cell's configuration.

The appserver on that node is now running as a stand-alone server and can be updated or uninstalled as appropriate. Repeat the steps above for each node in the cluster and cell that needs to be updated or uninstalled.

 

See also

 

WebSphere is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

 

IBM is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.