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Granting write permission for profile-related tasks


The installer can grant write permission of the appropriate files and directories to a non-root user. The non-root user can then create the profile. The installer can create a group for users who are authorized to create profiles, or the installer can give individual users the authority to create profiles.

The following example task shows how to create a group that is authorized to create profiles.

This task assumes a basic familiarity with system commands. This task uses the following terms:

The steps that you follow to grant write permission of files and directories to a non-root user for profile creation depend on whether a profile was previously created.

If at least one profile was created prior to implementing the following steps, then certain directories and files were created. Because these directories and files were created, skip the steps that create these directories and files. If no profile was previously created, then complete the steps to create the required directories and files. In most cases, a profile has been created previously.

The installer can perform the following steps to create the profilers group and give the group appropriate permissions to create a profile.

 

  1. Log on as the installer to the system where WAS ND is installed.

  2. Create the profilers group that we can use to create profiles.

  3. Create a user named user1 to create profiles.

  4. Add the installer and user1 to the profilers group.

  5. (Linux) [HP-UX] [Solaris]

    [AIX] Log off and log back on again as the installer to use the new group.

  6. Create the following directories as the installer, if no profile was previously created:

    • (Linux) [HP-UX] [Solaris]

      [AIX] Create the APP_ROOT/logs/manageprofiles directory:

      mkdir APP_ROOT/logs/manageprofiles
      
      

      (Windows) Create the APP_ROOT\logs\manageprofiles directory by following instructions in the Windows documentation. For this example procedure the directory is:

      APP_ROOT\logs\manageprofiles
      
      

    • (Linux) [HP-UX] [Solaris]

      [AIX] Create the APP_ROOT/properties/fsdb directory:

      mkdir APP_ROOT/properties/fsdb
      
      

      (Windows) Create the APP_ROOT\properties\fsdb directory by following instructions in the Windows documentation. For this example procedure the directory is:

      APP_ROOT\properties\fsdb
      
      

  7. As the installer, create the profileRegistry.xml file and add the appropriate information, if no profile was previously created.

    Follow directions for the operating system to create the profileRegistry.xml file. For this example, the file paths are:
    [Linux] [HP-UX] [Solaris]

    [AIX]

    APP_ROOT/properties/profileRegistry.xml
    

    (Windows)

    APP_ROOT\properties\profileRegistry.xml
    
    Follow instructions for the operating system to add the following information to the profileRegistry.xml file. The file must be encoded as UTF-8.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <profiles/>
    

  8. As the installer, use operating system tools to change directory and file permissions. [Linux] [HP-UX] [Solaris]

    [AIX]

    The following example assumes that the installation root directory is /IBM/WAS/AppServer:

     chgrp  profilers /IBM/WAS/AppServer/logs/manageprofiles chmod  g+wr  /IBM/WAS/AppServer/logs/manageprofiles chgrp  profilers /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties chmod  g+wr  /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties chgrp  profilers /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties/fsdb chmod  g+wr  /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties/fsdb chgrp  profilers /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties/profileRegistry.xml chmod  g+wr  /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties/profileRegistry.xml chgrp -R profilers /IBM/WAS/AppServer/profileTemplates
    
    

    [HP-UX] If we create a cell profile, additionally issue the following commands:

    chmod  -R g+wr /IBM/WAS/AppServer/profileTemplates/cell/default/documents  chmod  -R g+wr /IBM/WAS/AppServer/profileTemplates/cell/dmgr/documents
    
    

    [HP-UX] If we create an appserver profile, a dmgr profile, or a custom profile, then additionally issue the following command:

    chmod  -R g+wr /IBM/WAS/AppServer/profileTemplates/profile_template_name/documents
    
    
    profile_template_name is default, dmgr, or managed, respectively.

    [HP-UX] The ownership of files is preserved when the files are copied to the profile directory during profile creation. You granted write permission to the profile directory so that files copied to the profile directory can be modified as part of the profile creation process. Files that are already in the profileTemplate directory structure prior to the start of profile creation are not modified during profile creation.
    [Linux]

    chgrp profilers /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties/Profiles.menu chmod  g+wr /IBM/WAS/AppServer/properties/Profiles.menu
    

    (Windows)

    The following example assumes that the installation root directory is C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer. Follow instructions in the Windows documentation to give the profilers group read and write permission to the following directories and their files:

    C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\logs\manageprofiles C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\properties C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\properties\fsdb C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\properties\profileRegistry.xml
    

    You might have to change the permissions on additional files if the non-root user encounters permission errors. For example, if we authorize a non-root user to delete a profile, then the user might have to delete the following file:

    [Linux] [HP-UX] [Solaris]

    [AIX] APP_ROOT/properties/profileRegistry.xml_LOCK

    (Windows) APP_ROOT\properties\profileRegistry.xml_LOCK

    • Give write access to the non-root user for the file to authorize the user to delete the file. If the non-root user still cannot delete the profile, then the installer can delete the profile.

 

Results

The installer created the profilers group and gave the group proper permissions to certain directories and files to create profiles.

These directories and files are the only ones in the installation root of WAS to which a non-root user needs to write to create profiles.

 

Next steps

The non-root user that belongs to the profilers group can create profiles in a directory that the non-root user owns and to which the non-root user has write permission. However, the non-root user cannot create profiles in the installation root directory of WAS ND.

A non-root user ID can manage multiple profiles. The same non-root user ID can manage an entire profile, whether it is the dmgr profile, a profile that contains the appservers and the node agent, or a custom profile. A different user ID can be used for each profile in a cell, whether global security or administrative security is enabled or disabled. The user IDs can be a mix of root and non-root user IDs. For example, the root user might manage the dmgr profile, while a non-root user might manage a profile that contains appservers and the node agent, or vice versa. However, typically, a root user or a non-root user can manage all profiles in a cell.

The non-root user can use the same tasks to manage a profile that the root user uses.