Network Deployment (Distributed operating systems), v8.0 > Set up intermediary services > Implement a web server plug-in > Administer web server plug-ins


Use the same HTTP server to handle HTTP and HTTPS requests for multiple cells

In a multiple cell environment you might want to use the same HTTP server to send and receive HTTP and HTTPS requests for multiple cells.

To accomplish this setup, merge the web server plug-in configuration files that are being used by the application servers in those cells into a single web server plug-in configuration file.

We can use the following different configurations of the application server to combine the plug-in configuration files of multiple WAS ND cells into a single configuration file.

This technique can also be employed to merge all of the web server plug-in configuration files into a single configuration file when you are migrating to a new release of the product and need to route traffic to multiple cells running an older version of WAS ND as well as the new version.

To create a single plug-in configuration file for all of your cells, first create a separate plug-in configuration file for each of the cells, and then combine these files into a single configuration file. The web server plug-in for each cell then uses the same web server plug-in configuration file.

Complete the following steps to merge multiple web server plug-in configuration files into a single configuration file.


Procedure

  1. Use either the GenPluginCfg script, the administrative console, or wsadmin scripting to generate the plugin-cfg.xml file for each cell.

    See the topic GenPluginCfg command for a description of how to use the GenPluginCfg script to generate the plugin-cfg.xml file.

    See the topic Implement a web server plug-in for a description of how to use the admin console to generate the plugin-cfg.xml file.

    See the topic Regenerate the node plug-in configuration using scripting for a description of how to use wsadmin scripting to generate the plugin-cfg.xml file.

  2. Merge the plugin-cfg.xml files from multiple application server cells.

    We can either manually merge the plugin-cfg.xml files or use the pluginCfgMerge tool to automatically merge the plugin-cfg.xml file from multiple application server profiles into a single output file. The pluginCfgMerge.bat and pluginCfgMerge.sh files are located in the install_root/bin directory.

    To use the pluginCfgMerge tool, complete the following steps:

    1. Rename the plugin-cfg.xml files to a unique name across the application server cells.
    2. Copy the plugin-cfg.xml file for all application server cell profiles into a common directory.

    3. Use the pluginCfgMerge tool to combine the plugin-cfg.xml files from each of the application server cells into a single output file. For example:

      (AIX) (Solaris) 

      install_root/bin/pluginCfgMerge.sh plugin_configuration_file1 plugin_configuration_file2 resulting_plugin_configuration_file

      (Windows) 

      install_root\bin\pluginCfgMerge.bat plugin_configuration_file1 plugin_configuration_file2 resulting_plugin_configuration_file

      The resulting_plugin_configuration_file variable value is normally plugin-cfg.xml

    For more information about manually merging the plugin-cfg.xml files, see the technote on merging plugin-cfg.xml files from multiple application server profiles.

  3. Ensure that the cloneID value for each application server is unique.

    Examine the cloneID value for each application server in the merged file to ensure that this value is unique for each application server. If the cloneID values in the merged file are not all unique, or if you are running with memory to memory session replication in peer to peer mode, use wsadmin scripting or the administrative console to configure unique HTTP session cloneIDs.

    To use wsadmin commands for the Jython or Jacl programming language, see the documentation on configuring a unique HTTP session clone ID for each application server using scripting.

    To configure a unique HTTP session clone ID using the admin console, complete the following steps:

    1. Click Servers > Server Types > WebSphere application servers > server_name

    2. Under Container Settings, click Web Container Settings > Web container.

    3. Under Additional Properties, click Custom properties > New.

    4. Enter HttpSessionCloneId in the Name field, and a unique value for the server in the Value field.

      The unique value must be 8 - 9 alphanumeric characters in length. For example, test1234 is a valid cloneID value.

    5. Click Apply or OK.

    6. Click Save to save the configuration changes to the master configuration.

  4. Copy the merged plugin-cfg.xml file to the plugin_installation_root/config/web_server_name

    directory on the web server host.

  5. (AIX) (Solaris) Ensure that we have defined the correct operating system file access permissions for the merged plugin-cfg.xml file. These file access permissions allow the HTTP server plug-in process to read the file.


Results

When you complete this process, we have one plug-in configuration file for multiple application server cells, and can use the same HTTP server to handle HTTP and HTTPS requests for multiple cells.
Implement a web server plug-in
Regenerate the node plug-in configuration using scripting


Related


GenPluginCfg command
Create application server profiles
Ways to install enterprise applications or modules
Configure for database session persistence
Create or updating a global web server plug-in configuration file
Configure a unique HTTP session clone ID for each application server using scripting
Merging plugin-cfg.xml files from multiple nodes

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