Set up the administrative agent environment
An administrative agent environment consists of an administrative agent and the stand-alone application servers that it manages. Setting up an administrative agent environment involves creating an administrative agent profile and one or more stand-alone application server profiles, called nodes, on the same computer and then registering the node profiles with the administrative agent.
Install the WAS product.
Make sure that the nodes we want the administrative agent to manage have the same products as the administrative agent, and the products are at the same version levels on these nodes and the administrative agent. This requirement is enforced because the administrative agent must have a matching environment to handle all the administrative capabilities of the registered node. A node cannot register with an administrative agent unless that node has an identical set of products and versions.
A DMZ proxy does not work with the administrative agent when security is enabled. Keep security enabled and do not use the administrative agent in a DMZ proxy environment.
transition: If we were previously running on Version 8.0 or earlier, and have an administrative agent with a managed node that has mismatched products or versions, when you migrate to v8.5, that administrative agent will not be able to start the subsystem for any mismatched nodes. We must update these nodes to have the same products and versions as the administrative agents, restart the servers on the node and then restart the administrative agent, before the administrative agent can resume managing these registered nodes.
We can use an administrative agent to manage base (stand-alone) application servers that are on the same computer.
Administrative agents and the managed nodes are part of the flexible management environment.
To add an administrative agent to the environment, create an administrative agent profile using the manageprofiles command or the Profile Management Tool. To add a node, create a stand-alone application server profile and then register the stand-alone application server with the administrative agent.
The node must be on the same computer as the administrative agent.
On a Network Deployment product, we also can add job managers to your flexible management environment. A job manager is a single management server from which we can remotely manage multiple administrative agents, deployment managers, and stand-alone application servers. From an administrative agent, we can register stand-alone application server nodes with a job manager. Nodes that register with a job manager maintain their own administrative capabilities. Additionally, the nodes periodically poll the job managers to determine whether there are jobs posted there that require action. The advantage to a job manager configuration is the ability to coordinate management actions across multiple varied environments.
Ensure that the profiles in the flexible management environment either all have security enabled or all have security disabled.
- Determine the topology for the administrative agent environment.
Determine which computers, stand-alone application server nodes, and node resources such as applications to use.
To manage stand-alone application servers, use an administrative agent on each computer where the stand-alone application servers reside. For more information, see Scenarios 5 in the Planning to install WebSphere Application Server topic.
- Determine the security roles needed for the administrative agent environment.
For an administrative agent environment, you typically have one administrative agent profile and one or more stand-alone application server profiles on the same computer. The stand-alone application server nodes are registered to the administrative agent. Profiles in the environment must either all have security enabled or all have security disabled. When we create the profiles, we can specify security options, user names, and passwords.
We must have security roles that authorize you to work with an administrative agent and to manage registered nodes and resources on those nodes. For more information, see the administrative agent security topic.
- Create a management profile for the administrative agent.
We can use the Profile Management Tool or the manageprofiles command.
For example, in the Profile Management Tool, select the Management environment and click Next, select the Administrative agent server type, and select options that create the profile. By default, an administrative agent has its own administrative console, administrative security is enabled, and the console port is 9065. To disable administrative security, to specify a security certificate, or to change the default ports, use the advanced profile creation option when creating the administrative agent profile.
By default, the first administrative agent profile in a product installation is named AdminAgent01 and its server name is adminagent.
For more information, see the topic on creating management profiles for administrative agents.
For manageprofiles examples, see the topic on the manageprofiles command. For -templatePath, specify the management template. For -serverType, specify ADMIN_AGENT.
- Create profiles for the stand-alone application server nodes that you intend to have in the flexible management environment.
Create profiles for one or more stand-alone application server nodes that reside on the same computer as the administrative agent profile. We can use the Profile Management Tool or the manageprofiles command.
For example, in the Profile Management Tool, select the Application server environment and click Next, and then select options that create the profile. By default, an application server has its own administrative console, administrative security is enabled, and the console port is 9060. To disable administrative security, to specify a security certificate, to specify to install sample application, or to change the default ports, select the advanced profile creation option when creating the application server profile.
By default, the first application server profile in a product installation is named AppSrv01 and its server name is server1.
For more information, see the topic on creating application server profiles.
For manageprofiles examples, see the topic on the manageprofiles command. For -templatePath, specify the default template. Do not specify a -serverType parameter.
- Start the administrative agent server.
- Run the startServer command.
For example, suppose the AdminAgent01 profile has the server name adminagent. Run the following command from the bin directory of the AdminAgent01 profile:
startServer adminagent
- Use the Windows operating system Taskbar.
Click Start > [All] Programs > IBM WebSphere > product_name > Profiles > administrative_agent_profile_name > Start the administrative agent management server.
- (zos) Use the START command to start the administrative agent.
START administrative_agent_proc_name,JOBNAME=server_short_name, ENV=cell_short_name.node_short_name.server_short_name
If the administrative agent starts successfully, the open for e-business message displays and is written to the administrative agent startServer.log file:
Server launched. Waiting for initialization status. Server adminagent open for e-business; process id is 1932.For more information, see the topic on starting and stopping the administrative agent.
- Register the stand-alone application server nodes with the administrative agent.
Run the registerNode command of the administrative agent.
When you run the registerNode command, we can optionally specify parameters such as -node to assign a node name and -port to assign an administrative agent connector port. If security is enabled for the node that you are registering and the node user name and node password are different than those used for the administrative agent, specify values for -nodeusername and -nodepassword. For more information, see the topic on the registerNode command.
To register the AppSrv01 profile with the administrative agent, run the following command from the bin directory of the administrative agent profile: (iseries)
registerNode -profilePath user_data_root/profiles/AppSrv01
(zos)
registerNode.sh -profilePath app_server_root/profiles/default
registerNode.sh -profilePath app_server_root/profiles/AppSrv01
registerNode -profilePath app_server_root\profiles\AppSrv01
For example, to register the AppSrv01 profile with the administrative agent and specify other values, such as 8877 for the administrative agent port and nodeA for the AppSrv01 node name, run the following command from the bin directory of the administrative agent profile:
registerNode -profilePath C:\v80_WAS\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01 -host localhost -conntype SOAP -port 8877 -name nodeA
If the administrative agent uses, for example, IPC for the remote connection type and 9642 for the IPC connector address port number, specify -conntype IPC -port 9642 in the command instead of -conntype SOAP -port 8877.
For more information, see the topic on the registerNode command.
- Verify that the nodes have been registered to the administrative agent.
We can use the administrative agent console or wsadmin scripting commands to see a list of nodes that are registered with the administrative agent.
- Use the administrative agent console to see a list of managed nodes.
- Start the administrative agent console.
Click Start > [All] Programs > IBM WebSphere > product_name > Profiles > administrative_agent_profile_name > Administrative console.
- On the opening page of the administrative agent console, select to administer the administrative agent. The administrative agent has a name such as hostAANode01.
- Log in to the administrative agent console.
- Examine the Nodes page.
- Click System administration > Administrative agent.
- On the Configuration tab of the Administrative agent page, click Nodes.
- Ensure that the Nodes page lists nodes that have been registered with the administrative agent.
- Use the AdminConfig list command to see a list of managed nodes. Run the following wsadmin scripting commands from the administrative agent bin directory.
- To use the Jython scripting language, enter the following two commands in succession:
wsadmin -lang jython print AdminConfig.list('ManagedNode')
- To use the Jacl scripting language, enter the following two commands in succession:
wsadmin $AdminConfig list ManagedNode
After you verify that the stand-alone application server nodes are registered with the administrative agent, enter quit to exit the wsadmin scripting tool.
- Start the stand-alone application server nodes.
Run the startServer command.
For example, suppose the AppSrv01 stand-alone application server profile has the server name server1. From the bin directory of the AppSrv01 profile, run the following command:
startServer server1
We can also use the Windows operating system Taskbar. Click Start > [All] Programs > IBM WebSphere > product_name > Profiles > application_server_profile_name > Start the server.
If the server starts successfully, the open for e-business message displays and is written to the startServer.log file.
For more information, see topics on the startServer command and on starting application servers.
Results
The administrative agent environment is set up and the nodes are running.
What to do next
Use the administrative agent to monitor and configure the stand-alone application server nodes. For example, after a stand-alone application server is registered with an administrative agent, use the administrative agent console to work with the stand-alone application server. On the login page of the administrative agent console, select the stand-alone application server node to access the application server console.
From the administrative agent, we can register the stand-alone application server nodes with a job manager. After the nodes are registered with a job manager, we can remotely manage the administrative agent and the stand-alone application servers. The nodes periodically poll the job manager to determine whether there are jobs posted that pertain to the nodes.
We can use the administrative agent console to register a stand-alone application server node with a job manager:
- Click System administration > Administrative agent.
- On the Configuration tab of the Administrative agent page, click Nodes.
- On the Nodes page, select the node to register with the job manager and click Register with Job Manager.
- On the Register with Job Manager page, specify a node name, specify a job manager administrative console port number, optionally specify other parameters such as the job manager user name and password, and click OK.
Avoid trouble: For Port, if security is not enabled, specify 9960 for an unsecure job manager administrative console port. If no port number is specified, the default secure port number 9943 is used.gotcha
To unregister a node later, we can use the same Nodes page, except click Unregister with Job Manager.
Instead of using the administrative agent console to register and unregister with a job manager, we also can use the ManagedNodeAgent registerWithJobManager wsadmin command. To unregister a node, use the ManagedNodeAgent unregisterWithJobManager wsadmin command.
If we plan to change the system clock, stop all the application servers, the node agent servers, the deployment manager server, the administrative agent server, and the job manager server first. After you stop the servers, change the system clock, and then restart the servers. If we change the system clock on one system, you must ensure the clocks on all systems that communicate with each other and have WAS installed are synchronized. Otherwise, you might experience errors, such as security tokens no longer being valid.
(zos) If we plan to change the system clock, stop all the application servers, the node agent servers, the deployment manager server, the administrative agent server, the job manager server, and the location service daemon first. After you stop the servers and location service daemon, change the system clock, and then restart the servers and location service daemon. If we change the system clock on one system, you must ensure the clocks on all systems that communicate with each other and have WAS installed are synchronized. Otherwise, you might experience errors, such as security tokens no longer being valid.
Related concepts
Administrative agent Administrative agent security
Related tasks
Start and stop the administrative agent Registering nodes with the job manager using commands Administer nodes remotely using the job manager
registerNode command startServer command
Related information:
System administration for WebSphere Application Server V7: Part 3: Administering a flexible management topology