Monitor policy settings
Use this page to view or change settings that control how the node agent monitors and restarts a process. To view this console page, click Servers > Server Types > WebSphere application servers > server_name. Then, under Server Infrastructure, click Java and process management > Monitoring policy.
Maximum Startup Attempts
Maximum number of times the product tries to start an application server in response to a start request. If the server cannot be started within the specified number of attempts, an error message is issued that indicates that the application server could not be started.
Information Value Data type Integer Default 3
Ping Interval
Specifies, in seconds the frequency of communication attempts between the parent process, such as the node agent, and the process it has created, such as an application server. Adjust this value based on the requirements for restarting failed servers. Decreasing the value detects failures sooner; increasing the value reduces the frequency of pings, reducing system overhead.
Information Value Data type Integer Range Set the value greater than or equal to 0 (zero) and less than 2147483. If we specify a value greater than 2147483, the application server acts as though set the value to 0. When specified a value of 0, no checking is performed. Default 60
(zos) In a z/OS environment, the Ping Interval setting for a deployment manager or a node agent is ignored. However, the Ping Interval setting for an application server is used by the node agent to control the native z/OS operating system PidWaiter monitoring function. PidWaiter monitoring is similar in functionality to the pinging function used in a distributed platform environment. Both of these monitoring functions determine whether an application server is still running. The only difference between the two monitoring functions is that PidWaiter monitoring does not send any of the TCP/IP messages that Ping Interval monitoring sends.
Avoid trouble:
- If we set this property to 0. which indicates that no checking is performed, certain threads, such as PidWaiter, might terminate before the threads return their status to the initiating thread. In these situations, the deployment manager might not notifying the node agents of certain events, which could negatively impact stopServer.sh processing.
- If we set this property to a value greater than 0 but less than or equal to 5, the actual value used for the Ping Interval is 5.
gotcha
(zos) We can also set the following two properties to considerably reduce the number of DNS lookups that might occur because of this monitoring activity:
- We can add the JVM custom property com.ibm.websphere.management.monitoring.pingInterval for the controller for each process. The default value for this property is 60 seconds. It is not recommended that you change this default value unless we need to minimize the number of DNS lookups that occur. If we need to minimize the number of DNS lookups that occur, set this property to a time interval that is more appropriate for your system.
When this property is set for the deployment manager, it regulates how frequently the deployment manager checks to see if the node agent is still running. When it is set for the node agent, it regulates how frequently the node agent checks to see if the deployment manager is still running. When it is set for an application server, it regulates how frequently the application server checks to see if the node agent is still running.
- We can add the environment variable protocol_iiop_resolve_foreign_hostname at the cell level, and set to 0. Setting this variable to 0 disables the IIOP resolve foreign hostname function, thereby eliminating the DNS lookups this function performs.
(zos) Add these two properties does not completely eliminate DNS lookups from within product processes.
Ping Timeout
When a parent process is creating a child process, such as when a process manager creates a server, the parent process pings the child process to see whether the child was created successfully. This value specifies the number of seconds that the parent process should wait (after pinging the child process) before assuming that the child process failed.
Information Value Data type Integer Units Seconds Range Set the value greater than or equal to 0 (zero) and less than 2147483647. If we specify a value greater than 2147483647, the application server acts as though set the value to 0. Default 300
Automatic Restart
Whether the process should restart automatically if it fails.
If we change the value specified for this field, you must restart the application server and the node agent before the new setting takes effect.
This setting does not affect what specified for the Node Restart State setting. The two settings are mutually exclusive.
Information Value Data type Boolean Default true for the distributed and IBM i environments
(zos) false for the z/OS environment
Node Restart State
The setting only displays for the WAS Network Deployment product. It specifies the desired behavior of the servers after the node completely shuts down and restarts.
If a server is already running when the node agent stops, that server is still running after the node agent restarts. If a server is stopped when the node agent restarts, whether the node agent starts the server depends on the setting for this property:
- If STOPPED, node agent does not start the server.
- If RUNNING, the node agent always starts the server.
- If PREVIOUS, the node agent starts the server only if the server was running when the node agent stopped.
Changes made to the node restart state become effective after the node is synchronized. At the next NodeAgent restart (after the synch), the node restart state will be honored.
This setting does not affect what specified for the Automatic Restart setting. The two settings are mutually exclusive.
Information Value Data type String Default STOPPED Range Valid values are STOPPED, RUNNING, or PREVIOUS. If we want the process to return to its current state after the node restarts, use PREVIOUS.
Related tasks
Define application server processes