Submit jobs to deploy and manage Liberty installations
Use the job manager to submit jobs to deploy and manage Liberty installations on target hosts.
Liberty provides the following features:
- Central administration through job manager jobs
- Use the job manager to submit jobs that support the full life cycle of Liberty resource deployment from initial install, to updates, to uninstall.
- A deployment manager is not required, although we can use the job manager function available on a deployment manager to administer Liberty servers and their resources.
- Quick installation
- Store the Liberty resources in one or more compressed (.zip) files and run the Install Liberty profile resources job to transfer and extract the files.
- Installation of Liberty resources requires no formal installation tool such as Installation Manager.
- To simplify deployment and maintenance, we can share a SDK, runtime binary files, server configuration files, and application binary files among many isolated Liberty server instances.
- No agent is required on target hosts, reducing administration overhead.
- Non-destructive update enables easy installation of new versions of Liberty resources of any type. We can switch easily between old and new versions of resources, or run concurrent versions of resources.
Your ID at the job manager must be authorized for the administrator or operator role to submit jobs.
Before submitting a job, start the job manager. One of the job manager targets must be an unmanaged host to run Liberty jobs. If no target is an unmanaged host, register a host. See "Registering host computers with job managers."
When registering a target host with the job manager on an administrative console New targets page (Jobs > Targets > New Host), we specify an operating system user name for Administrative user with installation authority and a password or public-private key information for user authentication. If we specify a user name and security credentials during job submission and select more than one target host, the user name and security credentials is used for all target hosts. The console user ID and password is not used to authenticate at the target hosts.
When registering a target host, if we selected Save security information on the console or set saveSecurity to true in the registerHost command, then we do not need to specify an operating system user name and security credentials when submitting jobs.bprac
To easily select the targets on which to run a job, use the administrative console or wsadmin to define appropriate target groups. Then, when submitting a job, select the appropriate target group instead of entering or selecting the individual targets.bprac
(UNIX) If we use an OpenSSH environment, set environment variables for the ssh exec channel:
- In the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file, set PermitUserEnvironment to yes.
- Change directory to the .ssh directory under the user home. Create a property file called environment and, in the file, set JAVA_HOME=absolute_path_to_the_java_home.
- Restart sshd. Run stopsrc -s ssh and then startsrc -s ssh.
The topics in this section describe how to install Liberty resources and to administer Liberty servers by running jobs in the job manager console or the deployment manager console.
The jobs that we can run depend on the jobs supported by the host targets and our security credentials.
Instead of using a console, we can run wsadmin commands in the AdministrativeJobs command group. See the Administrative job types topic.
Tasks
- Before installing Liberty resources, create one or more compressed (.zip) files that contain the required Liberty resources in a directory structure which satisfies job manager rules.
We can obtain the Liberty in either of the following ways:
- During installation of WebSphere Application Server, Network Deployment, select the WAS Liberty optional feature. If we did not include this feature during the initial installation, we can add this feature using the Modify function in the Installation Manager. Liberty server is installed into the app_server_root/wlp directory.
- Download the .zip file from https://developer.ibm.com/wasdev/.
Packaging Liberty resources describes how to create properly structured compressed (.zip) files for several different deployment topologies. For additional overview information and examples, see the IBM Education Assistant modules and labs.
A SDK or Java runtime environment (JRE) is not included with the Liberty but is needed to run the servers and server management jobs. We must use the job manager to deploy an SDK or JRE to the target hosts or use an SDK or JRE installed previously on the target hosts.
- Set variables for Liberty installations.
Specify an absolute path for the WLP_WORKING_DIR WebSphere variable. Depending the deployment topology, we might need to define the WLP_SHARED_DIR and WLP_ADDITIONAL_DIRS WebSphere variables. Do not specify relative paths for any of these variables.
- Optional: If Liberty servers use the serverStatus-1.0 feature, status from the servers is automatically sent to the STATUS_LISTENER_ADDRESS port. To change the STATUS_LISTENER_ADDRESS port number, use the Ports page of a deployment manager console (System administration > Deployment manager > Ports) or job manager console (System administration > Job manager > Ports).
If we change the STATUS_LISTENER_ADDRESS port number after installing Liberty resources, we will no longer receive automatic status from the previously installed Liberty resources.
- Run the Install Liberty profile resources job.
- Run the Inventory job if we need to register preexisting Liberty resources with the job manager. Set variables for Liberty servers explains how to configure the directories that are searched when the Inventory job is run.
- Run jobs that administer Liberty servers and resources:
- Run the Uninstall Liberty profile resources job.
- Run the Start Liberty profile server job.
- Run the Stop Liberty profile server job.
- Run the Generate merged plugin configuration for Liberty profile servers job.
What to do next
After we submit a job, go to the Job status page and click the job ID to view the job status. If the job is not successful, view any error messages that result from running the job, correct the error condition, and submit the job again.
If the job is successful, click Jobs > Target resources to see Liberty resources in the list of target resources.
Subtopics
- Packaging Liberty resources
Liberty resources can be packaged into one or more compressed (.zip) files for deployment by the WAS ND v9.0 job manager. The grouping of the resources within the compressed files affects the scope and sharing of the resources. For resources in the compressed files to deploy correctly, the path names of the resources must satisfy job manager rules.- Setting variables for Liberty servers
We must set one or more WebSphere variables before we can use the job manager to remotely install and manage Liberty servers. We can set the variables in an administrative console, a wsadmin script, or the registerHost command. The variables specify the root directories to which to install Liberty resources and specify search paths for finding resources that are not yet registered with the job manager.- Install Liberty resources using the job manager
Use the Install Liberty profile job to remotely install the resources in multiple-host Liberty server environments. The resources, which must be stored in one or more compressed (.zip) file before installation, are extracted by the job manager to destination directories relative to a specified root directory.- Uninstall Liberty resources using the job manager
We can submit the Uninstall Liberty profile resources job to remove Liberty resources from one or more target hosts.- Starting Liberty servers using the job manager
We can submit the Start Liberty profile server job to start a Liberty server on one or more target hosts.- Stopping Liberty servers using the job manager
We can submit the Stop Liberty profile server job to stop a Liberty server on one or more target hosts.- Generate a merged plug-in configuration for Liberty servers using the job manager
We can submit the Generate merged plugin configuration for Liberty profile servers job to create a single, merged plugin-cfg.xml file that instructs a web server plug-in to redirect requests to multiple application servers residing on multiple hosts. The job first generates server-specific plugin-cfg.xml files on each target host. The job then merges the server-specific plugin-cfg.xml files into one plugin-cfg.xml file on the job manager host.
Related:
Liberty resources Registering host computers with job managers Restart the job manager Checking job status New target settings Administrative job types