WebSphere

 

Portal Express, Version 6.0
Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux, Windows

 

Uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express from a cluster

This topic describes the available approaches for uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express from a cluster.

Do not uninstall WebSphere Portal Express from a primary node in the cluster if there are still other secondary nodes in the cluster. The primary node should only be uninstalled when it is the last node remaining in the cluster.

 

1: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express

When uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express from a cluster, you can approach the uninstall process in two ways:

1.1: Approach 1. Uninstall WebSphere Portal Express only

 

When to use this approach:

1.1.1: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express from the node

  1. Uninstall the product files from the node by following the instructions in the following topic:

  2. Delete the corresponding cluster member, if it exists, from the deployment manager configuration, as described in the .WebSphere Application Server information center:

  3. Delete the corresponding WebSphere Portal Express application server from the deployment manager configuration using the administrative console:

    1. Click Servers > Application Servers.

    2. Select the check box for the WebSphere Portal Express application server.

    3. Click Delete.

1.2: Approach 2. Remove the node and uninstall WebSphere Portal Express

 

When to use this approach:

Removing a federated node from the cell both removes the node from the cluster and restores the node to its previous stand-alone configuration.

1.2.1: Removing the node from the cell

  1. Remove the node before uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express by following the instructions in Removing a WebSphere Portal Express node from the cell.

  2. Edit the wpconfig.properties file on the node, and ensure that the value of the CellName property matches the cell name of the node itself.

    • When you remove the node from the cell, the cell name for the node reverts to the cell name that was used before you federated the node.

    • The cell name can be identified by the was_config_root/cells/cell directory on the node, where cell indicates the cell to which the node belongs.

1.2.2: Uninstalling WebSphere Portal Express from the node

  1. Ensure that you have removed the WebSphere Portal Express node from the cell.

  2. Uninstall the product files from the node by following the instructions in the following topic:

    .

  3. Delete the corresponding cluster member, if it exists, from the deployment manager configuration, as described in the .WebSphere Application Server information center:

  4. Delete the corresponding WebSphere Portal Express application server from the deployment manager configuration using the administrative console:

    1. Click Servers > Application Servers.

    2. Select the check box for the WebSphere Portal Express application server.

    3. Click Delete.

 

2: Removing a WebSphere Portal Express node from a cell

2.1 Before you begin

Once you have a working WebSphere Portal Express cluster, all nodes in the cluster will be sharing a common database. Hence, extreme care needs to be taken when removing a node from the cell. For example, if you have a WebSphere Portal Express node and any portlets are deployed to the cluster while the node was part of the cluster, once that node is removed from the cell, those portlets are not available to the node as a stand-alone server, yet their configuration will be in the database shared by the rest of the nodes including the one that was removed from the cell. As a result, you should not attempt to start WebSphere Portal Express on this node or attempt to update its configuration using the XML configuration interface. These actions will introduce conflicts between this node and the other nodes still in the cell.

If you plan to use a WebSphere Portal Express node after removing it from a cluster, it is recommended that after the node is removed from the cell and before it is started or modified, it should be reconnected to another database that represents the portlet and page configuration of that node before it was added to the cell. For example, re-configure WebSphere Portal Express to use a different database than the default database. If you intend to use WebSphere Portal Express again as a standalone server, you should use the same procedure to reconnect WebSphere Portal Express to the default database.

Also, changes made after the node was federated to the cell such as enabling LDAP security or applying fix pack maintenance can prevent WebSphere Portal Express from operating normally after it is removed from the cell. To insure consistency, after removing a node from a cell you should restore the WebSphere Application Server file system and the WebSphere Portal Express databases using backups taken prior to federation.

2.2 Removing a node from the cell

Removing a WebSphere Portal Express node from the cell does not affect the cluster definition you originally created for your cluster. The cluster definition remains intact even after removing all WebSphere Portal Express nodes from the cell. In addition, removing a WebSphere Portal Express node from the cell does not remove the product's enterprise applications from the deployment manager. The enterprise applications remain and continue to be associated with the cluster definition.

Complete the following steps to remove a WebSphere Portal Express node from the cluster:

  1. Ensure the server you want to remove from the cluster has been stopped. In the deployment manager administrative console, navigate to the Servers > Clusters > cluster_name > Cluster members view, where cluster_name is the name of your cluster. Select the server to stop and click Stop.

  2. Remove the node from the cell by navigating to the System Administration > Nodes view, selecting the node containing the server you want to remove from the cell, then clicking Remove Node.

    • Make sure that you choose the Remove Node option to remove the node from cell and not the Delete option on the Cluster members view. Using the Delete option completely deletes the node, which removes the existence of the server from the deployment manager and does not leave a means for restoring the WebSphere Portal Express node to a stand-alone system. Using the Delete option can prevent the WebSphere Portal Express server from working after it is deleted from the cluster.

    • If you cannot successfully remove the node by clicking Remove Node, then remove the node by clicking on Force Delete.

  3. Click the Save link to save the changes made to the cell's configuration.

The application server on that node is now running as a stand-alone server and can be uninstalled as appropriate. Repeat the steps above for each node in the cluster and cell that needs to be uninstalled.

2.3 Restoring properties for WebSphere Portal Express

If you intend to uninstall WebSphere Portal Express, you can ignore the steps in this section. However, if you want to convert the stand-alone server into a working portal, complete the following steps.

  1. Change the value of the CellName property so that it matches the cell name of the node itself.

    • When you remove the node from the cell, the cell name for the node reverts to the cell name that was used before you federated the node.

    • The cell name can be identified by the was_config_root/cells/cell directory on the node, where cell indicates the cell to which the node belongs.

  2. Change the value of the ServerName property to the original WebSphere Portal Express server name.

  3. Ensure that the value of the PrimaryNode property is set to true.

  4. Save your changes.

If you remove all nodes installed with WebSphere Portal Express from the cell, do not introduce another node installed with WebSphere Portal Express into the same cell at a later time.

 

Parent topic:

Clustering and WebSphere Portal Express