Plan your Web servers
By default IBM WebSphere Portal uses the internal HTTP transport within IBM WAS to handle requests. However, because WAS also supports the use of an external Web server, you can access WebSphere Portal from your Web server. Use a local Web server on the same machine as WebSphere Portal or use a remote Web server on a different machine. A remote Web server is typical for a production environment or other high-traffic configuration.
To enable communication between the Web server and WAS, a Web server plug-in is required. The Web server plug-in determines whether a request is handled by the Web server or by the application server. The plug-in can be installed into a Web server that is located either on the same machine as WAS or on a separate machine. The Web server plug-in uses an XML configuration file (plugin-cfg.xml) that contains settings that describe how to handle and pass on requests to the WAS made accessible through the plug-in.
In the WAS administrative console, the Web server is represented as a specific server type, and you can view or modify all of the configuration properties used in the plugin-cfg.xml file for the Web server plug-in from the console.
For i5/OS see...
Select a Web server topology diagram and roadmap
Access WebSphere Portal through another HTTP port
By default WebSphere Portal is configured to be accessed through the internal HTTP port in WAS.
For example...
http://hostname.example.com:10040/wps/portal...where...
- hostname.example.com is the fully qualified host name of the machine where WebSphere Portal is running
- 10040 is the default transport port created by WAS
The default host name and port used by WebSphere Portal are specified by...
- WpsHostName
- WpsHostPort
...in wkplc.properties.
After configuring portal to use an external Web server, access the portal with the Web server host name and port (80).
You will be unable to access the portal using the WebSphere Portal host name and port (10040), unless there is a corresponding virtual host definition for port 10040 in the WAS configuration. To add the required virtual host definition using the WAS administrative console.
- Open the deployment manager console
- Select...
Environment | Virtual Hosts
- Select the default_host entry or the entry for the virtual host that is being used to access the WebSphere Portal application.
- Select Host Aliases, and verify whether there is a host name and port entry corresponding to the values used to access WebSphere Portal (for example, *:10040).
If the entry does not exist, select New, and enter the information for the host name and port you want to use.
- Save changes.
- Regenerate the Web server plug-in.
- If you are using a remote Web server, copy the updated plugin-cfg.xml file to the Web server machine.
- Recycle your Web server, and your portal.
Cluster considerations for Web servers
If you run the script...
PLUGIN_HOME/bin/configureweb_webserver...on the deployment manager system, synchronize and restart the cluster to ensure proper communication between the Web server and the cluster members.
When federating a WebSphere Portal node to the deployment manager system, any Web server definition previously existing on that node is deleted. To use the Web server with the cluster, recreate the Web server definition in the deployment manager administration console after you federate the node.
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