A Managing and Configuring Application Server Control

A.1.1 Starting and Stopping the Application Server Control Console on UNIX

On a UNIX system, you must start the Application Server Control manually after each system restart, or create a script to automatically start it during system start. To start or stop the Application Server Control on a UNIX system, use the emctl or runstartupconsole command shown in Table A-1.

The emctl and runstartupconsole commands are available in the ORACLE_HOME/bin directory after you install Oracle Application Server.

A.1.2 Starting and Stopping the Application Server Control Console on Windows

To start or stop the Application Server Control on Windows systems, use one of the following methods:

• From the Windows Start menu, navigate to the Oracle Enterprise Manager menu item for the Oracle home and select Start AS Console or Stop AS Console.

  For example, to start the Application Server Control on Windows 2000, select Start > Programs > Oracle - Oracle_Home Enterprise Manager > Start AS Console.

• From the Windows Services control panel:

  1. Open the Services control panel.

     For example, on Windows 2000, select Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools and then double-click the Services icon.

  2. Locate the Application Server Control in the list of services.

     The name of the service is consists of "Oracle," followed by the name of the home directory you specified during the installation, followed by the word "ASControl." For example, if you specified AS10g as the Oracle home, the Service name would be:

     OracleAS10gASControl
     
     

  3. After you locate the service, you can use the Services control panel to start or stop the Application Server Control service.

     By default, the Application Server Control service is configured to start automatically when the system starts.

A.1.3 Verifying That the Application Server Control Is Running

You can verify the Application Server Control is started by pointing your browser to the Application Server Control Console URL:

http://hostname.domain:port

For example:

http://hostname.domain:1156

There are two ways to locate the Application Server Control Console port number:

• Review the contents of the portlist.ini file, which is located in the following directory in the Oracle Application Server Oracle home:

  (UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/install/portlist.ini
  (Windows) ORACLE_HOME\install\portlist.ini
  
  

• Enter the following command:

  (UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl status iasconsole
  (Windows) ORACLE_HOME\bin\emctl status iasconsole
  

A.3.1 Changing the Password Using the Application Server Control Console

To change the ias_admin user password using the Application Server Control Console:

1. Navigate to the Application Server home page and select Preferences in the top right corner of the page.

   Application Server Control Console displays the Change Password page.

2. Enter the current ias_admin password, the new password, and the new password again for confirmation.

   The new password must be between 5 and 30 characters, it must begin with an alphabetic character, and it must contain at least one number.

3. Click OK to reset the ias_admin password for the current application server instance.

   The next time you log in, you must use the new password.

A.3.2 Changing the Password Using the emctl Command-Line Tool

To change the ias_admin user password using a command-line tool:

1. Enter the following command in the Oracle home of your Oracle Application Server installation:

   (UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl set password old_password new_password
   (Windows) ORACLE_HOME\bin\emctl set password old_password new_password
   
   

   For example:

   (UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl set password m5b8r5 b8s0d9
   (Windows) ORACLE_HOME\bin\emctl set password m5b8r5 b8s0d9
   
   

2. Restart the Application Server Control.

   
   

   See Also: Section A.1, "Starting and Stopping the Application Server Control"

   
   

A.5.1 Summary of Options You Can Set with the EM_OC4J_OPTS Environment Variable

You can use the EM_OC4J_OPTS environment variable to set the following options, which can affect the performance of the Application Server Control Console pages:

• By default, Application Server Control retrieves metric data as it is requested. In other words, each time you display a page that contains performance metrics, Application Server Control retrieves the data in real time by running a series of tasks that often involve connections to other software components. Depending upon the type of metric and the type of component, these operations can affect how quickly the page is displayed.

  To retrieve cached metrics (metrics which are collected and stored in memory by the Oracle Management Agent) define the environment variable EM_OC4J_OPTS to the following:

  -Doracle.sysman.refreshFlag=true
  
  

  Setting this option to TRUE can improve the performance of specific pages in the Application Server Control Console; however, the data displayed on those pages may not be as recent as it would be when this option is set to FALSE.

• By default, the Application Server Control Console displays a progress page when operations take time to complete. To disable the processing page so that the Application Server Control Console waits for start, stop, and other such actions without displaying a progress page, define the environment variable EM_OC4J_OPTS to the following before starting the Application Server Control Console:

  -Doracle.sysman.eml.util.iAS.waitForCompletion=true
  
  

• By default, when Application Server Control attempts to retrieve performance data, it waits two (2) seconds before displaying the requested page. If the data has not been retrieved within 2 seconds, some metric values do not appear on the page when it is rendered in the Web browser. To display the data after the page has been rendered, click the Refresh Data icon near the timestamps on the page.

  To increase the timeout for status and host-related metrics such as Memory and CPU usage on the Application Server home page, define the environment variable EM_OC4J_OPTS to the following before starting the Application Server Control Console:

  -Doracle.sysman.ias.ApplicationServerObject.timeout=true
  
  

  When this option is set to TRUE, certain Application Server Control Console pages may take longer to display, but you will experience fewer metric collection errors.

  Note that this setting affects only components that are not managed by Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN).

  
  

  See Also: Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server Administrator's Guide for a complete list of the Oracle Application Server components that are managed by OPMN

  
  

A.5.2 Setting the EM_OC4J_OPTS Environment Variable

On UNIX systems, set the EM_OC4J_OPTS environment variable as follows:

setenv EM_OC4J_OPTS "-Doracle.sysman.eml.util.iAS.waitForCompletion=true"

To set multiple configuration options with the EM_OC4J_OPTS variable, separate the options with a space and enclose the entire value of the variable within quotation marks. For example:

setenv EM_OC4J_OPTS "-Doracle.sysman.eml.util.iAS.waitForCompletion=true
-Doracle.sysman.ias.ApplicationServerObject.timeout=true"

On Windows systems, use the System Properties control panel to define EM_OC4J_OPTS as a system variable.

A.6.1 Configuring the Application Server Control Logging Properties to Enable ODL

To configure the Application Server Control to support ODL:

1. Use a text editor to edit the following file in the Oracle Application Server home directory:

   (UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/sysman/config/emiasconsolelogging.properties
   (Windows) ORACLE_HOME\sysman\config\emiasconsolelogging.properties
   
   

2. Follow the instructions in the file to replace the default properties with those that are commented by default.

   Example A-3 shows the properties in the emiasconsolelogging.properties file that enable ODL for the Application Server Control log file.

3. Save and close the emiasconsolelogging.properties file.

4. Restart Application Server Control.

# To support the ODL log appender, replace the lines above
# with the following and restart EM.  The resulting ODL log files
# will be read by the Log Loader and written to the Log Repository.
#
# log4j.appender.emiaslogAppender=oracle.core.ojdl.log4j.OracleAppender
# log4j.appender.emiaslogAppender.ComponentId=EM
# log4j.appender.emiaslogAppender.LogDirectory=/private/shiphomes/
  m21_infra/sysman/log
# log4j.appender.emiaslogAppender.MaxSize=20000000
# log4j.appender.emiaslogAppender.MaxSegmentSize=5000000

A.6.2 About the Application Server Control ODL Logging Properties

Table A-3 describes the Oracle Diagnostic Logging (ODL) logging properties available in the emiasconsolelogging.properties file.

When you enable ODL, the resulting log.xml file increases in size over time as information is written to the file. The file is designed to reach a maximum size, determined by the MaxSegmentSize property described in Table A-3. When the file reaches the predefined maximum size, Application Server Control renames (or rolls) the logging or trace information to a new file name and starts a new log or trace file. This process keeps the log file from growing too large.

To be sure you have access to important log information, Application Server Control will rollover the log.xml file until the log file and its rollover files consume a predefined, maximum amount of disk space, determined by the MaxSize property shown in Example A-3. When the log file and its rollover files reach this predefined target, Application Server Control deletes the oldest rollover file.

As a result, you will often see multiple log files in the log directory. The following example shows three Application Server Control rollover files and the current log file in the log directory:

log.xml
log1.xml
log2.xml
log3.xml

A.6.3 Configuring Logging Properties When ODL Is Not Enabled

If you do not enable ODL, you can still configure the logging properties for the Application Server Control by modifying the following configuration files:

• emiasconsolelogging.properties

  Modify the properties in this file to configure the amount of information saved to the emias.log file, which contains general logging information about the Application Server Control.

• emagentlogging.properties

  Modify the properties in this file to configure the amount of information saved to the emagent.log file, which contains logging information specific to the Management Agent.

For more information about the configuration settings in these files, see "Locating and Configuring Log Files" in Oracle Enterprise Manager Advanced Configuration.

A.7.1 Making HTML Pages More Accessible

Enterprise Manager takes advantage of user interface development technologies that improve the responsiveness of some user operations. For example, when you navigate to a new record set in a table, Enterprise Manager does not redisplay the entire HTML page.

However, this performance-improving technology is generally not supported by screen readers. When you enable accessibility mode, you disable this feature, and as a result, make the Enterprise Manager HTML pages more accessible for disabled users.

A.7.2 Providing Textual Descriptions of Enterprise Manager Charts

Throughout Enterprise Manager, charts are used to display performance data. For most users, these charts provide a valuable graphical view of the data that can reveal trends and help identify minimum and maximum values for performance metrics.

However, charts do not convey information in a manner that can be read by a screen reader. To remedy this problem, you can configure Enterprise Manager to provide a complete textual representation of each performance chart. When you enable accessibility mode, Enterprise Manager displays a small icon for each chart that can be used as a drill-down link to the textual representation.

Figure A-1 shows an example of the icon that appears below each chart after you enable accessibility mode.

Figure A-1 Icon Representing the Textual Representation of a Chart

Description of "Figure A-1 Icon Representing the Textual Representation of a Chart"

A.7.3 Modifying the uix-config.xml File to Enable Accessibility Mode

1. Locate the uix-config.xml configuration file in the Oracle Application Server home directory:

   (UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/sysman/webapps/emd/WEB-INF
   (Windows) ORACLE_HOME\sysman\webapps\emd\WEB-INF
   
   

2. Open the uix-config.xml file using your favorite text editor and locate the following entry:

   <!-- An alternate configuration that disables accessibility features  -->
   <default-configuration>
     <accessibility-mode>inaccessible</accessibility-mode>
   </default-configuration>
   
   

3. Change the value of the accessibility-mode property from inaccessible to accessible.

4. Save and close the file.

5. Restart the Application Server Control Console.

A.8.1 Restrictions and Supported Configurations

The following sections describe the restrictions and supported configurations for performing the procedure described in this document:

• General Restrictions

• Supported Installation Types

• Support for Separately Installed Components

A.8.2 Creating a New targets.xml for the Active Application Server Control

By default, each Oracle Application Server instance has its own Application Server Control Console URL and its own list of targets to manage. The targets managed by each Application Server Control are defined in the following configuration file in the home directory of the Oracle Application Server instance:

(UNIX) $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/emd/targets.xml 
(Windows) %ORACLE_HOME%\sysman\emd\targets.xml

The first step in managing multiple application server instances from a single Application Server Control is to combine the targets.xml files for each instance into one.

To create a new targets.xml that includes the application server targets for multiple application server instances, use the following procedure:

1. Stop the Application Server Control for each of the application server instances on the host.

   On UNIX systems, enter the following command in each Oracle Application Server Oracle home to stop the Application Server Control:

   ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl stop iasconsole
   
   

   On Windows systems, use the Services control panel to stop the Application Server Control service for each Oracle home.

2. If it is not set already, set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable so it represents the complete path to the home directory of the active Application Server Control, which you will use to manage multiple application server instances on the host.

   For example:

   (UNIX) setenv ORACLE_HOME /dev01/oracle/oas1/ 
   (Windows) set ORACLE_HOME=D:\oracle\oas1\ 
   
   

3. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable so it represents the location of your Java executable.

   For example:

   (UNIX) setenv JAVA_HOME $ORACLE_HOME/jdk 
   (Windows)  set JAVA_HOME=%ORACLE_HOME%\jdk 
   
   

4. Change directory to the following location in the home directory of the active Application Server Control:

   (UNIX) $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/emd/ 
   (Windows) %ORACLE_HOME%\sysman\emd\ 
   
   

5. Copy the targets.xml file so you have a backup copy that will not be overwritten:

   (UNIX) cp targets.xml old_targets.xml
   (Windows) copy targets.xml old_targets.xml 
   
   

6. Enter the following command at the command prompt:

   (UNIX) $JAVA_HOME/bin/java -jar $ORACLE_HOME/jlib/emConfigInstall.jar
    listtargetsfully source_home active_home > targets_temp.xml
   
   (Windows) %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -jar %ORACLE_HOME%\jlib\emConfigInstall.jar
    listtargetsfully source_home active_home > targets_temp.xml 
   
   

   Replace source_home with the full path to the Oracle home of the application server instance that will be managed by the active Application Server Control.

   Replace active_home with the full path to the Oracle home for the active Application Server Control.

   For example:

   (UNIX) $JAVA_HOME/bin/java -jar $ORACLE_HOME/jlib/emConfigInstall.jar
    listtargetsfully /dev0/oracle/oas2/ $ORACLE_HOME > targets_temp.xml
   
   (Windows) %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java -jar %ORACLE_HOME%\jlib\emConfigInstall.jar
    listtargetsfully C:\oracle\oas2 %ORACLE_HOME% > targets_temp.xml 
   
   

   This command lists the contents of the targets.xml file in the source Oracle home and redirects the output to a temporary version of the targets.xml file. This temporary version of the file (targets_temp.xml) contains the contents of the targets.xml files in the source Oracle home. The temporary file also includes any encrypted information (such as target monitoring credentials) in a format that can be read successfully by the active Application Server Control.

   
   

   Note: It is important that you use the emConfigInstall.jar administrative tool to create the targets_temp.xml temporary file. Do not attempt to copy and paste the contents of the inactive targets.xml into the targets.xml of the active Oracle home; otherwise, encrypted information in the targets.xml file will be lost.

   
   

7. Using a text editor, open the targets_temp.xml file and copy all of the content, except the following:

   • The <Targets> and </Targets> tags at the beginning and at the end of the file

   • The target definition for the host target. For example:

     <Target TYPE="host" NAME="sys1.acme.com" 
     DISPLAY_NAME="sys1.acme.com" VERSION="1.0">
     </Target>
     
     

8. Paste the content you copied from the targets_temp.xml file into the targets.xml file in the Oracle home of the active Application Server Control.

   Be sure to paste the content at the end of the file, but before the </Targets> tag. In other words, be sure that all the target definitions are within the <Targets> and </Targets> tags.

9. Locate the following entry for each oracle_ias target type in the new targets.xml file:

   <Property NAME="StandaloneConsoleURL" 
   VALUE="http://node_name:port/emd/console"/>
   
   

   This entry identifies the URL and port number of the Application Server Control Console used to manage the application server instance.

10. Make sure the port number for each of these entries matches the port number of the active Application Server Control Console, which you will be using to manage multiple application server targets on this host.

11. Save and close the updated targets.xml file.

A.8.3 Updating the StandaloneConsoleURL Property in the Inactive targets.xml File

By default, when you install multiple instances of Oracle Application Server on a host, each instance is assigned a unique port number from which you can view the Application Server Control Console for that instance. However, when you configure your system to use only one Application Server Control for multiple instances, all the instances on the host must reference the same URL and port number.

As a result, you must make sure that other software components on the system also use only the port for the active Application Server Control.

Specifically, you must make sure that the Distributed Configuration Management (DCM) software associated with the inactive Application Server Control is updated to recognize the port number of the active Application Server Control.

You accomplish this task by updating the original targets.xml in the Oracle home directory of the inactive Application Server Control so that the StandaloneConsoleURL property refers to the active Application Server Control URL and port number.

Perform the following task in the Oracle home of the inactive Application Server Control:

1. If you have not done so already, stop the inactive Application Server Control.

   On UNIX systems, enter the following command:

   INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl stop iasconsole
   
   

   On Windows systems, use the Services control panel to stop the Application Server Control service for the inactive Oracle home.

2. Use a text editor to open the targets.xml file, which is located in the following directory of the inactive Oracle home:

   (UNIX) INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/sysman/emd/ 
   (Windows) INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME\sysman\emd\ 
   
   

3. Locate the StandaloneConsoleURL property for the oracle_ias target:

   <Property NAME="StandaloneConsoleURL" 
   VALUE="http://node_name:port/emd/console"/>
   
   

   This entry identifies the URL and port number of the Application Server Control Console used to manage this application server instance.

4. Make sure the port number for this entry matches the port number of the active Application Server Control Console, which you will be using to manage this application server target.

5. Save and close the updated targets.xml file.

6. Start and then stop the inactive Application Server Control Console.

   On UNIX systems, use the following commands to start and then stop the Application Server Control:

   INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl start iasconsole
   INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl stop iasconsole
   
   

   On Windows systems, use the Services control panel to start and then stop the inactive Application Server Control service.

   When you restart the Application Server Control Console, DCM is initialized and registers the new port value.

   Now that you have configured the active Application Server Control, you no longer need to run this instance of the Application Server Control.

A.8.4 Updating the opmn.xml File to Refer to the Active Application Server Control

The Oracle Process Management and Notification (OPMN) software within each Oracle Application Server Oracle home is configured to work with the local Application Server Control for that instance.

When you configure your system to use only one Application Server Control, you must edit the OPMN configuration file in the Oracle home of the inactive Application Server Control. Specifically, you must configure OPMN so that it references the active Application Server Control and not the local, inactive Application Server Control.

Perform this procedure in the Oracle home of the inactive Application Server Control:

1. Stop OPMN.

   On UNIX systems, enter the following command in the Oracle home of the inactive Application Server Control:

   INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopall
   
   

   On Windows systems, use the Services control panel to stop the process manager service for the inactive Oracle home.

2. Use a text editor to open the opmn.xml file for the instance:

   (UNIX) INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/conf/opmn.xml 
   (Windows) INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME\opmn\conf\opmn.xml 
   
   

3. Locate the following entry in the file:

   <ias-component id="dcm-daemon" status="enabled" id-matching="true">
             .
             .
             .
           <data id="java-parameters" value="-Xmx256m -Xrs
               -Doracle.ias.sysmgmt.logging.loglevel=ERROR
               -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djava.io.tmpdir=$TMP"/>
             .
             .
             .
   </ias-component>
   
   

4. Add the following to the existing java-parameters data tag:

   -DemLocOverride=oracle_home_of_the_active_application_server_control
   
   

   For example:

   <data id="java-parameters" value="-Xmx256m -Xrs
         -Doracle.ias.sysmgmt.logging.loglevel=ERROR
         -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djava.io.tmpdir=$TMP
         -DemLocOverride=/dev0/oracle/oas1"/>
   
   

   Note that the additional Java parameter must be inserted before the closing quotation mark.

5. Save and close the opmn.xml file.

6. Start OPMN.

   On UNIX systems, enter the following command:

   INACTIVE_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startall
   
   

   On Windows systems, use the Services control panel to start the process manager service for the inactive Oracle home.

A.8.5 Restarting the Active Application Server Control and Verifying the Results

The procedure you use to verify the results of this procedure varies depending upon your configuration. See the following topics for more information:

• Verifying the Procedure for Infrastructure Installations

• Verifying the Procedure for Middle-Tier Installations

A.8.6 Deinstallation Procedures

After you have performed the procedures in this document, you may want to deinstall one of the application server instances on the host.

The following sections provide instructions you should follow before you remove either the active or the inactive application server instance:

• Deinstalling the Oracle Home with the Active Application Server Control

• Deinstalling the Oracle Home with the Inactive Application Server Control