Overview of WebSphere Application Server Server start/stop

In the stand-alone application server environment, you stop and start servers from the command line.

• <PROFILE_HOME>\bin\startServer server1

• <INSTALL_HOME>\bin\startServer –profileName AppSrv01 server1

• Start -> Programs -> IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.0 -> Profiles -> <Profile> -> Start the Server

• Registration using WASService.exe or at the time of creating the profile
• Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services

• startManager  -profileName <dmgr Profile Name>
• startServer - profileName <dmgr Profile Name>  dmgr
• stopManager  -profileName <dmgr Profile Name>
• stopServer - profileName < <dmgr Profile Name> dmgr

• startNode  -profileName <Managed Node Profile Name>
• startServer - profileName <Managed Node Profile Name>  nodeagent
• stopNode  -profileName <Node Profile Name>
• stopServer - profileName <Managed Node Profile Name> nodeagent

• DMGR and Nodeagent START - NO
• For running Node Agent re-start and stop – YES
• Additional start/stop options for Windows OS

• From Start menu

1. Two JVMs are actually launched.
2. The first JVM is the Systems Management server launch utility. Launches Application Server specified by <serverName>
3. Loads all bootstrap classes, server.xml , serverindex.xml files and construct JVM Arguments.
4. Spawn the second JVM
5. The second JVM is the actual server process specified by <serverName>
6. Actual JVM, starts all components . Ex WebContainer, WebContainer, Security Components and Applications.

1. The first JVM is the Systems Management server launch utility. Launches Application Server specified by <serverName>
2. Loads all bootstrap classes, server.xml , serverindex.xml files and construct JVM Arguments.
3. When an application server starts for the first time after installing an update -- that is, a fixpack or an iFix -- the server launch application performs any post-install configuration by invoking the runConfigActions.sh(.bat) command in a separate process before spawning the server process (new in V8 and later).
4. Spawn the Server Actual JVM
5. The server JVM is the actual server process specified by <serverName>
6. Actual JVM, starts all components . Ex WebContainer, WebContainer, Security Components and Applications.

• From command Line \stopServer server1
  • Creates new JVM to read configuration and send message to server to shutdown
  • By default, the stopServer utility does not return control to the command line until the server completes shut down.
  • Unless invoked with the “nowait” option, it will not return until the server is fully stopped.
  • User ID and password required to stop a secure Application Server

• From Console
  • For stopping the server, the adminconsole does not go through the nodeagent code, but goes directly to the appserver's Server Mbean. It calls the Server Mbean's stop() or stopImmediate() method.
    Those methods do generate a message in the application server Systemout.log file indicating the server is attempting to stop. ADMN1020, ADMN1021, ADMN1022, ADMN1023 depending on the method called and user credentials.
  • As described above, the nodeagent is NOT involved when the adminconsole is used to STOP an appserver.
    The server mbean is called directly. This mbean runs on the appserver itself. That mbean already does produce messages indicating the appserver is stopping.

• Process logs
  Native code, including Java™ virtual machines (JVM), might write data to these process streams. By default, the stdout and stderr streams are redirected to log files at application server startup. By default, these files are stored as:
  • profile_root /logs/server_name/native_stderr.log
  • profile_root /logs/server_name/native_stdout.log

• Java virtual machine (JVM) log settings
  The System.out log is used to monitor the health of the running application server. The System.err log contains exception stack trace information that is useful when performing problem analysis.
  startServer and stopServer creates respective logs atprofile_root /logs/server_name/
  The first failure data capture (FFDC) log file saves information that is generated from a processing failure. profile_root /logs/ffdc