Configuring CICS TG Inbound Resource Adapter at server scope in WebSphere Network Deployment (ND)

The CICS TG Inbound adapter does not provide support for WebSphere Network Deployment (WAS ND). This topic explains how to configure the Resource Adapter in WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment at server scope.

In WebSphere ND, when using multiple Application Servers at a single node and resource adapter installation scope is always at the Node level. If the deployment is done at Node scope, all application servers declared on this Node will inherit the CICS TG Inbound Resource Adapter configuration.

The CICS TG inbound resource adapter is configured to listen on a specific port for incoming requests from TXSeries. This InboundPort (default port 2007) is configured through RA custom properties in the WebSphere server. If the deployment is done at Node scope, all application servers declared on this Node will inherit the CICS TG Inbound Resource Adapter configuration. So the first application server listens on InboundPort (2007), but the subsequent application server on the same node is not able to listen to this same InboudPort.

The following steps explain how to configure the CICS TG Inbound Resource Adapter in WebSphere Application Server ND at server scope.

First, you should follow the steps to install the CICS TG Inbound resource adapter at the Node level:
  1. Navigate to the Resource adapter panel.

    Click Resources > Resource Adapters > Resource adapters.

  2. Install a new resource adapter archive.
    • Click Install RAR.
    • Browse to find the appropriate RAR file.
      1. If your RAR file is on your local workstation, select Local path, and browse to find the file.
      2. If your RAR file is on your server, select Remote file system, and specify the fully qualified path to the file.
    • Click Next.
  3. Configure the resource adapter name and any other properties that are needed under General Properties.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Optional: Create a new resource adapter instance from the installed RAR file with a different scope level.

After installing the RAR file on each node, you can create another resource adapter with any valid scope other than node.

In the following example, CICSInboundAdapterNode1 is installed at node level scope.Example: CICSInboundAdapterNode1 is installed at node level.

Inbound port for CICSInbound resource adapter has set to 2006 at the node level. Inbound port for CICSInbound resource adapter has set to 2006 at the node level.

After Installing the resource adapter(RA) at the node level, use the New option to install it at the server level. After resource adapter is installed at the server level, the Inbound port can be changed for that server.

  1. Installing RAR at the server level:

    Consider a scenario that needs to install a resource adapter at three application servers inside the same node.

    Following are the steps to install resource adapter RAR at the server scope.

    1. Click Resources.
    2. Click Resource Adapters.
    3. Select the scope level and then click NEW.
    4. Choose the RAR file from the installed archive path.
    5. Click OK.
    6. Click on the installed resource adapter and go to Custom Properties. Modify Inbound port if required.

    In below example of WebSphere admin console, the NEW option is available at Resource Adapters: An example of WebSphere admin console, the NEW option is available at Resource Adapters.

    Installing the CICS TG Resource Adapter requires configuration information like Name, Description, and Native library path after selecting NEW. The native library path is the path to the bin directory installed by CICS TG. For example, Installing the CICS TG Resource Adapter requires configuration information such as Name, Description, and Native library path after selecting NEW. The native library path is the path to the bin directory installed by CICS TG.

    The inbound port in the following example is set to 2007 for server1.The inbound port in the following example is set to 2007 for server1.

  2. Installing RAR at the server level:

    Follow the above mentioned steps to install the resource adapter at the server level.

    The following example shows how to install the CICS TG Resource Adapter at server2. Installation of the CICS TG Resource Adapter at server2.

    The inbound port in the following example has been set to 2009 for server2. In this example, tThe inbound port is set to 2009 for server2.

    Verifying the custom properties and Inbound port of a Resource Adapter (RA):

    Resource Adapters>Resource Adapter Name>Custom properties

    Verifying the custom properties and Inbound port of a Resource Adapter (RA)

  3. Installing RAR at the server level:

    Follow the same steps to install the resource adapter at server3.

    The following example shows how to install the CICS TG Resource Adapter at server3. This example shows how to install the CICS TG Resource Adapter at server3.

    The inbound port in the following example is set to 2010 for server3. The inbound port in this example is set to 2010 for server3.

Now we have installed the CICS TG Inbound Resource Adapter RAR in server1, server 2, and server3. To check the port availability, all servers needs to be restarted.

Following are the steps to restart all servers:
  • Click Servers Panel.
    • Click WebSphere application servers.
    • Select all servers required to restart and click Restart.
To check the port availability, restart all servers.

Checking Logs

The application server log files contain information you can use to monitor the startup of the application server and diagnose errors.

These files are located in the following directories on each node in your WebSphere Application Server installation:
Table 1.
Operating system Directory
AIX path/profiles/profile/logs/server1
Linux path/profiles/profile/logs/server1
Windows path\profiles\profile\logs\server1

server1

The name of the application server. For a stand-alone installation, the default value is server1. There might be multiple application server directories for cluster installations under the custom profile.

The following log files can be found in these directories:

SystemOut.log

WebSphere Application Server messages to STDOUT are redirected to this file.

SystemErr.log

WebSphere Application Server messages to STDERR are redirected to this file.

An example of System.out.log created:

Server1

opt/IBM/WAS/AppServer/profiles/AppSrv01/logs/server1/SystemOut.log

Where AppSrv01 is a custom profile created.

System.out.log

Here, CICS inbound resource adapter is available at port 2007 at server1.

Server2

/opt/IBM/WAS/AppServer/profiles/AppSrv01/logs/server2/SystemOut.log

In this example, CICS inbound resource adapter is available at port 2007 at server1.

Here, CICS inbound resource adapter is available at port 2009 at server2.

Server3

/opt/IBM/WAS/AppServer/profiles/AppSrv01/logs/server3/SystemOut.log

In this example, CICS inbound resource adapter is available at port 2009 at server2.

Here, CICS TG inbound resource adapter is available at port 2010 at server3.

The first application server, server1 will listen on InboundPort 2007, server2 will listen on InboundPort 2009, and server3 on InboundPort 2010. This way, CICS TG Inbound Resource Adapter can be configured to more than one application server on the same node.