Adding a plug-in configuration to a web server on IBM i

You can configure a web server plug-in on the IBM® i operating system to receive an HTTP request for dynamic resources. You can forward the request to the Liberty server, which provides high-availability and workload balancing through the web server plug-in.

Before you begin

The web server that is provided with IBM i is already installed with product 5761-DG1 for IBM i V6R1 or 5770-DG1 for IBM i V7R1. The IBM i web server is referred to as the IBM HTTP Server for IBM i. The IBM HTTP Server that is provided with WebSphere® Application Server does not run on IBM i and is included in WebSphere Application Server for z/OS®, V7 and V8.0.
Install the web server plug-ins and the WebSphere Customization Toolbox (WCT). To install the web server plug-in, see Installing and configuring web server plug-ins.
For more information, see Installing and configuring web server plug-ins .
To install the WCT, see Installing and using the WebSphere Customization Toolbox.
Install the WCT on your workstation. You do not need to install any of the WCT tools. The Java™ SDK installed with the WCT is used to run the JConsole Java utility in a later step.

About this task

A web server plug-in is used to forward HTTP requests from a supported web server to one or more application servers. The plug-in checks the request against configuration data in the plugin-cfg.xml file. The configuration data maps the URI for the HTTP request to the hostname of an application server. The web server plug-in then uses this information to forward the request to the application server.

The procedure applies to Liberty servers not in a collective.

Procedure

Configure the web server plug-in for your chosen web server by using the WCT.
- When prompted, choose the remote scenario and specify the hostname that Liberty is accessible on.
- Do not copy or run the generated configureWebserver script. This script is not required.
Configure your HTTP Server to use the plugin-cfg.xml file.
Find the location of your current plugin-cfg.xml by finding the value that is specified for the WebSpherePluginConfig directive at the end of the configuration file of the HTTP Server. For example, <IHS_ROOT>/conf/httpd.conf.
Enable the plug-in within the httpd.conf file of the web server by using the LoadModule phrase. Specify the location of plugin-cfg.xml file by using the WebSpherePluginConfig phrase, as shown in the following examples:
- On Windows systems:
```
LoadModule was_ap22_module "path/to/mod_was_ap22_http.dll"
WebSpherePluginConfig "C:\Program Files\IBM\HTTPServer\conf\plugin-cfg.xml"
```
- On other distributed systems:
```
LoadModule was_ap22_module "path/to/mod_was_ap22_http.so"
WebSpherePluginConfig "/opt/IBM/HTTPServer/conf/plugin-cfg.xml"
```
See Configuring IBM HTTP Server for instructions about enabling the plug-in within the httpd.conf file.
Optional: If you want the web server plug-in to forward HTTP requests to more than one Liberty server, repeat the previous steps for each additional server. Consolidate all the plug-in configurations into one plugin-cfg.xml file.
To merge plug-in configurations, you can use one of the following tools:
- You can use the pluginUtility command.
- You can use a pluginCfgMerge utility in the traditional server to merge multiple plugin-cfg.xml files. See Configuring simple load balancing across multiple application server profiles.