If you are to install or manage WebSphere Application Server in silent mode, you should prepare the response file.

• Introduction of response file

A response file is an XML file that contains data required to complete installation operations silently with Installation Manager. Following gives you a sample response file with some underlined explanations of the commands and attributes for WebSphere Application Server version 8.5 product installation from local repository on IBM i.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>

<!--Response attributes: The attribute default value for clean and temporary is false. When clean=’true’, it means IM only use the repository and preferences specified in the response file. Otherwise, IM uses the repository and preferences both in response file and existing set in IM. When temporary='false', the preferences that are set in your response file persist to IM set. When temporary='true', the preferences that are set in the response file do not persist. In this sample, it means for this installation we only use the repositories and preferences specified in this file and sets in this file do not persist.-->

<agent-input clean='true' temporary='true'>

<server>

<!—Specify local or remote repository files or the directory directly containing the repository files. -->

<repository location='/home/builds/was85' />

</server>

<!—Profile id is a unique name for an installation which can be identified by IM. The offering profile value in install must be the same with this profile id. The id can be used for the management of this installation.-->

<profile id='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5 Base' installLocation='/QIBM/ProdData/WebSphere/AppServer/V85/Base'> <!—Product install path-->

<data key='eclipseLocation' value='/QIBM/ProdData/WebSphere/AppServer/V85/Base' />

<data key='was.install.os400.profile.location' value='/QIBM/UserData/WebSphere/AppServer/V85/Base' /> <!—This data key is required for IBM i platform-->

<data key='user.import.profile' value='false' />

<data key='cic.selector.nl' value='en' /> <!—Specify the language to be installed and separate the values with commas. For example:en,zh,ja-->

</profile>

<install modify='false'>

<!—For the offering id and version info can be obtained by command: imcl listAvailablePackages -repositories /home/builds/was85 –long. The version number is optional and IM installs the latest packages for the offering id if version is not specified. Attribute installFixes is optional too and the value can be none, all or recommended. If you specify a version for the offering, the installFixes default value is none. If you do not specify a version for the offering, the default value for installFixes is all. Features can be optionally specified by a comma-delimited list. If no feature IDs are specified, the default features are installed. For WebSphere Application Server, core.feature is the default.-->

<offering id='com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85' version=’ 8.5.0.20120501_1108’ features='core.feature,ejbdeploy,thinclient,embeddablecontainer' profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5 Base' installFixes='none' />

</install>

<!—eclipseCache is specified for the shared resources directory. This directory is created in the first package installation of IM and can’t change in later installation.>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.eclipseCache' value=/QIBM/UserData/InstallationManager/IMShared' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout' value='30' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout' value='45' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount' value='0' />

<preference name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed' value='true' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode' value='false' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication' value='false' />

<preference name='http.ntlm.auth.kind' value='NTLM' />

<preference name='http.ntlm.auth.enableIntegrated.win32' value='true' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts' value='true' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.keepFetchedFiles' value='false' />

<preference name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled' value='false' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates' value='false' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.agent.ui.displayInternalVersion' value='false' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showErrorLog' value='true' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showWarningLog' value='true' />

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showNoteLog' value='true' />

</agent-input>

• Record response file with windows Installation Manager GUI

IBMIM.exe -record response.xml(response file to be recorded) -skipInstall D:/IM_shared (Directory to write Installation Manager data)

On the launched GUI interface, you can add the repository and go through each wizard to record the corresponding response file, such as install, update, modify, roll back or uninstall.

Figure 2 Record response file with GUI interface on windows

Example response file recorded from windows Installation Manager :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<agent-input acceptLicense='true'>

<server>

<repository location='D:\Myfile\tmp\was85'/>

</server>

<profile id='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' installLocation='C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'>

<data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'/>

<data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>

<data key='cic.selector.os' value='win32'/>

<data key='cic.selector.ws' value='win32'/>

<data key='cic.selector.arch' value='x86'/>

<data key='cic.selector.nl' value='en'/>

</profile>

<install modify='false'>

<offering id='com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85' version='8.5.0.20120501_1108' profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' features='core.feature,ejbdeploy,thinclient,embeddablecontainer,liberty,com.ibm.sdk.6_64bit' installFixes='none'/>

</install>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.eclipseCache' value='C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\IMShared'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout' value='30'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout' value='45'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount' value='0'/>

<preference name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed' value='true'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode' value='false'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication' value='false'/>

<preference name='http.ntlm.auth.kind' value='NTLM'/>

<preference name='http.ntlm.auth.enableIntegrated.win32' value='true'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts' value='true'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.keepFetchedFiles' value='false'/>

<preference name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled' value='false'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates' value='false'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.agent.ui.displayInternalVersion' value='false'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showErrorLog' value='true'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showWarningLog' value='true'/>

<preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showNoteLog' value='true'/>

</agent-input>

You need to modify some fields in the recorded response file to use it in IBM i platform.

For the directory path in the recorded example response file which is in bold, you should modify them to the path on IBM i platform. Besides, there are some data keys which are different from windows. Delete the following three data keys which are not needed on IBM i:

<data key='cic.selector.os' value='win32'/>

<data key='cic.selector.ws' value='win32'/>

<data key='cic.selector.arch' value='x86'/>

And add a new data key for IBM i platform: 

<data key='was.install.os400.profile.location' value='/QIBM/UserData/WebSphere/AppServer/V85/Base' />

For other field in the response file, you can leave what they are. 

Install the product

• After you have installed the Installation Manager on your system and have access to the product repositories, there are two methods on IBM i to perform the actual WebSphere Application Server product installation with Installation Manager.
• 1) Response file
• After you have a response file, execute the command in QShell to perform the installation:
• ./imcl -acceptLicense input /home/response.xml –log /home/install.log -keyring /home/keyring -password xx
• Note, if the repositories you specified in the response file can be accessed without authentication, the keyring is not needed. Otherwise, you should firstly create a keyring for the installation using command:
• ./imutilsc saveCredential –url repository_location -userName xx -userPassword

xx -keyring /home/keyring -password xx -verbose
If you have more than one repository locations needs authentication with different user and password, put the authentication info into the same keyring file by the creating keyring command.

2) Command line

You can install WebSphere Application Server product by adding the attributes in the IM command line. Following gives an example: ./imcl install com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85_8.5.0.20120501_1108,core.feature,samples -repositories https://host/repository_location -installationDirectory /QIBM/ProdData/WebSphere/AppServer/V85/Base -properties was.install.os400.profile.location=/QIBM/UserData/Websphere/Appserver/V8/ Base -sharedResourcesDirectory /QIBM/UserData/InstallationManager/IMShared -keyring /home/keyring -password password -acceptLicense

In the command line, the parameter ‘com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85_8.5.0.20120501_1108’ is the package id_version. You can get this information with Installation Manager command ‘imcl listAvailable –repositories https://host/repository_location -long’ (For more detailed information of Installation Manager command, please refer Installation Manager useful commands). The version is optional. When version is not set, Installation Manager will install the latest version and all interim fixes are installed together in default. If version is set, Installation Manager will install the specified version and no interim fix is installed in default. By ‘-installFixes’ parameter, you can directly set the interim fixes installation with value all, none or recommended.

The parameter ‘core.feature’ is the default feature of WebSphere Application Server. For other optional features, separate them by commas. For WebSphere Application Server V8.0, the optional features are such as ejbdeploy, thinclient, embeddablecontainer, samples. For V8.5, an additional feature liberty is added.

For WebSphere Application Server product install with response file or command line, you can get more info from WAS information center.

Manage the product
Besides the product installation, you can also use IM to update, modify, uninstall or roll back the product. Following introduces you the useful Installation Manager commands to manage WebSphere Application Server and the detail management operations.

• Installation Manager useful commands

Following shows you the useful command of Installation Manager to manage the product. You can also read the file /QIBM/UserData/InstallationManager/installed.xml to get the installed packages information.

1. View installed packages and features

./imcl listInstalledPackages -features –long What you get from the command is in format: install_location: packageID_version: display_name: display_version: featureId_a,featureId_b,featureId_c as shown in Fig.3. Figure 3 View installed packages and features For WebSphere Application Server, the installed packages may contain product and interim fixes. From above figure, you can see that a WebSphere Application Server V8.0.0.3 ND is installed under directory /QIBM/ProdData/WebSphere/AppServer/V8/ND and an interim fix ‘8.0.0.3-WS-WAS-TFPM59935’ is installed on it.

2. View installation directories, shared resources directory, package id and translations.

./imcl listInstallationDirectories –long What you get from the command is in format as shown in Fig.4: * : shared_resources_directory installation_directory : package_id : installed_translations Figure 4 View installation directories This listInstallationDirectories command is supported from Installation Manager V1.4.4.

3. View available packages, features in repositories

./imcl listAvailablePackages -repositories repository_locations –features –long If you are using a remote repository which needs authentication to access, add the keyring in the end of the command. repository_locations are separated with commas. What you get from the command is in format as shown in Fig.5: repository_location: packageID_version: display_name: display_version: featureId_a,featureId_b,featureId_c Figure 5 View available packages, features Before you install the package, you can use this command to find the package id, version and features information.

4. View available fixes in repositories

./imcl listAvailableFixes packageID_version –repositories repository_locations -long In this command, the packageID_version is must be provide as the fixes is only available for specified level. What you get from the command is in format as shown in Fig.6: repository_path: fixName_version: recommended=[true|false] Figure 6 View available fixes

• Uninstall