Propagating WAS 7.0 Plugin to Remote IHS Server

Sometimes it looks like everything is right in the httpd.conf and admin.conf files, but stuff still just doesn't want to work.  Very frustrating and time consuming until you realize that you missed one little step.

If propagating a plugin from WAS 7.0 admin console to an IHS 7.0 server results in the following errors, then you may be simply missing an admin.passwd file. 

These two messages appear in the WAS console and the dmgr SystemOut.log:

PLGC0063E: The propagation of the plug-in configuration file ... on the Web server computer failed.

PLGC0049E: The propagation of the plug-in configuration file failed for the Web server.

... and this one appears in the admin_error.log of your IHS server's logs directory: 

[Wed Apr 27 14:57:15 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] user MyAdmin not found: /wasadmin

Even though all of the user and account names are set correctly in the WAS console and on the target IHS server's various config files, the admin.passwd file is probably missing.  Try setting the admin.passwd file by using the following command (of course, substituting "MyAdmin" for your local account name):

./htpasswd -c /opt/IBM/HTTPServer/conf/admin.passwd MyAdmin

Then restart your admin server using the /HTTPServer/bin/adminctrl stop | start commands, and try to propagate the plugin again.  With any luck, you're in business.

This will create the admin.passwd account in the HTTP Server's conf directory.  Restart the admin server and try the propagation again.... worked for me!

IBM RAFW 7.1.1.2 IHS Plugin Patch Failure - Fix

IBM's Rational Automation Framework for Websphere (RAFW) can save a ton of time and trouble when installing, configuring, or administering IBM WebSphere products, but when things go wrong it can be a massive headache! 

This time around I was attempting to create a new clustered WAS 7.0.0.13 environment with separate nodes running IHS and Plugin (7.0.0.13 as well).  The installs ran fine until it came time to patch up the plugin to 7.0.0.13 / JDK SR8, at which point things went bad.

At first it looked like the patch names were wrong, so I reviewed the patches directory under the RAFW Media tree and made some adjustments to my install.properties files for each of the two IHS nodes I was attempting to install and patch the Plugin to.  Then I ran the steps again, but came up with different errors.  A few more tweaks and I managed to get the right values, but the project still failed on the Install Plugin Nodes steps! 

In case anyone is struggling with the patch lines, here are the valid X_PATCHES values from the IHS Node's install.properties file:

# Patches to apply for each product.
IHS_PATCHES=ihs70_fp13,ihs70_jdk_sr8
PLUGIN_PATCHES=plugin70_fp13,plugin70_jdk_sr8

The error, once the patch lines were sorted out, was:

D:\IBM\BuildForge\rafw\product\actions\install\ihs\common\install_update_ihs_common.xml:176: D:\IBM\BuildForge\rafw\media\linux\X64\ihs\70\patches\@PATCHNAME@ not found.
(our BF/RAFW stack is on a Windows server)

This looked very odd to me, so I dug into the install_update_ihs_common.xml file and back-traced the call to the  install_ihs70.xml file, where I found the offending @PATCHNAME@ in an ANT for loop ... what would we call it?  A typo?  I'm not sure how it got there. 

Anyway, on to the fix.  It was easy - just replace "@PATCHNAME@" with a properly formatted ANT variable (as was done in other places in the script):  "@{PATCHNAME}". 

ORIG: <param name="PATCH_NAME" value="@PATCHNAME@" />

FIXED: <param name="PATCH_NAME" value="@{PATCHNAME}" />

That's it... if it helps anyone, great! 

-Kreebog