Node Manager as a UNIX Startup Process

Configuring WebLogic Server (WLS) as a startup process was a common administrative process in the past. But after Node Manager (NM) was introduced as an agent to start, stop, restart and monitor WebLogic Server it is now recommended that you start WebLogic Server using NM. But NM has to configured as a startup process on the respective OS so that it is always running to manage the respective WLS instances on that machine. NM can either be Java based NM or Script based NM. Script based NM uses OS services like SSH or RSH to execute the NM script. But Java based NM is a Java process that should be started. So setting up NM as a service will ensure that NM is always running. There is a lot of information in the WebLogic Server documentation about setting up NM. But there is very less or no information about setting NM as a service on a non-Windows environment. For Windows environment there are pre-packged scripts that you can use. These scripts exists under WL_HOME/server/bin folder (installNodeMgrSvc.cmd, uninstallNodeMgrSvc.cmd). But for UNIX based environment you should do this manually or with the help of OS specific utilities like chkconfig etc.

For *nix environment NM should be configured as startup process using rc scripts. Creating rc scripts for configuring NM as a service is even simpler than configuring WebLogic Server as a service. This is mainly because NM doesn't have to be shutdown gracefully. All you have to do is write a simple shell script that starts the NM and create the symbolic link to that script from the right run level folder. The following illustrates the steps to confiure NM as service under LINUX environment. It should be very similar on other *nix environments. You need root permission to peform the following steps.


1. Create a shell script (wlsnmd) under /etc/init.d/ folder:

#! /bin/bash
case "$1" in
    start)
        WL_HOME = /usr/middleware/11.1.0/wlserver_10.3
        $WL_HOME/server/bin/startNodeManager.sh
        ;;

    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start}"
        exit 1
esac

exit_status

2. Assuming that we are going to start NM at run level 5, create a sysmbolic link in /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/ folder. Since it a startup script we should start the symbolic link with "S" and followed by a number which decide the order in which services will be called. As we are fine to start NM after all the other application/services are start let us choose 99 which is the highest number.

ln -s /etc/init.d/wlsnmd S99weblogic

If you don't want to do these manually you can also use utilities like chkconfig (included in Red Hat distributions) for managing your startup scripts. For configuring WebLogic Server as a startup process there are pre-packaged scripts (installSvc.cmd, uninstallSvc.cmd). But you have to create rc scripts similarly for WLS as well in UNIX based environments. Here is an example rc script for configuring a WebLogic Server as a startup process. But here we also need to implement the kill/stop to gracefully shutdown the server.

#! /bin/bash

case "$1" in
    start|reload)
        DOMAIN_HOME = /usr/middleware/domains/med_analysis
        $DOMAIN_HOME/bin/startWebLogic.sh
        ;;
    stop)
        $DOMAIN_HOME/bin/stopWebLogic.sh
        ;;
    restart|force-reload)
        $0 stop
        $0 start
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
        exit 1
esac

exit_status