Don't want to get prompted for confirmation in WebLgic Console?

If you are using WebLogic Admin console frequently to configure resources or to manage the life cycle of the servers, you might have seen a confirmation prompt. This prompt will show not up when you are running the domain in development mode. When the domain is running in production mode they will ask confirmation for all the operations. There used to be no way to disable this confirmation page prior WebLogic Server 10.3. Now in WebLogic Server 10.3 and higher you can set a console user preference that can disable these confirmation pages.

Use the tool bar at the center (top) of the console to go to the "Preferences". Under the "User Preferences" tab you will find an option called "Ask for confirmation in operations". By default it will be enabled in production domains and you can disable it to avoid that annoying confirmation pages where will have to click either "Yes" or "No". While you are there explore the other useful preferences like "Show Inline Help" and "Show Advanced Sections" which can buy some real-estate space in the console and save you some clicks.

Play Hide & Seek with Administration Console

Everyone who work with WLS knows that the Administration Console is the light weight web based UI provided by BEA for configuring, monitoring and managing a WLS domain. Automation and Scripting can be done in many ways. See this post for more info.

Exposing the console in your production environment might be security issue. In those cases you can either disable the console or hide it. Needless to say if you disable the console then your only option is to depend on command-line and scripting tools for any other administration activity or to even enable the console back. But hiding will provide a level or security.

To disable the console:

• In the admin console navigate to --> General --> Advanced Options --> Console Enabled. De-select that option to disable console (restart required).
  

To hide the cosole:

• Enable the administration port on the domain so that console can only be accessed on the 2-way secured admin port. This will force all the clients to have valid certificate installed in their client (browser) to access the console.
• In the admin console navigate to --> General --> Advanced Options --> Console Context Path and change the context-path of the console to something unique and only known to the administrators.

All is fine. But one of the common question is how can I enable the console once I disable them. Like I said earlier you have to rely on the scripting tool to enable the admin console once it is disabled. You either perform this action interactively or by running a WLST script. See the following sample WLST script for more info:

connect("username","password")
edit()
startEdit()
cmo.setConsoleEnabled(true)
save()
activate()
disconnect()
exit()

You have to restart the administration server to get the console back. Have fun playing hide and seek with the console!

In WLS 10.3 with the Light Weight Server Installer, you can choose not to install WLS Admin Console when you install WLS. Along with the other installation options, this provides a way to reduce the server installation footprint and runtime memory footprint. Can't wait to play with WLS 10.3, you can now download the Tech Preview at http://commerce.bea.com/showproduct.jsp?family=WLS&major=10.3Tech&minor=-1
(as of Nov 9, 2007 WLS 10.3 is only a Tech Preview Release). I will write more on the WLS 10.3 release which is build on BEA microService Architecture (mSA) soon. Read more about BEA mSA here http://www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=msa.jsp&FP=/content/.