Open Liberty Docs (2024)

• Server Config

• Explore

• Java Batch

• OpenID Connect tools

Manage and test your server configuration with the Server Config tool

You can use the Server Config tool to view and edit Open Liberty server configuration files and to test server connections to different resources. To edit configuration files or test connections, you must be in the administrator-role management role.

Before you can edit configuration files, the tool prompts you to add a remoteFileAccess element to your server.xml file. You can copy the example element from the browser window or configure it manually. If you do not add this element, the configuration files are shown in read-only mode.

To enable write access to configuration files, add the following code to your server.xml file.

<remoteFileAccess> <writeDir>${server.config.dir}</writeDir></remoteFileAccess>

The Server Config tool displays configuration files, such as a server.xml file, in two modes: Design and Source. Each of these modes can be accessed from a browser tab within the tool. You can customize these modes by clicking the Settings icon. For example, you can add or remove parameter descriptions in Design mode or add or remove line numbers in Source mode.

The Design mode displays the content of configuration files by using graphical controls with inline documentation. In this mode, select elements in the configuration to see enabled features and parameter settings.

The Source mode enables direct access to edit the file text and provides tooltip descriptions for file elements. Hover over elements and parameters to view their documentation. You can press Ctrl+Space to use content assist, which helps you add new elements, parameters, and values. However, the Source mode editor does not validate the configuration values that you specify. Changes that you make in Source mode are applied to your running server. Specifying invalid configuration values might produce errors or cause your server to fail.

The following screen capture shows the Design tab of the Server Config tool.

Test server connections to resources with the Server Config tool

You can test the connection to Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA), Java Message Service (JMS), and Cloudant resources by using the Server Config tool.

The Admin Center uses REST APIs to validate the connections. For more information, see Validating server connections.

Monitor and manage resources with the Explore tool

You can use the Explore tool to monitor and manage Open Liberty resources. This tool offers options to view information about the server and its applications. You can also use it to stop, start, or restart resources.

For more timely updates to server and application status in the Explore tool, add the Web Socket feature to your server configuration. This feature provides a live view of the topology, regardless of size. Without the Web Socket feature, Admin Center periodically and frequently polls for changes.

You can select the Applications view from the navigation bar to monitor, stop, start, or restart applications that are running on your server.

The Monitor view on the navigation bar shows server and system metrics graphically in charts. You can use the Monitor view to track heap memory, loaded classes, active Java virtual machine (JVM) threads, and central processing unit (CPU) usage.

The following screen capture shows the Monitor view of the Explore tool.

You can add more resource metrics to the Monitor view by selecting the Edit icon and choosing an option from the menu. When the Performance Monitoring feature is enabled, more resource metrics are available from this menu. Depending on what resources are configured for the server, the following resource metrics might be available:

Manage Java batch jobs with the Java Batch tool

If you configure the Batch Management feature, you can access the Java Batch tool. With this tool, you can view the progress and status of your Java batch jobs, manage their instances, and view their log files.

The following screen capture shows the Java Batch tool.

Each batch job has an Actions icon, which you can select to stop, restart, or purge the job, and a View Logs icon, which you can select to view the job logs. To view details and metrics for a batch job, hover over the Batch Job Name and select an option from the tooltip menu.

If batch jobs or job logs are on remote servers, configure cross origin region sharing (CORS) on each remote server. CORS enables Admin Center to request job information from remote servers.

The Batch Management feature requires custom authorization to view and manage batch jobs. To use the Java Batch tool, you must configure a com.ibm.ws.batch custom authorization role, in addition to the reader or administrator management role that is required to access the Admin Center. The following server.xml file example shows configuration for a wanda user who is granted the administrator management role and the batchAdmin custom authorization role.

 <administrator-role> <user>wanda</user> </administrator-role> <authorization-roles id="com.ibm.ws.batch"> <security-role name="batchAdmin"> <user name="wanda"/> </security-role> </authorization-roles>

With this configuration, the user has authorization to view and manage any configured Java batch jobs.

A com.ibm.ws.batch custom authorization role can also be combined with the reader management role. This combination still allows full access to the Java Batch tool but provides read-only access to other Admin Center resources.

However, if no custom batch authorization role is configured, even a user in the administrator management role cannot view or manage Java batch jobs.

Administer OpenID Connect Provider tasks with the OpenID Connect (OIDC) tools