WebSphere and IHS file structure(imp files)

• XML configuration files 
• Log files
• Properties files.

XML Configuration files

The entire WebSphere configuration is saved and persisted to XML files. When we use the Admin console to configure WebSphere, certain XML files are updated with the appropriate settings relating to each type of configuration. It is important that an administrator understands key XML files and understand what they are used for. when there are configuration or runtime issues, knowing these files and their locations can help with problem-solving. Below is a list of the most important configuration files that a WebSphere administrator should be aware of. It must be noted that some files exist more than once in different scopes, that is, cell level, node level, and server level.

Cell level XML files

Below is a list of the key XML configuration files found at the scope of cell level.

• resources.xml

 Defines operating cell scope environmental resources, including JDBC, JMS, JavaMail, URL end

point configuration, and so on.

<profile_root>/appsrv01/config/cells/<cell_name>/

• security.xml

 Contains security data , including all user ID and password information.

• virtualhosts.xml

Contains virtual host and Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)-type configurations.

• variables.xml

Contains cell level WebSphere variables

• admin-authz.xml

Contains the roles set for administration of the Admin console.

 /apps/was7/profiles/appsrv01/config/cells/<cell_name>/

• wimconfig.xml

 Contains the federated repository configurations for global security

 <was_profile_root>config/cells/<cell_name>/wim/config/

• profileRegistry.xml

Contains a list of profiles and profile configuration data

Node level XML files

Below is a list of the key XML configuration files found at the scope of node level.

Located in: /<was_profile_root>/config/cells/<cell_name>/nodes/<node_name>/

• variables.xml

 Contains node level WebSphere variables

• resources.xml

Defines node scope environmental resources, including JDBC, JMS, JavaMail, URL end point configuration, and so on

• namestore.xml

 Provides persistent JNDI namespace binding data

• serverindex.xml

 Specifies all the ports used by servers on this node

Server level XML files

Below is a list of the key XML configuration files found at the scope of server level.

Located in: /<was_profile_root>/config/cells/<cell_name>nodes/<node_name>/servers/<server_name>/

• variables.xml

Contains server level variables

• server.xml

 Contains application server configuration data

• resources.xml

Contains the configuration of resources, such as, JDBC, JMS, JavaMail, and URL end points at server scope

2. Properties files.

·         soap.client.props

When global security is enabled in the cell and you use the wsadmin tool with the SOAP protocol (SOAP is the default connector protocol), you will need to update the following properties in the soap.client.props file with the appropriate values as shown below so that the wsadmin tool does not prompt for a username and password.

com.ibm.SOAP.securityEnabled=<true>

com.ibm.SOAP.loginUserid=<username>

com.ibm.SOAP.loginPassword=<password>

Optionally, set the following property:

com.ibm.SOAP.loginSource=none

·         sas.client.props file

When global security is enabled in the cell and you change wsadmin to use a Remote Method Invocation (RMI) connector when using wsadmin (RMI is not the default protocol), you need to set the following properties in the sas.client.props file with the appropriate values as shown below so that the wsadmin tool does not prompt for a username and password.

com.ibm.CORBA.loginUserid=

com.ibm.CORBA.loginPassword=

Also, set the following property:

com.ibm.CORBA.loginSource=properties

3. Log files

The WebSphere application server uses logs to log what is happening during server runtime. Administrators can use the logs to determine application server runtime status. Logs are also very useful during problem determination when there are problems with WebSphere. The main log folder is the application server's logs directory which is found in the <was_profile_root> folder. Below is a screenshot of a typical logs directory.

JVM Logs:

• Systemout.log and systemerr.log are called as JVM logs.
• For each and every process there will be JVM logs.
• Systemout.log contains standard print stream messages like what are the services that have started, what are the applications that have started, services initialization messages etc.
• Systemerr.log file contains error stream messages, it contain error messages like port conflicts, create listener failed, exception errors etc.

Native Logs:

• Native_stdout.log contains other than java code information i.e. .dll, .iso, .exe etc.
• Native_stderr.log file contains Garbage collector information and this log file will be created once we enable verbose Garbage collection (GC).
• Enabling verbose garbage collector.

startServer.log

It is created in your logs directory when the server starts up. This log is very useful to determine JVM parameters used in the start-up process, the server’s process id, and also the date and time in which the server was started. If there are errors experienced during the start-up (for example, security configuration errors where the application server cannot start), then log information will exist for problem determination.

stopServer.log

when server was stopped via a command line, the log will be written to this. If the server has trouble stopping, then Java stack traces will be written to the log which can be used in determining why a given application server failed to stop.

<server_name>.pid

contains the process id of the server. In Linux, this is the actual process id assigned to the JVM process.

FFDC (First Failure Data Capture) logs

FFDC directory contains detailed logs of exceptions found during the runtime of the WebSphere Application Server. Can be found at WAS_ROOT/profiles/logs/ffdc

IBM HTTP Server

access_log (located under <IHS_ROOT>/logs) – contains requests from clients (browsers)
error_log (located under <IHS_ROOT>/logs) – contains error messages, including expansions of 404s

IBM HTTP Administration Service

admin_access_log (located under <IHS_ROOT>/logs) – contains requests from WAS

admin_error.log (located under <IHS_ROOT>/logs) – contains error messages (e.., related to propagation of plugin and starting/stopping web server)

WebSphere Plugin

http_plugin.log (located under <IHS_ROOT>/Plugins/logs/<webServerName>)

Some other  Logs files :

1 Trace logs

a) Trace logs. Detailed information about an activity.

2) Active Logs/service logs ------ <profile-home>/logs -----------(2)

a) activity.log. For entire profile there will be only one activity log. We have to

use log analyzer to read the activity.log

3) Command line logs.

a) Startserver.log. (1)

b) Stopserver.log.

c) Addnode.log. : at the time of federation it will create. only one node will create for each profile.

4) Installation logs.

a) Logs.txt. look in %temp% Dir or <was-root>/logs

5) Fix pack logs. <was-root>/logs/update

a) Updatelog.txt.

6) Profile creation logs. ----It will create at the time of profile creation.

a) <profile-name>_create.log. ---

C:\IBM_ND_6.0\WebSphere\AppServer\logs\wasprofile (Up to V6.0)

Ex: wasprofile_create_Appsrv01_log.

C:\IBM_ND_7.0\WebSphere\AppServer\logs\manageprofiles (From V6.1 onwards).

Ex: Appsrv01_create.log.