# IHS Admin Server mustgather





## Background

The IHS admin server is a separate Apache HTTP Server instance on an
unmanaged node (no node agent) to stop and start IHS as well as
propagate files like plugin-key.kdb, plugin-cfg.xml, and httpd.conf
(only when the IHS configuration is edited in the WAS Admin Console).

## Known issue to check first

### [(13) Permission denied: access to /wasadmin denied.](#perms)

This error can occur on 8.5.5 and earlier if the compiled-in
`ServerRoot` (/usr/IBMIHS or /opt/IBMIHS depending on the OS) exists
but is not readable by the user/group the admin server is configued
to use. For esoteric reasons, the compiled-in ServerRoot is used as
a prefix for a compiled-in DocumentRoot when DocumentRoot is omitted
from the configuration. The admin.conf shipped in 8.5.5 and earlier
does not specify a DocumentRoot. When the DocumentRoot does not
exist, or is readable, it will not actually be used for access to
/wasadmin, but mod\_ibm\_admin does not intercept this early
filesystem lookup.

Solution: Define a DocumentRoot in conf/admin.conf just under where
the ServerRoot is defined.

## Collecting data manually

  - Change LogLevel to "debug" in conf/admin.conf and restart the admin
    server.
  - Configure traces in the deployment
    manager:
    `*=info:com.ws.management.webserver.*=all:com.ibm.ws.console.web.webserver.*=all`
  - Send your test operation from the WAS admin console.
  - If you were propagating a file, record the file and parent directory
    permissions with `ls -l` and `ls -ld`.
  - Collect conf/admin.conf logs/admin\* and send to IBM support.

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