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.

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.