Start problems with Nodemanager

Since my previous long running assignment, I'm involved in a few OSB 11g to 12c upgrade trajects, where I have been working on automatic installs. Hence, my articles about automatic installs, patching and domain configuration.

When I create a new domain, 12cR2 (12.2.1), using my scripts, I'm not able to use the nodemanager of the domain to start the servers. Actually, I can't connect to it. I get it running alright, but connecting to it fails with a message like:

WLSTException: Error occured while performing nmConnect : Cannot connect to Node Manager. : Access to domain 'osb_domain' for user 'weblogic' denied.

When you google the standard solution is to change the nodemanager password on the security tab of the domain in the console.Like in this article. Actually a very good suggestion, but it did not work for me. It turns out that apparently performing an nmEnroll() did the job in that case. What you need to do is:

• Start the admin server using the startWeblogic.sh script in the domain root.
• Verify and correct the nodemanager settings under Environment->Machines-><your machine>, ensuring it is inline with the file nodemanager.properties in {domainHome}/nodemanager.
• Start wlst.sh
• Connect to the adminserver using: connect({adminuser}, {adminpassword} ,'{adminHost}:{adminPort}')
• Perform: nmEnroll({domainHome}, {domainHome}/nodemanager)

Here I assume the use of a per-domain nodemanager, where {domainHome}/nodemanager is the nodemanager home within the domain home.

Then I was able to connect to the nodemanager, start the AdminServer and then the OSB Server.


At my customer, they have been struggling in configuring a 'standalone' nodemanager, as they did in the 11g situation. Nodemanager can be started, and connected to. But doning an nmStart of the admin server got:

wls:/nm/osb_domain> nmStart('Adminserver')

Starting server Adminserver ...

Traceback (innermost last):

  File "<console>", line 1, in ?

  File "<iostream>", line 188, in nmStart

  File "<iostream>", line 553, in raiseWLSTException

WLSTException: Error occurred while performing nmStart : Error Starting server Adminserver : Received error message from Node Manager Server: [Server start command for WebLogic server 'Adminserver' failed due to: [No such file or directory]. Please check Node Manager log and/or server 'Adminserver' log for detailed information.]. Please check Node Manager log for details.

Use dumpStack() to view the full stacktrace :

wls:/nm/osb_domain

This is also in 12cR2 (12.2.1), with a domain created with the same script. Sharp eyes may notice that the adminserver name is not default: it has a lowercase 's' in stead of a uppercase. They've been fiddling a round with naming of the admin server. What we finally did was to keep the un-default naming, but cleansed the server folder by removing the data, cache and tmp folder. We also removed the logs folder to be able to see if new logs were made from starting from the nodemanager. We configured the per-domain nodemanager and then we did the same as above, performing an nmEnroll() against the domain-nodemanager. After that the 'Adminserver' was startable.

Conclusion

I hardly ever had the need to use nmEnroll(), not with a new domain and in 11g at least not even using a seperate nodemanager. From colleagues I did not hear the need to use it in 12c. So why did I need it to solve the sketched problems? I haven't sorted that out, I hope I once get a finger around it. For the moment, take advantage of these experiences.