I’ve spent the majority of the last 2 days trying to get DA 6SP1 Patch Release to install properly on IBM Websphere 6.1.0.23. It had been a while since I’d last done the install, and I fell into the same traps as last time, forgetting where to set the class loader and so forth. After getting past these I was left with the application unhelpfully still showing a white screen and error messages that revealed (looking back) very little about the true nature of the problem. Having finally conquered the problem, I thought I would provide the steps necessary so that anyone else trying to get a WDK application working on Websphere as at least one more thing to try.

Grab a copy of da.war from the EMC Powerlink Download site.

• Unpack da.war and add the following files to a directory
• Put dfc.properties into WEB-INF/classes (As described in the deployment guide)
• ibm-web-ext.xmi & ibm-web-ext.xmi goes into WEB-INF – https://solutions.emc.com/emcsolutionview.asp?id=esg91105
• Find a copy of xml.jar on the Websphere App Server in ‘Websphere\AppServer\java\jre’ and put in ‘WEB-INF\lib’ - https://solutions.emc.com/emcsolutionview.asp?id=esg93106
• Install the application using the IBM Administration Console.
• Change the order the classes are loaded in by expanding the Applications node and click the Enterprise Applications node. Select the application called da_war (or equivalent wdk app). Click the Manage Modules link. Click the da.war link. In the Class loader order drop-down list, select the option ‘Classes loaded with application class loader first’ – https://solutions.emc.com/emcsolutionview.asp?id=esg93177
• You can then save and start the application.

The xml.jar file is appropriate for D6SP1 only, previous D6 versions have a slightly different set of instructions (see linked support note). Any feedback, corrections, suggestions greatly appreciated.

Oracle Base has a fantastic article on how to get Oracle 11g Release 1 working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The fact that CentOS is a stripped version of RHEL is a good reason to be using it, because if there is one Linux that’s likely to be used in enterprise situations then it would be RHEL. All up I’m less than happy with Oracle and Documentum’s Linux installers. I know that they’re ports of what are essentially Windows products, but the fact is that if you’ve going to bother writing something in Java(Documentum) then you should at least make sure that it really is portable,  otherwise why not just use C/C++ and be done with it.

The main Oracle install I struggle to understand, since the Oracle XE install was so painless, zero to database in no time. It clearly doesn’t fit well into the Linux way of doing things though:

• It doesn’t install services/scripts  to /etc/init.d (or equiv).
• It doesn’t setup users for you, i.e. install as root, run as oracle (yet it requires root privileges to do two tasks).
• Requires SELINUX to be disabled.

Delving into changing memory limits and such is another matter, I think it may be better to leave those to the user,  just because they can fundamentally change/break the system. Ah, to go back to PostgreSQL, which I once thought difficult compared to MySQL.

The following comes in very hand when you’re trying to troubleshoot authentication problems. Go into DA and find the Administrative Methods; there should be one called ‘SET_OPTIONS’  which allows you to put in trace_authentication and set it to true. All authentication attempts will then be logged to the docbase log.

A few notes:

• If you have a clustered setup you’ll need to make sure it gets turned on for both content servers (you can specify which you’re connecting to when you login)
• Make sure you turn it off when you’re done troubleshooting, it adds a performance overhead not to mention chewing up log space.
• Restarting the content server will cause it to turn off…to turn it off without restarting the content server just set it to false in the same place you turned it on.