Checking and Troubleshooting

Now that you have installed WebSphere Application Server and performed the minimum necessary configuration, verify that WebSphere Application Server is functioning correctly. This section discusses


Testing Servlets

To verify the WebSphere Application Server installation, use your browser to open the following:
http://your.server.name/WebSphereSamples/
where your.server.name is your host machine name.

If you cannot run the WebSphere samples, be sure that you have correctly installed WebSphere Application Server. Also, make sure you have used your host name and not localhost.


Debugging, Tracing, Logging, and Monitoring

This section provides an overview of the facilities available for tracing, logging, monitoring, and debugging WebSphere Application Server and its components.

The WebSphere Administrative Console help system provides instructions to help you enable debugging, tracing, logging, and monitoring to detect and diagnose problems in both the Application server and your own programs.

To access the help system separately from the WebSphere Administrative Console, open the following:
<install-root>/web/help/helpcon.htm
where <install-root> is the root directory of your WebSphere Application Server installation (for example, SYS:/WebSphere/AppServer/). You can also access help directly from the WebSphere Administrative Console Help menu when running the Admin Console from an NT workstation.


Known Issues


Creating a generic server in WebSphere 3.0 Standard

Creating a generic server will be possible in the forthcoming IBM WebSphere for NetWare 3.0 Advanced version. Attempting to create a generic server from the Admin Console of the WebSphere 3.0 Standard version will throw the following errors:
On the NetWare Console: "Native applications are not supported"
On the Admin Console: "InvalidGroupException: Error creating new process"


An error occurs when DNS is not working correctly

If DNS resolution is slow (timing out), WebSphere on NetWare may not initialize or run correctly. You may see a slow initializing of the Admin Server and a slow Admin Console response. In some cases, a null typeAttribuesjava.lang Exception will occur.

WebSphere uses RMI/IIOP to communicate both internally in the AdminServer and externally from the EJSConsole to the AdminServer. When DNS is not working, a long timeout occurs which causes WebSphere to slow down, possibly timing out and generating null pointer exceptions.

To fix this issue, edit the sys:\etc\resolv.cfg file to remove any invalid DNS name servers. An invalid nameserver in this file causes DNS delays which in turnaffect WebSphere.

To determine if DNS is operating correctly, type ping XXX at the NetWare System Console. (XXX represents an invalid host alias. The actual characters XXX can be used.) If DNS is not working correctly, the response to the ping XXX request is slow.