After applying online patches for SLES12, tomcat will not start.

  • 7017125
  • 05-Jan-2016
  • 04-May-2016

Environment

Novell GroupWise 2014 R2

Situation

You can install Webaccess, WebPublisher ... on shipping SLES12 server. All works fine.
After applying Online updates to SLES12, tomcat will not start anymore.

Resolution

Those problems are caused by SuSE channel updated java version.
In order to prevent being influenced by any other java updates via a channel, you can consider alternate Oracle JDK java modules:
 
1. Download from Oracle download site the latest JDK 8. For instance update 65 - rpm version for your x64 Linux platform.
 
2. Install downloaded rpm of JDK8. This will install a software into /usr/java/<jdk> directory. 
 
3. Update server java environmental variable:
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/latest/
 
4. Locate tomcat.conf file in /etc/tomcat/tomcat.conf on SLES 12 and edit it. Change JAVA_HOME to:
JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/latest/
 
5. Save the file and restart tomcat.
 
If your webaccess shall not work properly still, you can consider re-installing it:
 
1. rpm -e novell-groupwise-webaccess-webapp
 
2. Delete webaccess directory in:
a) /etc/opt/novell/groupwise
b) /opt/novell/groupwise
c) /var/opt/novell/groupwise
 
3. Start install script of R2 software and run Install & Configure parts for webaccess.
 

Additional Information

If you run SLES12 with SP1, this comes with tomcat8. If you wan to go for such platform version, then use at least HP1 build of R2 or any later FTF provided to you by NTS.
Running newer R2 backend can overcome also java problems mentioned in this TID, however you can still go for swapping java vendor from IBM to Oracle.