PeopleSoft Tipster » Infrastructure

Service Start Up – Automatic (Delayed)

Tipster — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:57:00 +0000

I’ve been spending a little time putting together a VM using Windows Server 2008 and was pleasantly surprised to see that there is a new start-up type when configuring the PIA, App Server and Process Scheduler to start as services.

As well as Automatic, Manual and Disabled, there is now an Automatic (Delayed) option.

David Kurtz has spoken about using service dependencies, but I just want my App Server and Process Scheduler to start after the intial flurry of start-up activity has finished and everything else has calmed down.

Services that have a delayed start still start automatically, they just wait until all the services that aren’t delayed to finish before firing up.

It works a treat!

REN Server Ports on Multi-App Installations

Tipster — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:06:07 +0000

When you have more than one App Server on a single machine – and they both need to run a Ren Server process – you need to adjust the port number in the same way you do for other processes (although the REN Server is easy to miss – like I did – as it’s near the bottom away from the other port numbers).

If you do boot the App Server without changing the port you’ll get an error message:

exec PSRENSRV -A -- -C psappsrv.cfg -D PADMO -S PSRENSRV : CMDTUX_CAT:1685: ERROR: Application initialization failure

tmboot: CMDTUX_CAT:827: ERROR: Fatal error encountered; initiating user error handler

tmshutdown -qy

OK, you think. I know what that is, it must be a port clash. So you reconfigure the port in PSADMIN and then try to boot it again. Same error. Checking the REN Server log gives the following clue:

(ERROR) nssock: Cannot listen on port 7180. The port may already be in use.

It’s still looking on port 7180, not the new port!

The missing step is to update the database, as the port is stored there also:

UPDATE PSREN SET PORT_NUM = 7185, SSLPORT_NUM = 7148

You should then find you App Server and Ren Server boot fine.

Tolerance of slow App Server boot

Tipster — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:05:35 +0000

In one of the more recent versions of Tools (8.49 is the first time I’ve noticed it, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been around in prior versions) I’ve noticed that occasionally the boot of an Application Server will fail with an error.

Booting admin processes ... exec BBL -A : CMDTUX_CAT:1863: INFO: Process ID=2636 Assume failed (timeout).

At the time of writing, there is nothing in Customer Connection for this, and a google search wasn’t particularly helpful either. So I had to resort to a technique from pre-Google days – i.e. work it out myself. Thankfully it wasn’t too difficult.

The config setting we’re after is TM_BOOTTIMEOUT at by default it is 60 seconds. This can be changed in psappsrv.ubx (which serves as a template for the App Server config). Scroll to the bottom and look for:

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *PS_ENVFILE TM_BOOTTIMEOUT=60 TM_RESTARTSRVTIMEOUT=60 TM_BOOTPRESUMEDFAIL=Y

The line in Red is the one which requires changing, I’ve set mine to 120 seconds. Reconfigure your App Server (you don’t have to make any changes, it just needs to re-read the UBX file) and you’re good to go. If you have doubts as to whether it’s picked up the altered value, look in the TUXLOG.xxxxxx file in your App Server logs directory. The TM_BOOTTIMEOUT is logged there every time you boot an App Server.

Get up and running with the Tuxedo Administration Console

Tipster — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:16:30 +0000

I think I’ve stumbled across a better way of remotely administering servers than using remote control software and PSADMIN. There’s a tool called the ‘Tuxedo Administration Console’ (or sometimes ‘WebGUI’) which does the job also.

It looks like this:

Once you’ve done a little bit of config (no more than 15 minutes, and it’s just config, there’s nothing additional to install) you just point the web browser on your client PC to a URL and it loads up the above screen.

You drop down the Domain menu to choose which App Server or Process Scheduler to administer, then use it to start and stop the domain, or you can do individual processes if you prefer. (For example, on my current client site we have a developer who frequently hangs the domain by using all of the PSAPPSERV processes during debugging. Using this tool, we could change the Max App Servers setting and then boot a couple of extra App Servers, all in a few clicks and without rebooting the domain.)

These are the steps I took to get the Admin Console running (substitute your own machine names and ports where appropriate):

for each app server and process scheduler you wish to administer, edit the *.ubx file under either the app serv or proc sched directories. Go to the PS_ENVFILE section and add:
PS_SERVDIR={$PS_SERVDIR} PS_SERVER_CFG={$PS_SERVDIR}{FS}{CFGFILE}
locate the webgui.ini file under \udataobj\webgui\ and in the second section add a line for each domain you wish to administer (i.e. a line for each app server or process scheduler). There are instructions in file, but the line will look something like this.
DOMAIN=HR9DMO;D:\pshome\appserv\HR9DMO\PSTUXCFG
Start the Tuxedo Web Server and Listener
cd /d d:\bea\tux* tuxwsvr -l //vm-hr9dmo:8080 -i D:\bea\Tuxedo8.1\udataobj\tuxwsvr.ini Wlisten
From your client log on to ‘http://vm-hr9dmo:8080/webguitop.html’. The username and password will be that chosen when Tuxedo was installed (likely admin/password)
chose the domain you wish to admin from the drop down domain menu, then you can drill down and activate/inactivate (webgui terminology for start-up/shut-down) whatever you wish.

Hope that helps. If you have any issues, I found the tuxedo website more useful than Peoplebooks or customer connection, however your mileage may vary. Also, the tuxedo helpfile is here:
\Tuxedo8.1\help\guiguide\index.htm

This post was edited on 7th Nov ’07 to include corrections on the port number, as suggested by David Kurtz in his comment below.