Deleting virtual portal using the Configuration Task

You can use the Configuration Task to delete virtual portal, you will have to follow these steps to delete a virtual portal

• Get list of virtual portal by executing
  
./ConfigEngine.sh list-all-virtual-portals

  Task, this task will print list of virtual portal, there names and object ids on the console like this
  
  
  


• Once you have the objectid of the virtual portal you can use it to delete the virtual portal by executing following command
  
./ConfigEngine.sh delete-virtual-portal -D VirtualPortalObjectId=18_VVILMKG108MAF0IS7PPFSE10C6

  In this command the 18_VVILMKG108MAF0IS7PPFSE10C6 is the objectid that we got from the output of list-all-virtual-portals
  

Creating virtual portal using Portal Configuration Task

You can create a new virtual portal using portal configuration task, Follow these steps to create a new virtual portal.

• Open /wp_profile/ConfigEngine/config/helpers/virtual_portal.properties file in the text editor and modify it like this
  

  
  # VirtualPortalTitle: Title of the Virtual Portal
  VirtualPortalTitle=Test Changed title
  
  # VirtualPortalRealm: Realm of the Virtual Portal
  VirtualPortalRealm=defaultWIMFileBasedRealm
  
  # VirtualPortalHost: Hostname of the Virtual Portal
  VirtualPortalHostName=
  
  # VirtualPortalContext: Context of the Virtual Portal
  VirtualPortalContext=test2
  
  # VirtualPortalNlsFile: File which contains language specific information for the Virtual Portal
  VirtualPortalNlsFile=
  
  # VirtualPortalObjectId: ObjectId of the Virtual Portal
  # The ObjectId is needed to modify, delete Virtual Portals and
  # can be obtained by running task list-all-virtual-portals
  # Note: Do not delete the default Virtual Portal (ObjectId ends with _0) 
  VirtualPortalObjectId=
  

  
  
  I am creating a new virtual portal with portalcontext = test2.
  


• Execute the following configuration task
  
./ConfigEngine.sh -DparentProperties=/software/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/ConfigEngine/config/helpers/virtual_portal.properties create-virtual-portal

  

It will create a virtual portal for you, now you can logout and login back into portal and you should be able to see newly created virtual portal

If you dont want to use the helper files then you can also specify all the required properties on command line like this

./ConfigEngine.sh create-virtual-portal -DVirtualPortalTitle=TestWPCert -DVirtualPortalRealm=defaultWIMFileBasedRealm -DVirtualPortalContext=testwpcert





Note:The task creates the virtual portal itself, but it does not create any default content for the virtual portal or grant any access permissions to the virtual portal administrators. You need to perform these tasks separately after creating the virtual portal, for example by using the XML configuration interface.

When you create a virtual portal using Manage Virtual Portal portlet it will also populate the newly created virtual portal using the xmlaccess file that you specified

Configuration Task for creating virutal Portal

The ConfigEngine.sh Interface provides set of tasks that can be used for managing Virtual portals using command line

• create-virtual-portal: Creating a new virtual portal


• modify-virtual-portal: Modifying existing virtual portal


• delete-virtual-portal: Deleting virtual portal


• list-all-virtual-portal: Printing list of virtual portal

These configuration tasks can be used as alternative to the Manage Virtual Portal Portlet.

Deleting passwords from configuration scripts

The installation and configuration processes write security-sensitive information into multiple files. These files contain passwords in them, which are not removed after installation. When you no longer need this information, you should remove it and move the files to a safe place or set the file permissions so that only authorized users can read them.

Take a look at Deleting passwords from configuration scripts link for more information on how to delete password from configuration scripts

Understand the use of the portal property files

As i mentioned in the previous post Portal has concept of Configuration template files that defines set of properties that must be set for particular configuration task. In addition to that you might want to create set of configuration .properties file for your own environment. Ex. Instead of setting the user name and password wkplc.properties file you can set in your own .properties file and protect that file or you can create .properties file that has values specific to your environment.

Once you have your own .properties file you can ask ConfigEngine to use that .properties file using these two command line parameters

1. parentProperties: Value of this command line parameter should be a path to the .properties file that should be used as parent of wkplc.properties file. If same property is present in both parentProperties file and wkplc.properties then the value in parentProperties take precedence


2. SaveParentProperties: If you set SaveParentProperties to true then ConfigEngine will take the values from the parentProperties and set them in wkplc.properties file if the configuration task is completed successfully.

ConfigEngine.bat -DparentProperties=/helper_file_directory/helper.properties -DSaveParentProperties=true

Configuration Templates

The Configuration Task i.e. ConfigEngine.sh/.bat depends on different set of properties depending on the configuration task that your running as well as your configuration. Ex. The Database transfer task would depend on the database related properties such as DB User Name and password where as the Configuring LDAP would need host name of the LDAP server, user name and password.

The WPS server provides set of helper .properties files under wp_profile/ConfigEngine/config/helpers directory that you can use as template depending on the configuration task that your running. These are the configuration helper files that ship with WPS 6.1.0.1 version

cluster.properties
stepup.properties
virtual_portal.properties
wp_add_DB.properties
wp_add_federated_ad.properties
wp_add_federated_domino.properties
wp_add_federated_ids.properties
wp_add_federated_novell.properties
wp_add_federated_sunone.properties
wp_add_LA.properties
wp_security_ad.properties
wp_security_domino.properties
wp_security_federated.properties
wp_security_ids.properties
wp_security_novell.properties
wp_security_sunone.properties

If you open any of the configuration template file you will notice that it has similar structure. At the top of the file it will have some help information such as what is the helper file for what type of configuration tasks depend on this,..etc. Second part is that it defines set of properties and provides default values for some of the properties.

If you want to run particular configuration task check in the infocenter if it suggest particular helper file that you should use. If yes open that file check values for each of the properties if the property has default value you can make sure that value is correct in your environment if no set the value. Once your done changing the template file execute

./ConfigEngine.sh -DparentProperties=/helper_file_directory/helper.properties -DSaveParentProperties=true

WebSphere Portal Configuration

The Configuration Tasks allows you to perform various configurations such as modifying portal URL, creating or deleting virutal portal, enabling or disabling security,..etc. The Configuration tasks are executed during the installation program. You can execute configuration task manually any time or the Portal Configuration Wizard provides graphical interface for executing some of the common configurations.

Important Note: Till the WPS 6.0 version the Configuration Tasks were executed using wpsconfig.sh/.bat and it was located under portal_server_root/config directory.

Executing particular configuration task is a two step process.

1. First find out what all properties should be set to execute particular configuration task and set those values in Configuration Properties files. The COnfig Engine reads one or more of the following properties file at the time of executing the Configuration task
   
   
   
   • wkplc.properties:
   
   
   • wkplc_comp.properties:
   
   
   • wkplc_dbtype.properties:
   
   
   • WmmVmmDBMigration.properties:
   
   


2. Once the necessary configuration properties are set you can execute the configuration task by executing ./ConfigEngine.sh <configtaskname> command in wp_profile_root/ConfigEngine directory. If you dont want to set value of particular property such as PortalAdminPwd in the .properites file then you can pass that value using -D flag. Ex -DPortalAdminPwd=<portaladminpwd>

Important Note: When you execute the ConfigEngine task it will generate some debugging/log information on the console. In addition to that it also generates trace information in wp_profile_root/ConfigEngine/log/ConfigTrace.log. Check this file in case there was failure in executing configuration task.