Dyn/admin home page issue in ATG10.2

I encountered below error while trying to open the home page of dyn/admin in ATG10.2.

Unable to execute the command javac -classpath C:\apps\java\jre\lib\resources.jar;C:\apps\java\jre\lib\rt.jar;C:\apps\java\jre\lib\sunrsasign.jar;C:\apps\java\jre\lib\jsse.jar;C:\apps\java\jre\lib\jce.jar;........................................................................................................................./atg/dynamo/servlet/pagecompile/PageCompileServlet The detailed exception is: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "javac": CreateProcess error=206, The filename or extension is too long.

Follow below steps to resolve this issue.

Add ExtendedJhtmlPageProcessor component at atg\dynamo\servlet\pagecompile\ location and restart the sever.

Steps

1. Navigate to ATG_HOME\localconfig directory.

2. Create atg\dynamo\servlet\pagecompile directory structure there.

3. CreateExtendedJhtmlPageProcessor.properties file with below content in that directory.

     #atg\dynamo\servlet\pagecompile\ExtendedJhtmlPageProcessor.properties

     $class=atg.servlet.pagecompile.jsp11.JSPPageProcessor

     javaCompilerClassName=atg.servlet.pagecompile.SunJavaSourceCompiler

WebLogic Server getting boot identity from the user issue solution

I have just started using WebLogic Server. I tried to start one of the managed server from command line it stucked at. 

getting boot identity from the user

I entered admin username followed by password then it continued.In this way every time you need to enter username/password.

With below small  and easy configuration you can resolve this issue (Avoid authentication prompt).

1. Create boot.properties in $DOMAIN_HOME/servers/[server_name]/security directory.

2. Put content in below format in the file.

      username=[superuser with admin role]

      password=[password of user(admin role)]

3. Alternatively you can copy boot.properties from  $DOMAIN_HOME/servers/AdminServer/security,then alter the file accordingly.

Note : WebLogic only prompts for username/password when running in Production mode it won't prompt for username/password in development mode.

Introduction to Endeca Application Controller (EAC)

The EAC provides the infrastructure to support Endeca application.Endeca Application Controller (EAC) is a control system used to control, manage,and monitor components in Endeca implementation.

There are two types of EAC instances.

1. EAC Central Server
2. EAC Agent

1. EAC Central Server

One instance of the EAC serves as the EAC Central Server.The EAC Central Server also contains a repository that stores provisioning information — such as, data about the hosts, components, applications and scripts.This instance includes and WSDL enabled public interface.Other applications communicates with EAC using this interface.EAC central server works as an controller of EAC agents.EAC central server communicates with EAC agents using internal web service interface.

2. EAC Agents 

EAC instances other then EAC Central server are EAC agents.These EAC agents instruct host machine for execution of actual task such Forging or Indexing.

There are 3 ways to communicate with EAC.

1. Endeca Workbench.
2. The command line utility, eaccmd.
3. Endeca WSDL-enabled interface(using language that supports web services).Endeca workbench and Endeca deployment template utilize this method.

You can use below scripts to start and stop EAC from commandline.
1. EAC start script.
   $ENDECA_ROOT/tools/server/bin/startup.sh
2. EAC stop script.
   $ENDECA_ROOT/tools/server/bin/shutdown.sh
Note : On windows EAC is created,configured and registered as "Endeca HTTP service".

EAC configuration file
EAC reads configuration from eac.properties file.This file is located in the $ENDECA_CONF/conf directory.

EAC log file.

EAC log file is located in the $ENDECA_CONF/logs directory.You can update EAC logging related configuration in the logging.properties file.This file is located under $ENDECA_CONF/conf.

Useful Linux Commands

Sometimes we need to work on Linux environment during development specially on Linux box hosting the server.As we know Linux is bundled with lots of useful commadline features, file handling is one of them.Here is small list of commands which I feel very useful while working on Linux.

Note : Command syntax/example given below are based on requirements/assignment I worked upon.Every command below may have multiple options,which can be used in different combination based on scenarios(requirement).For example I am redirecting output to a file which can also be displayed on console.

      1.  Secure File Copy.
          Using this feature you can securely copy file from one machine to another machine without login into any of the machine. 
            Syntax : scp user1@machine1:Path of source file user2@machine2:Path of the destination directory
            Example :scp admin@192.168.0.101:/opt/file/Test.jar jboss@192.168.0.109:/opt/jboss/app/lib

      2.  Fetching the specific line range from file and write result to another file.
           Syntax : sed -n 'startLineNumber,EndLineNumberp' fileToBeSearch > resultFile
           Example : sed -n '1,500p' Data.csv > SmallData.csv
 
      3. Fetching the line containing given text from file.
          Syntax :grep searchText SourceFile > FileContainingResultData
          Example : Search For single String
            grep nike BrandData.csv > NikeData.csv

          Example : Search For 2 Strings with OR operation
            grep 'nike\|adidas' BrandData.csv > NikeORAdidasData.csv
          Example : Search For 2 Strings with AND operation  
           grep nike BrandData.csv  | grep shoe > NikeANDShoeData.csv 
 
      4.  Changing file or directory (folder) permissions.

        Sometimes it required to change the permissions of an file or directory in order to perform certain operations.
            Syntax : chmod permissionOctalCode fileOrDirectoryName

            Example : chmod 777 data
            chmod 777 Record.csv
            Note : Use -R option to recursively change the permission of the directory.
           
      5.  Searching file by name.
            find command is very useful to search files.
            Syntax : find directoryToSearch -name fileName
            Example : find / -name 'eaccmd.sh'

      6.  Access environment as different user.
            Using below command you can access the environment as an different user.Mostly it is used to access the environment as more privileged user(root). 
            Syntax : sudo su - userName
            Example : sudo su - admin

      7.  Navigate to previous directory.
             Using below command you can navigate to previous directory from where you have navigated to current directory.
             Syntax : cd - 

      8. Create a zip file.
            Using below command you can add single or multiple files to zip.
            Syntax : zip nameOfZip.zip file1 file2 ...
            Example : zip Log.zip server.log console.log

      9. Unzip the zipped file.
           Use below command to unzip the zipped file.
           Syntax : unzip nameOfZip.zip
           Example : unzip Log.zip
         
    10.  Display content of zip file without extracting it.
           You can display the content of zip file without extracting it.
           Syntax : unzip -l nameOfZip.zip
           Example : unzip -l Log.zip

     11.  Delete all lines containing specific text from a file.Without opening the file.
           You can delete all lines containing 'some string' from a file without opening it.
           Syntax : sed --in-place '/some string/d' myfile
           Example : sed --in-place '/nike/d' Brand.csv

For more detail on any of the above commands use man command(manual pages or man pages).

Solution for signer information error (occuring at server startup or on browsing) for ATG 10.1 CRS

I have configured CRS (Commerce Reference Store) for ATG 10.1 using CIM (Configuration and Installation Manager). After server startup I tried to browse the application but only header was displaying.Server was throwing below exception.

ERROR [[jsp]] Servlet.service() for servlet jsp threw exception java.lang.SecurityException: class "atg.commerce.order.OrderHolder$$EnhancerByCGLIB$$e9ab456d"'s signer information does not match signer information of other classes in the same package
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.checkCerts(ClassLoader.java:807)
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.preDefineClass(ClassLoader.java:488)
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:626)
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:616)
     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
     at net.sf.cglib.core.ReflectUtils.defineClass(ReflectUtils.java:384)
     at net.sf.cglib.core.AbstractClassGenerator.create(AbstractClassGenerator.java:219) 

Solution :  Replace the jboss-eap-5.0/jboss-as/common/lib/cglib.jar with the unsigned version, which can be downloaded from the following URL : http://repository.jboss.com/maven2-brew/cglib/cglib/2.2/cglib-2.2.jar or http://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=cglib/cglib/2.2.2/cglib-2.2.2.jar.
This is due to a problem with the JBoss cglib library.For more details see the JBoss bug https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBPAPP-2971.

Removing (uninstalling) a deployed Endeca application

Use below steps to remove Endeca application properly. Endeca application must be removed before deleting the application directory in order to avoid side effects.

1. Remove application from the EAC(Endeca Application Controller).

• List the current applications using below command.

             $ENDECA_ROOT/bin/eaccmd list-apps

• Remove the application by running runcommand --remove-app from application's control directory. 
• Verify the removed application by running above eaccmd list-apps script.Removed application won't be listed now.    

    2.   Navigate to apps directory and delete the selected(removed above) application directory.

Note : These steps I have used for application which is running without CAS. For application using CAS you need to remove related record stores.

Request Processing in ATG

In every web application request plays a very important role.User(browser) need to send request to server to access any web resource.

ATG performs below steps to process requests it receives.

1. When a user requests a page(send request to server).Web server parses the request and holds in an HTTPServletRequest object.
2. The Web server passes the HTTPServletRequest to the application server.It wraps the request in its own flavor of request around the generic one before passing it to the Web application.
3. If you defined custom filters and the request is for a JHTML page, the filters execute in the order you specified.
4. Any custom J2EE servlets are processed.
5. The Web application calls one of the following resources.

•  DynamoProxyServlet( DAS servlet pipeline for JHTML requests).
•  PageFilter (DAF servlet pipeline for JSP requests).

     6. The request is passed on to a pipeline of servlets.
     7. If you created custom filters and a JSP is being requested, they execute after the last pipeline servlet, but before the request returns to the application server.
     8. After the servlet pipeline reaches the end, it returns the request to the application server for final processing. 

Below diagram illustrates ATG request processing.
 

Note : DAS pipeline is invoked in the case of JHTML.Because JHTML is a proprietary language, it relies on the page compiler provided in the DAS servlet pipeline to generate JHTML into a servlet that is rendered as HTML by the application server.