Weblogic - DBA survival BLOG

I put here the steps required to install and access Weblogic in the OCI (mostly for me in case I need to do it again 😉 ). The assumptions are:

you already have an account for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and you can access the OCI console
you already have a Compartment with a VCN and a subnet configured (for test purposes, a VCN created with the default values will be just fine)
you already have a keypair for your SSH client (id_rsa, id_rsa.pub)
you have an X server on your laptop (if you have Windows, I recommend MobaXTerm, but Xming or other servers are just fine)

Create the compute instance

Menu -> Core Infrastructure -> Compute -> Instances -> Create Instance
Choose a name for the Instance, all the other fields defaults are fine for test (Oracle Linux 7.6, VM.Standard2.1, etc.)
Paste your SSH public key
Optionally, under advanced/network, specify a different name for the VM
Click on Create to complete the creation

At some point you will have an instance “Green” ready to access:

Click on it and get the public address:

Using your SSH keypair, you can now access the instance with:

$ ssh opc@{public_ip}

1	$ ssh opc@{public_ip}

Setup sshd for SSH tunneling and X11 forwarding

Edit as root the sshd_config:

$ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

1	$ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Modify it so that the following lines are present with these values:

AllowTcpForwarding yes
PermitOpen any
X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost no

AllowTcpForwarding yes

PermitOpen any

X11Forwarding yes

X11DisplayOffset 10

X11UseLocalhost no

Those values are required for X11 forwarding (required for the graphical installation) and for SSH tunneling (required to access the Weblogic ports without exposing them over internet).

Then restart sshd:

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd

1	$ sudo systemctl restart sshd

Install the packages for X11

# sudo yum install xorg-x11-xauth.x86_64
# sudo yum install libXtst
# # optional, to test if X11 forwarding works
# sudo yum install xterm

# sudo yum install xorg-x11-xauth.x86_64

# sudo yum install libXtst

# # optional, to test if X11 forwarding works

# sudo yum install xterm

At this point, it should be possible to forward X11. You can test by reconnecting with:

$ ssh -XC opc@{public_ip}

1	$ ssh -XC opc@{public_ip}

and then:

$ xterm

$ xterm

Create the oracle user

$ sudo su - root
# groupadd -g 54321 oinstall
# useradd -u 54321 -g oinstall oracle
# passwd oracle

$ sudo su - root

# groupadd -g 54321 oinstall

# useradd -u 54321 -g oinstall oracle

# passwd oracle

At this point, you can reconnect using oracle directly, so X11 forward will work for the oracle user without any additional setup:

$ ssh -XC oracle@{public_ip}

1	$ ssh -XC oracle@{public_ip}

Follow the canonical steps to install weblogic

If you do not know how to do that, follow this good tutorial by Tim Hall (oracle-base):

Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS) 12cR2 (12.2.1) Installation on Oracle Linux 6 and 7

Access the Weblogic console from outside Oracle Cloud

If you configured correctly sshd, once the Oracle Weblogic instance is configured and started, you can tunnel to the port (it should be 7001):

$ ssh -L 7001:{vm_name}:7001 oracle@{public_ip}

1	$ ssh -L 7001:{vm_name}:7001 oracle@{public_ip}

And be able to browse from your laptop using localhost:7001:

HTH

—

Ludovico

RRDize everything, chapter 1

If you are managing some Application Server deployments you should have wondered how to check and collect performance data.
As stated in documentation, you can gather performance metrics with the dmstool utility.
AFAIK, this can be done from 9.0.2 release upwards, but i’m concerned DMS will not work on Weblogic.

Mainly, you should have an external server that acts as collector (it could be a server in the Oracle AS farm as well): copy the dms.jar library from an Oracle AS installation to your collector and use it as you would use dmstool:

java -jar dms.jar [dmstool options]

1	java -jar dms.jar [dmstool options]

There are three basilar methods to get data:

Get all metrics at once:

java -jar dms.jar -dump -a "youraddress://..." [format=xml]

1	java -jar dms.jar -dump -a "youraddress://..." [format=xml]

Get only the interesting metrics:

java -jar dms.jar -a "youraddress://..." metric metric ...

1	java -jar dms.jar -a "youraddress://..." metric metric ...

Get metrics included into specific DMS tables:

java -jar dms.jar -a "youraddress://..." -table table table ...

1	java -jar dms.jar -a "youraddress://..." -table table table ...

What youraddress:// is, it depends on the component you are trying to connect:

opmn://asserver:6003
http://asserver:7200/dms0/Spy
ajp13://asserver:3301/dmsoc4j/Spy

opmn://asserver:6003

http://asserver:7200/dms0/Spy

ajp13://asserver:3301/dmsoc4j/Spy

If you are trying to connect to the OHS (Apache), be careful to allow remote access from the collector by editing the dms.conf file.

Now that you can query dms data, you should store it somewhere.
Personally, I did a first attempt with dmstool -dump format=xml. I wrote a parser in PHP with SimpleXML extension and I did a lot of inserts into a MySQL database. After a few months the whole data collected from tens of servers was too much to be mantained…
To avoid the maintenance of a DWH-grade database I investigated and found RRDTool. Now I’m asking how could I live without it!

I then wrote a parser in awk that parse the output of the dms.jar call and invoke an rrdtool update command.
I always use dms.jar -table command. The output has always the same format:

###SOF

Mon Mar 02 17:01:19 CET 2009

---------------
TABLE1_Name
---------------

record1_metric1.name:     value       units
record1_metric2.name:     value       units
....

record2_metric1.name:     value       units
record2_metric2.name:     value       units
....

---
TABLE2_Name
---

record1_metric1.name:     value       units
record1_metric2.name:     value       units
....

record2_metric1.name:     value       units
record2_metric2.name:     value       units
....

##EOF

###SOF

Mon Mar 02 17:01:19 CET 2009

---------------

TABLE1_Name

---------------

record1_metric1.name: value units

record1_metric2.name: value units

....

record2_metric1.name: value units

record2_metric2.name: value units

....

---

TABLE2_Name

---

record1_metric1.name: value units

record1_metric2.name: value units

....

record2_metric1.name: value units

record2_metric2.name: value units

....

##EOF

So I written an awk file that works for me.
use it this way:

 java -jar dms.jar ... | awk -f parse_output.awk

1	java -jar dms.jar ... \| awk -f parse_output.awk

####################
# parse_output.awk #
####################

#function pl() replaces all non alphanumeric occurrences with an underscore
function pl(input) {
        return gensub("[^[:alnum:]_-]","_","G",input);
}

# function get_rrd_path() returns a path where the rrd files should be placed
# I should rewrite a new path for each dms table... I'll skip many of them
function get_rrd_path() {
        if (table == "mod_oc4j_destination_metrics")
                return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"],
                    pl(table), pl(record["Name.value"]), pl(var) );
        if (table == "mod_oc4j_mount_pt_metrics")
                return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"],
                    pl(table), pl(record["Destination.value"]), pl(record["Name.value"]), pl(var) );
        if (table == "ohs_server")
                return sprintf("%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"], pl(table), pl(var) );
        if (table == "JVM")
                return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"],
                    pl(table), pl(record["Process"]), pl(var) );
        if (table == "opmn_process")
                return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s/%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"], pl(table),
                  pl(record["iasInstance.value"]), pl(record["opmn_ias_component"]),
                  pl(record["opmn_process_type"]),pl(record["opmn_process_set"]),
                  pl(record["Name"]), pl(var) );

        return sprintf("%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"], pl(table), pl(var) );
}
# function process_record actually does the dirty work of invoking the update script
function process_record() {
        #every record has a timeStamp.ts metric that I should use to update my rrd
        ts=substr(record["timeStamp.ts"],0,10);
        for ( var in record ) {
        if ( var != "timeStamp.ts" &amp;&amp; record[var] ~ /^[[:digit:]]+$/ ) {
            if ( var ~ /\.(count|completed|time)$/ ) {
                dstype="DERIVE";
            } else {
                if ( var == "responseSize.value" ) {
                    dstype="DERIVE";
                } else {
                    dstype="GAUGE";
                }
            }
            rrdFile=sprintf("/path_to_data/%s",get_rrd_path());
            #### update_metric_rrd is a shell script listed below!!!!!
            cmd=sprintf("/path_to_scripts/update_metric_rrd %s %s %d %d",
                rrdFile,dstype,ts,record[var]);
            system(cmd);
            }
        }
}

# parse_record() populates an hash array
# with all metrics belonging to the table record
function parse_record() {
    #print "RRRR -  START OF RECORD (table " table ")"
    delete record
    while ( ! /^$/ ) {
        # I'm parsing the record as far I'm in this while statement
        # the array hash is the name of the dms metric basename.
        # $1 is the metric name but I have to trim the final ":"
        key=substr($1,0,length($1)-1)
        record[key]=$2
        getline
    }
    # this function is included in funcions.awk:
    # I invoke it to process the record I've just parsed
    process_record();
}
BEGIN {
    # as far as started is 0, I've never reached the first table
    started=0
}

#MAIN
{
    # I jump over the first lines until I reach the first table
    if (started==0) {
        while ( ! /^---/ ) {
           getline
        }
        started=1
    }

    # looking for the next occurrence of a table
    # all tables start with:
    # ----------
    # table_name
    # ----------
    if ( /^---/ ) {
        # first table reached: the next row is my table name,
        # then I reach again a dashed line -----
        getline table
        getline trash
        #print ""
        #print "##########################"
        print "  TABELLA " table
        #print "##########################"
        next
    }

    if ( ! /^$/ ) {
        # reached an empty line: could be the end of a record or the and of a table
        # since a new table is threated in previous "if" statement, I'm starting a new record.
        parse_record()
    }

}

END {
}

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

####################

# parse_output.awk #

####################

#function pl() replaces all non alphanumeric occurrences with an underscore

function pl(input) {

return gensub("[^[:alnum:]_-]","_","G",input);

}

# function get_rrd_path() returns a path where the rrd files should be placed

# I should rewrite a new path for each dms table... I'll skip many of them

function get_rrd_path() {

if (table == "mod_oc4j_destination_metrics")

return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"],

pl(table), pl(record["Name.value"]), pl(var) );

if (table == "mod_oc4j_mount_pt_metrics")

return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"],

pl(table), pl(record["Destination.value"]), pl(record["Name.value"]), pl(var) );

if (table == "ohs_server")

return sprintf("%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"], pl(table), pl(var) );

if (table == "JVM")

return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"],

pl(table), pl(record["Process"]), pl(var) );

if (table == "opmn_process")

return sprintf("%s/%s/%s/%s/%s/%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"], pl(table),

pl(record["iasInstance.value"]), pl(record["opmn_ias_component"]),

pl(record["opmn_process_type"]),pl(record["opmn_process_set"]),

pl(record["Name"]), pl(var) );

return sprintf("%s/%s/%s.rrd", record["Host"], pl(table), pl(var) );

}

# function process_record actually does the dirty work of invoking the update script

function process_record() {

#every record has a timeStamp.ts metric that I should use to update my rrd

ts=substr(record["timeStamp.ts"],0,10);

for ( var in record ) {

if ( var != "timeStamp.ts" && record[var] ~ /^[[:digit:]]+$/ ) {

if ( var ~ /\.(count|completed|time)$/ ) {

dstype="DERIVE";

} else {

if ( var == "responseSize.value" ) {

dstype="DERIVE";

} else {

dstype="GAUGE";

}

rrdFile=sprintf("/path_to_data/%s",get_rrd_path());

#### update_metric_rrd is a shell script listed below!!!!!

cmd=sprintf("/path_to_scripts/update_metric_rrd %s %s %d %d",

rrdFile,dstype,ts,record[var]);

system(cmd);

}

# parse_record() populates an hash array

# with all metrics belonging to the table record

function parse_record() {

#print "RRRR - START OF RECORD (table " table ")"

delete record

while ( ! /^$/ ) {

# I'm parsing the record as far I'm in this while statement

# the array hash is the name of the dms metric basename.

# $1 is the metric name but I have to trim the final ":"

key=substr($1,0,length($1)-1)

record[key]=$2

getline

}

# this function is included in funcions.awk:

# I invoke it to process the record I've just parsed

process_record();

}

BEGIN {

# as far as started is 0, I've never reached the first table

started=0

}

#MAIN

{

# I jump over the first lines until I reach the first table

if (started==0) {

while ( ! /^---/ ) {

getline

}

started=1

}

# looking for the next occurrence of a table

# all tables start with:

# ----------

# table_name

# ----------

if ( /^---/ ) {

# first table reached: the next row is my table name,

# then I reach again a dashed line -----

getline table

getline trash

#print ""

#print "##########################"

print " TABELLA " table

#print "##########################"

}

if ( ! /^$/ ) {

# reached an empty line: could be the end of a record or the and of a table

# since a new table is threated in previous "if" statement, I'm starting a new record.

parse_record()

}

END {

}

And this is the code for update_metric_rrd:

#!/bin/bash
RRDFILE=$1
DSTYPE=$2
TS=$3
VALUE=$4

rrdtool update $RRDFILE ${TS}:${VALUE}

if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
        DIR=`dirname $RRDFILE`

        [ -d $DIR ] || mkdir -p $DIR
        [ -f $RRDFILE ] || rrdtool create $RRDFILE -b "now-1month" -s 1800 \
                DS:metric:${DSTYPE}:7200:0:U \
                RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:672 \
                RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:4:1080 \
                RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:12:1460 \
                RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:48:1095 \
                RRA:MAX:0.5:4:1080 \
                RRA:MAX:0.5:12:1460 \
                RRA:MAX:0.5:48:1095 \
                RRA:LAST:0.5:1:672
        rrdtool update $RRDFILE ${TS}:${VALUE}
fi

#!/bin/bash

RRDFILE=$1

DSTYPE=$2

TS=$3

VALUE=$4

rrdtool update $RRDFILE ${TS}:${VALUE}

if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then

DIR=`dirname $RRDFILE`

[ -d $DIR ] || mkdir -p $DIR

[ -f $RRDFILE ] || rrdtool create $RRDFILE -b "now-1month" -s 1800 \

DS:metric:${DSTYPE}:7200:0:U \

RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:1:672 \

RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:4:1080 \

RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:12:1460 \

RRA:AVERAGE:0.5:48:1095 \

RRA:MAX:0.5:4:1080 \

RRA:MAX:0.5:12:1460 \

RRA:MAX:0.5:48:1095 \

RRA:LAST:0.5:1:672

rrdtool update $RRDFILE ${TS}:${VALUE}

Once you have all your rrd files populated, it’s easy to script automatic reporting. You would probably want a graph with the request count served by your Apache cluster, along with its linear regression:

rrdtool graph - -s "end-${hours}hours" -e $end \
                -v "Requests Completed/sec" \
        -w 640 -h 240 --slope-mode \
                -t "HTTP Requests for www.ludovicocaldara.net" \
                DEF:1request_completed=/data/wwwserver1/ohs_server/request_completed.rrd:metric:AVERAGE \
                DEF:2request_completed=/data/wwwserver2/ohs_server/request_completed.rrd:metric:AVERAGE \
                CDEF:request_completed=1request_completed,2request_completed,+ \
                VDEF:slope=request_completed,LSLSLOPE \
                VDEF:lslint=request_completed,LSLINT \
                CDEF:reg=request_completed,POP,slope,COUNT,*,lslint,+ \
                LINE1:reg#666666:"Regression" \
                AREA:1request_completed#4040AA:"wwwserver1"  \
                AREA:2request_completed#6666FF:"wwwserver1":STACK  \
        &gt; mygraph.png

rrdtool graph - -s "end-${hours}hours" -e $end \

-v "Requests Completed/sec" \

-w 640 -h 240 --slope-mode \

-t "HTTP Requests for www.ludovicocaldara.net" \

DEF:1request_completed=/data/wwwserver1/ohs_server/request_completed.rrd:metric:AVERAGE \

DEF:2request_completed=/data/wwwserver2/ohs_server/request_completed.rrd:metric:AVERAGE \

CDEF:request_completed=1request_completed,2request_completed,+ \

VDEF:slope=request_completed,LSLSLOPE \

VDEF:lslint=request_completed,LSLINT \

CDEF:reg=request_completed,POP,slope,COUNT,*,lslint,+ \

LINE1:reg#666666:"Regression" \

AREA:1request_completed#4040AA:"wwwserver1" \

AREA:2request_completed#6666FF:"wwwserver1":STACK \

> mygraph.png

This is the result:
OHS request completed
OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! COOL!!!!

That’s all for DMS capacity planning. Stay tuned, more about rrdtool is coming!

DBA survival BLOG

Some DBA stuff and lots of Oracle Data Guard

Category Archives: Weblogic

How to install and access Oracle Weblogic 12.2 in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

How to collect Oracle Application Server performance data with DMS and RRDtool