Chapter 10 Troubleshooting Your Portal Deployment

This appendix describes how to troubleshoot the Sun Java^TM System Portal Server software and the Sun Java^TM System Portal Server Secure Remote Access (SRA) software.

This appendix contains the following sections:

• Troubleshooting Portal Server

• Troubleshooting SRA

Troubleshooting Portal Server

This sections contains troubleshooting information for Sun Java^TM System Portal Server.

UNIX Processes

For the portal to be functioning properly, check that the following root-owned processes are running. Use the ps command to see this output.

Sun Java System Directory Server:

/ns-slapd -D /usr/ldap/slapd-server -i /usr/ldap/slapd-
server/logs/pid

Sun Java System Access Manager:

identity-server-install-root/SUNWam/bin/doUnix -c 8946

Sun Java System Portal Server:

./uxwdog -d portal-server-install-root/SUNWam/servers/https-
server/config
ns-httpd -d portal-server-install-root/SUNWam/servers/https-
server/config

Admin Web Server (optional, but usually running):

./uxwdog -d web-container-install-root/SUNWam/servers/https-admserv/config
ns-httpd -d web-container-install-root/SUNWam/servers/https-admserv/config

Log Files

Examine the following log files for errors.

Access Manager logs are located in:

/var/opt/SUNWam/debug

Portal Server logs are located in:

/var/opt/SUNWportal/logs

Recovering the Search Database

The Search database maintains recoverable transaction logs. Thus, under normal circumstances, you do not have to do anything to recover the database. Recovery from errors and transient conditions such as a full disk are straight forward. If desired, maintain Search database archives and restore from an archive in case you lost the entire database. In this scenario, you would copy the archive to the original database to recover it.

To Recover the Database

Steps

1. Stop all processes accessing the database, including the Portal Server instance.

2. Use the rdmgr -R command to recover.

Working with the Display Profile

If you need to troubleshoot the XML contents of your portal’s display profile, extract the contents to a file for examination. At some point in the troubleshooting process, it might be useful to reload the display profile.

To Extract the Display Profile

Steps

1. Login as administrator.

2. Use the psadmin command to extract the display profile. For example:

   ./psadmin list -u“uid=amAdmin,ou=People,o=sesta.com,o=isp”-w password -d“o=sesta.com,o=isp”> /tmp/displayxml

   This example puts the contents of the display profile into the /tmp/displayxml file.

To Reload the Display Profile

Steps

1. Login as administrator.

2. Use the psadmin command to reload the display profile. For example:

   ./psadmin modify -u“uid=amAdmin,ou=People,o=sesta.com,o=isp”-w password -d“o=sesta.com,o=isp”/tmp/updated_displayxml

   This example reloads the contents of the display profile from the /tmp/updated_displayxml file.

High CPU Utilization for Portal Server Instance

When using the Cisco Content Services Switch, you might see a very high CPU utilization on the Portal Server instance with Web Server error file showing the following message every five seconds.

[20/Jan/2003:16:53:36] failure ( 5926): Error accepting connection
 -5928, oserr=130 (Connect aborted)

         

The cause of this error is a “sticky bit” setting within the Cisco Content Services Switch that is causing these errors. These load balancers periodically ping the servers (every five seconds) to verify that the servers are alive. After turning off the “sticky bit” setting, which disables the ping to the server every 5 seconds, the errors will no longer show up in the Web Server product.

Configuring an HTTP Proxy

If the Portal Server software is installed on a host that cannot directly access certain portions of the Internet or your intranet, you can receive errors. For example, when using the SampleSimpleWebService provider, you might see the following error when the proxy has not been configured:

java.net.UnknownHostException: services.xmethods.net

         

To Configure Usage of an HTTP Proxy for a Portal Server Instance

Steps

1. Change directories to the portal server install root directory containing the configuration for the instance.

   cd portal-server-install-root/SUNWam/servers/https- servername/config

2. Edit the server.xml file within this directory and add the following lines:

   http.proxyHost=proxy-host http.proxyPort= proxy-port http.nonProxyHosts=portal-host

   where proxy-host is the fully-qualified domain name of the proxy host, proxy-port is the port on which the proxy is run, and portal-host is the fully qualified domain name of the portal host.

Troubleshooting SRA

This section describes how to capture information that Portal Server support personnel need to troubleshoot problems in your deployment.

Debugging the Gateway

To turn debugging on or off, you set the level of debugging or set it to off. The following steps describe what to do.

To Use Debugging

Steps

1. Log in as root to the Gateway machine and edit the following files:

   • gateway-install-root/SUNWam/config/AMConfig-instance-name.properties

   • platform.conf-default or platform.conf-gateway-instance-name-provided-during-install file

2. Set the debug level to FINEST.

   com.iplanet.services.debug.level=FINEST

   The debug levels are:

   • FINEST - Only serious errors are logged in the debug file. Rewriter usually stops functioning when such errors occur.

   • WARNING - All debug messages are logged.

   • OFF - No debug messages are logged.

3. Set the log level in the platform.conf-default or platform.conf-gateway-instance-name-provided-during-install.

   The log levels are:

   • WARNING

   • INFO

   • SEVERE

   • FINE

   • FINEST

4. Restart the Gateway from a terminal window:

   ./psadmin start-sra-instance -u admin-user -p passwordfile -N default -t gateway

SRA Log Files

Examine the following log files for errors.

Gateway:

/var/opt/SUNWportal/debug/srapGateway_gateway-hostname_gateway-profile-name

NetFile:

/var/opt/SUNWporta/debug/srapNetFile

Netlet:

/var/opt/SUNWporta/debug/srapNetlet_gateway-hostname_gateway-profile-name