Administering Liberty from the command line
You can use the server command and ws-server.jar executable JAR file to create a server, to start, or stop a server, to check whether it is running, or debug a server.
About this task
The wlp/bin directory
contains a script that is called server to help with controlling the server process. The syntax of this script is as follows:
server <action> [server] [options]
For available values of the options, see Server command options.
Avoid trouble: The administrative console allows a start and a stop of
a Liberty server that is a cluster member of an auto-scalable cluster, but only when the server is
in maintenance mode. Starting or stopping a Liberty server from the command line when the Liberty
server is a cluster member of an auto-scalable cluster can lead to unpredictable results.
This script supports the following actions:
- create
- A command that creates a new server.
- run
- A command that launches the server in the foreground.
- debug
- A command that runs the named server in the console foreground after a debugger connects to the debug port. The default port is 7777. You can use the WLP_DEBUG_ADDRESS variable to specify an alternative port.
- dump
- A command that creates a snapshot of a server and saves the result into an archive file for further tuning and diagnosis.
- javadump
- A command that creates a
snapshot of the server Java™ virtual machine (JVM) and saves
the result into files. Each memory dump type creates a file, but not all memory dump types
are supported by all virtual machines. The default directory for memory dump files is
${server.output.dir}. To set a different default directory, you must use an IBM® JVM and set the following environment variables:
- IBM_HEAPDUMPDIR
- IBM_COREDIR
- IBM_JAVACOREDIR
- list
- A command that lists the defined Liberty application servers.
- package
- A command that packages a server.
- start
- A command that starts the server as a background process.
- stop
- A command that stops a running server.
- status
- A command that checks to see whether a specified server is running.
- version
- A command that displays the version information of current server and Java runtime environment.
- help
- A command that gets command-line script help, including details of more options.
Note: If a server is not specified on the command line, the action is performed
against the default server instance, defaultServer, if it exists.
You can also carry out similar actions by using
the executable JAR file ws-server.jar that is in the
${wlp.install.dir}/bin/tools directory. Example
To run the server script
on Windows
systems:
server.bat create server_name
server.bat package server_name
server.bat run server_name
server.bat help server_name
To run the server script
on other systems:server create server_name
server package server_name
server run server_name
server help server_name
To run the executable JAR file ws-server.jar without
using the server
script:
java -javaagent:bin/tools/ws-javaagent.jar -jar bin/tools/ws-server.jar server_name --create
java -javaagent:bin/tools/ws-javaagent.jar -jar bin/tools/ws-server.jar server_name
java -javaagent:bin/tools/ws-javaagent.jar -jar bin/tools/ws-server.jar --help
The
--help option provides information about
more command-line parameters for the executable JAR file ws-server.jar,
such as --stop, --version, --clean, --include.