Administrative console does not start due to environment display settings

Technote (FAQ)
Problem
Receive a stack with com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.Utils.setDefaultFonts error in it as a result of the DISPLAY environment variable not being set to the proper machine.
Cause
The DISPLAY environment variable is not set to the proper machine.
Solution

Symptoms
The administrative console does not start.

Trace
Admin Client Trace for WAS 3.5.x:
  • From the WASHOME/bin directory invoke the administrative console with the following:
    adminclient debug hostname > absolutepath\client.txt 2>&1

Admin Client Trace for WAS 4.0.x:
  • From the WASHOME/bin directory invoke the administrative console with the following: adminclient.sh -v > path/adminclient.out


Sample Output (from Admin Client Trace)

No remote host or port argument specified. This host and port 900 will be used.
This command may be issued as: adminclient <host address <port number>>
java.lang.Exception: Stack trace
at java.lang.Thread.dumpStack(Thread.java:993)
at javax.swing.UIDefaults$ProxyLazyValue.createValue(UIDefaults.java:670)
at javax.swing.UIDefaults.get(UIDefaults.java:145)
at javax.swing.MultiUIDefaults.get(MultiUIDefaults.java:46)
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.Utils.setDefaultFonts(Utils.java:485)
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.EJSConsole.main(EJSConsole.java:1226)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.ibm.ws.bootstrap.WSLauncher.main(WSLauncher.java:158)
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.Utils.setDefaultFonts(Utils.java:487)
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.EJSConsole.main(EJSConsole.java:1226)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.ibm.ws.bootstrap.WSLauncher.main(WSLauncher.java:158)

The key part of this error is com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.Utils.setDefaultFonts


Solution:
Issue the following commands to start the WebSphereŽ Application Server administrative console:
    cd WASHOME/bin
    export DISPLAY=<XwindowsDisplayName>:0
    ./adminclient.sh &
Notes:
  1. XwindowsDisplayName can be the fully-qualified machine name, or it can be an IP address.
  2. The preceding commands are useable in a Korn or Bourne shell interpreter.
  3. WASHOME and text in the angle brackets (<>) represent values that you must provide.











Document Information

Product categories: Software, Application Servers, Distributed Application & Web Servers, WebSphere Application Server, Administrative Console (all non-scripting)
Operating system(s): AIX, HPUX, Linux, Solaris
Software version: 3.5, 4.0
Reference #: 1052316
IBM Group: Software Group
Modified date: 2004-08-26