Testing the installation

  1. Check that WebSphere administrative server has been registered in the Services dialog. Open the Control Panel and select Services. If you scroll down you should see IBM WS AdminServer.
  2. Start the service by selecting IBM WS AdminServer and then selecting Start.

    Wait patiently. To see whether the system is still trying to start the server, examine the Performance page of the Task Manager. If the server is slow to start or does not start successfully, look at the last line in the \WebSphere\AppServer\logs\tracefile log. If the trace file says server is open for e-business, the server has started.

    Hint: You can control the server from a command line or batch file using the following commands:

    net start "IBM WS AdminServer" net stop "IBM WS AdminServer"

    Explaining the AdminServer: The AdminServer doesn't run any servlets, Java Server Pages, or Enterprise Beans. Each node can have multiple JVMs known as servers which run the application code. The Admin Server manages these servers, and if they stop, it restarts them. Each server can have EJB Containers to run EJBs, and a servlet engine to run servlets. Servers can either be independent, running different code, or clones which are identical, and the infrastructure manages spreading the incoming requests across the servers. A cluster consists of multiple nodes, each with clones.

    Although the installation has created a default server, it hasn't started it, so you can't run anything yet.

  3. To start the server, run the administrative console, which is how you manage WebSphere Application Server 3.5. From the Start menu, select Programs-> IBM WebSphere -> Application Server 3.5 -> Administrator's Console. This starts the WebSphere Advanced Administrative Console.
  4. Wait until you see the console message Console Ready. Then administer the server:
    1. When the Administrative Console opens, the Topology tree view is shown. Click on the + sign next to WebSphere Administrative Domain to expand the view.
    2. Your host name should be listed. Expand the view of that node, and you should see an entry called Default Server. Expand that and you will see the default container and servletEngine.
      WebSphere Console browser
    3. Select Default Server. If the Current State of DefaultServer is Stopped, click the Start icon on the tool bar. After an information dialog displays, stating that the server us running, click OK. Note that the current state changes from Stopped to Running.

      Once the server starts, it is marked in the configuration database that it should be running. If it stops, or if you reboot the machine, the administrative server will automatically restart it. Even if the administrative server fails, it will continue to run.

    4. Test the server. Ensure that the IBM HTTP Server is running. (The status for IBM HTTP Server in a Services dialog, which is accessible from a Control Panel, shows Started.) If the IBM HTTP Server is not running, use the Start option in a Services dialog to start the server, or select Start -> Programs -> IBM HTTP Server -> Start HTTP Server. Then, open a browser and go to http://localhost/servlet/snoop, which is a standard sample servlet installed by default. You should see information on /servlet/snoop.
      Snoops Servlet browser