Uninstall of maintenance such as fix packs or cumulative fixes
 Technote (troubleshooting)
 
Problem(Abstract)
If maintenance applied to IBM® WebSphere® Application Server Base prior to the node being federated into the Deployment Manager, is later removed after the node has been federated, the setupCmdLine will contain incorrect node and cell information. This can prevent application server startup.
 
Cause
When maintenance is applied to WebSphere Application Server, the installation process makes a backup undo.jar file. This undo.jar file takes a snapshot of the system as it is currently configured. This backup includes a backup of the setupCmdLine.bat/sh as it exists at the time the maintenance was applied. If this node is later federated into a Deployment Manager, the backup created at the time the addnode command is executed will reflect that it is now part of the network. The WAS_CELL information is updated to reflect this change as well.
If, after the node has been federated, the previously applied maintenance is removed without first removing the node from the network by executing the "removenode" command, the uninstall process will restore the configuration to the node based on its prefederated environment. The setupCmdLine.bat/sh will be restored on the application server as it was prior to federation. The WAS_NODE and WAS_CELL information will be incorrect and the application server will not start. The application server is still federated to the deployment manager and this is reflected in its setupCmdLine.bat/sh. While the application server now thinks it is stand alone as reflected by its restored setupCmdLine.bat/sh. The node still exists but the setupCmdLine.bat/sh now reflects the cell name of the unadded node.

This is not an problem with the service pack or the updateinstaller. The update installer is working as designed. Uninstallation of service packs should not and do not remove the node added by the client.
 
Resolving the problem
When setting up a Network Deployment environment, the best practice is to execute addnode while the node is still at the V5.0 or V5.1 level. Then once federated, the additional maintenance can be applied and if necessary, later removed in reverse order without affecting the WAS_NODE and WAS_CELL information in the setupCmdLine.bat/sh.
If your environment has been set up and addnode executed after the maintenance had been applied, the work around would be to verify the WAS_NODE and WAS_CELL information in the setupCmdLine.bat/sh reflects the correct values for the added node. This would usually just mean correcting the WAS_CELL information.

Additional information can be reviewed concerning this issue in technote: Error 196 - Failed to prepare instance data.... Config.templates failed.
 
 
Cross Reference information
Segment Product Component Platform Version Edition
Application Servers Runtimes for Java Technology Java SDK
 
 


Document Information


Product categories: Software > Application Servers > Distributed Application & Web Servers > WebSphere Application Server > Install
Operating system(s): Windows
Software version: 5.1
Software edition:
Reference #: 1221758
IBM Group: Software Group
Modified date: Sep 3, 2007