Fix Pack 8550

Updating the Liberty profile from Version 8.5.0 to Version 8.5.5

If you are updating an existing WebSphere® Application Server Version 8.5.0.x Liberty profile feature, you must install WebSphere Application Server Liberty Version 8.5.5.0 or later. You cannot make an inplace update of the Version 8.5.0.x Liberty profile feature. Afterwards, you can copy your data and server configurations to the new installation or, if your user data are kept in another location, follow typical procedures for managing your data and server configurations.

About this task

In WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5.5.0, the Liberty profile was promoted from a feature to an independently installable offering. You cannot make an inplace update of the Version 8.5.0.x Liberty profile feature. The wlp folder includes the Liberty runtime and any user data or server configurations that you have saved in the wlp/usr folder. If you have a combined full-profile and Liberty-profile Version 8.5.0.x installation, the update program will back up the wlp folder for the existing Version 8.5.0.x Liberty profile feature into the wlp.bak_<timestamp> folder and uninstall the feature during an update to Version 8.5.5.0 or higher. You can continue using Liberty from the backed-up location or copy it elsewhere. To update the Liberty profile to Version 8.5.5.0 or higher, you then must install WebSphere Application Server Liberty (with the com.ibm.websphere.liberty.BASE.v85 offering ID). After installing WebSphere Application Server Liberty, you can move any user data and server configurations from the wlp.bak_<timestamp> folder to the new Liberty installation.

These instructions describe updating from a combined full-profile and Liberty-profile Version 8.5.0.x installation. If you have only the Version 8.5.0.x Liberty profile feature installed, you should install WebSphere Application Server Liberty Version 8.5.5.0 or higher in a different location. Then, you can copy the contents of the wlp/usr directory from the old installation to the usr directory of the new installation. If you are using WLP_USER_DIR and WLP_OUTPUT_DIR environment variables, make sure that they are pointing to the desired locations. You can continue using Java™ 6 from the Version 8.5.0.x installation image, use your own Java 6 or Java 7 that meets Liberty minimum requirements, or install one or both of the optional Java 6 or Java 7 Liberty extension offerings (offering ids: com.ibm.websphere.liberty.IMBJAVA.v60 and com.ibm.websphere.liberty.IBMJAVA.v70).

Note: During installation of a Liberty offering on an IBM® i system, the WLP_DEFAULT_USER_DIR and WLP_DEFAULT_OUTPUT_DIR environment variables are set in the WLP_INSTALL_DIR/etc/default.env file.

Procedure

  1. Update your existing combined full-profile and Liberty-profile installation to Version 8.5.5 or later following the normal update procedure.
    Note: If you want to keep using the backed-up Liberty with the current level of Java 6 after the update, you must make a backup of Java 6 before it is updated to the latest level by the fix-pack update. Java 6 can be found in the <install-root>\java folder. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to the desired Java. For more information on this environment variable, see Customizing the Liberty profile environment.

    After updating your WebSphere Application Server installation from Version 8.5.0.x to Version 8.5.5, you can find your Liberty installation in the <was_home>/wlp.bak_<timestamp> folder. This backup folder contains the Liberty runtime at the level that it was before you started the update.

  2. Use the backed-up Liberty runtime.

    A copy of the Installation Manager installation and history information for this snapshot is also stored in the root of the backup in the installed.xml and history.xml files.

    To determine what fixes have been installed in this snapshot, you can use the bin/productInfo command in the backed-up Liberty folder. See Liberty profile: productInfo command for more information.

    You can continue using the Liberty runtime folder from its backed-up location, or you can copy or move it to a new location. If you have set the WLP_USER_DIR or WLP_OUTPUT_DIR environment variables, make sure that they point to the location of your user data and the location of output resources generated by your server respectively.

    Note: Do not move the backed-up wlp.bak_<timestamp> folder back to wlp in case you decide to roll back to Version 8.5.0.x later.

    If WLP_USER_DIR has not been set, the server configuration and shared resources are stored in the usr directory at the root of the server's runtime environment (wlp_bak_<timestamp>/usr for example). In this case, no action is required to use the backed-up runtime because the user data can still be found under the usr directory of the new location.

    If the WLP_OUTPUT_DIR value is not set, the default location is in the server root directory (wlp_bak_<timestamp>/usr/servers/<server_name> for example). If this environment variable is not set, no action is required to use the backed up runtime because logs continue to appear under the usr/servers/<server_name>/logs directory of the new location.

    For more information on these environment variables, see Customizing the Liberty profile environment.

    Note: If the server.xml file or any included XML configuration file references another resource outside the server configuration directory, ensure that these resources can be found from the new server location.
    Start all Liberty profile servers with the --clean parameter as a launch option. For example:
    server start --clean
    You need to use the --clean option only once. All subsequent server starts will not require it.

    If you need to continue using the backed-up Liberty in the wlp.bak_<timestamp> folder, you can apply fixes using the archive interim-fix service procedure documented in Applying an interim fix to a Liberty profile archive installation.

  3. Install WebSphere Application Server Liberty Version 8.5.5 or later.
    See Installing Liberty using Installation Manager or Installing Liberty using downloaded files and archives.
    Tip: After you install WebSphere Application Server Liberty Version 8.5.5 or later, you can use the ProductInfo compare action to compare the old and new installations. This will show any issues that were resolved in the Version 8.5.0.x level that are not resolved at the Version 8.5.5.x level. See Liberty profile: productInfo command for more information.
  4. Start using the WebSphere Application Server Liberty Version 8.5.5 installation.

    If the WLP_USER_DIR and WLP_OUTPUT_DIR environment variables are set, then the new Liberty installation will continue using these locations to for user data, including server configurations, and to place server generated output. In this case, it is recommended that you make a backup of the directories referenced by WLP_USER_DIR and WLP_OUTPUT_DIR before beginning to use the new installation.

    If the WLP_USER_DIR and WLP_OUTPUT_DIR environment variables are not set, Liberty will use folders relative to the installed runtime by default. In this case, you should copy the contents of the backed-up Liberty runtime user folder (wlp.bak_<timestamp>/usr) to the usr folder of your new installation.

    For more information on these environment variables, see Customizing the Liberty profile environment.

    Note: If the server.xml file or any included XML configuration file references another resource outside the server configuration directory, ensure that these resources can be found from the new server location.

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