MyEclipse Blue 6.1/6.5M1 Server Configuration Migration

Introduction: Who should read this article?

This technical article is only directed at those users that have previously configured a MyEclipse Blue Edition WebSphere connector in MyEclipse Blue versions 6.1 or 6.5 M1 and have now upgraded to the latest version of MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition. If you are looking for more general information on configuration of WebSphere server instances in MyEclipse refer to this document on how to get started.

The configuration issue in 6.1 and 6.5 M1

In earlier versions of MyEclipse Blue Edition (6.1 and 6.5 M1), when a WebSphere server connector was configured MyEclipse would perform a special configuration of the WebSphere server settings. A dialog would appear when this was occuring:

This one-time configuration would modify the WebSphere JVM log settings to redirect Standard-out and Standard-error logs to the Eclipse console. This ensured that users would be able to see debug/info messages in the MyEclipse server console when the server was launched from inside the IDE. However, this also would prevent the server from logging JVM messages to the normal System.out and System.err log files that are used by default (since the output was now being redirected to console).

The Solution for 6.5

In MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition, the WebSphere server connectors now no longer require the reconfiguration of the WebSphere JVM log settings.

In 6.5, we now can support reading console messages directly from the log file and displaying them in the Eclipse console. However, for 6.1/6.5 M1 users that have had their server configuration automatically adjust by previous release of Blue, the WebSphere settings will still persist and output will still be directed to the console.

The rest of this article will cover in detail how you can migrate your WebSphere configuration to restore the original JVM logging settings and then enable the MyEclipse connector to read these log files.

NOTE: If you are new to Blue Edition and 6.5 is the first version of MyEcilpse Blue you have ever used, this document does not apply to you as your WebSphere log configuration has never been changed by MyEclipse to redirect to the console.

For existing 6.1/6.5M1 users, here is an outline of what the rest of this article covers:

Start WebSphere server in MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition
Check existing JVM log settings
Rever JVM log settings back to defaults
Reconfigure migrated WebSphere Blue Connector (Optional)

1. Start WebSphere server in MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition

Launch MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition and open the Servers view.

If you opened the same workspace that you used with previous version of MyEclipse Blue the connector should still be configured. If not you can follow this tutorial on how to configure them.

WebSphere Connector Configuration tutorial
So now you should have either your existing WebSphere server instance in your servers view or you just configured a server that you had previously configured withing MyEclipse Blue. So now you are ready to perform the configuration migration.

Start the server from Servers View:

2. Check existing JVM log settings

Once the server has started, then open the Admin Console from the context menu of the server in the Servers view:
Login to the administrative account and on the home admin page, expand the Troubleshooting section and select the Logs and Trace link, then select the currently active server that was launched by the connectors, (default is server1)
On the Logging and Tracking page, select the JVM logs link.
On the JVM logs page, for both the System.out and System.err Filename property, the value will be "console". The "console" value is a special value that tells WebSphere to redirect to the java process console. If you see these values this means that you should now continue to the next section to learn how to revert these filename value back to their original defaults. If you just want to verify that the log fields have the correct values, you can hop to the next section to double-check as well.

3. Revert JVM log settings back to defaults

Before starting this section make sure you have completed all the steps in Section 2.
In summary: configure WebSphere, start the server, open admin console, go to Troubleshooting > Logs and trace > JVM Logs
To restore the default values, change the following values:
```
System.out: ${SERVER_LOG_ROOT}/SystemOut.log
```
```
System.err: ${SERVER_LOG_ROOT}/SystemErr.log
```
Then go to the bottom of that page and select OK.
After changing those settings you will be prompted for the need to "save" your settings.

Click "Save"
On the next page you will have to press "Save" to finish the configuration.

That completes the WebSphere specific configuration. Go to the next station to finish the migration by doing some additional configuration of the Blue WebSphere connector.

4. Reconfigure migrated WebSphere Blue connector (optional)

Before starting this section make sure that you have completed Section 2 and Section 3 above.
Restart the server so the new JVM log settings will be taken into effect.
Now you can optionallly reconfigure your server connector to read the new default JVM log file settings. In order to do that first, need to open up configuration dialog:
Find the JVM SystemOut and SystemErr fields. Below are the various locations of these fields:

For WebSphere 5.x the fields are on the root configuration preference page
For WebSphere 6.0 and 6.1 the fields are on the 2nd page of the instance configuration wizard
For WebSphere Portal 6.0 the log fields are on the "Advanced Settings" preference page:

Change the values of these files to point to the SystemOut.log and SystemErr.log files that the server created. By default this will be in the following location:
<WAS_PROFILE_ROOT>\logs\ <server_name>\SystemOut.log and SystemErr.log

Then select Finish
Then you can restart the server once again and if you see output in the server console then you have succeeded!