FW: Config for WAS 3.5 on OS/390?

["KASSON, STEVEN R (Steve), ALBAS" <sk...@att.com>]

Hmm... I received a follow-up question on this topic, so I tried to find my posting from awhile back.  I couldn't find it in the archives... so here it is again.
 

Regards, 
-Steve 


 To: struts-user@jakarta.apache.org
Subject: RE: Config for WAS 3.5 on OS/390?

Hi All,  

Since I made my original post we've been able to get things running. Here are the details (I needed to write them up anyway). I'm sure it's not the only solution, but it's working!  Any suggestions on the DTD validation are welcome...

Regards,

-Steve

 

Configuring Struts 1.0 on WAS 3.5 for OS/390

Background Info:

WAS for OS/390 strives to be compatible with the "multi-platform" releases of WAS, but it does have some differences. One big difference is the lack of the Administrator's Console. Instead it uses a set of properties files to configure the server and web applications. The following site has specific documentation; the "Planning, Installing, and Using" (PIU) document is the most useful. 

http://www-4.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/library_390.html

There is a section in Chapter 3 of the PIU document which details how to convert a WAR file. We tried this on the struts-blank.war but were unable to get things working. But it was helpful to see what the conversion process generated. We then manually configured our application as described below.

Problems Encountered

	XML Validation

	We tried multiple combinations for specifying the DTD's for the XML files: struts-config.xml and web.xml.  Nothing seemed to work.  The parser could not seem to resolve to the local copy of the DTD.  We got around this by removing the DOCTYPE tag from the files and adding/setting the servlet parameter "validating" to "false" for the action servlet.

	ASCII vs EBCDIC

	It turns out that most files (jsp, xml, tld, resources, etc.) must be ASCII in order for WAS and Struts to process them. The only exception is the "myapp.webapp" file (described below). We use FTP to promote our files to the 390. Here's the confusing part... When you FTP in mode ASCII, an automatic conversion takes place, converting your text files to EBCDIC. To keep the files in ASCII format, you must FTP in mode BINARY. 

Key Files

The key files for configuring WAS on OS/390 are detailed in the PIU document. I've noted some comments below and snippets/content for each that we touched in our installation.

	httpd.conf

	The configuration file for the Web server. A "Service" directive is needed to route requests through WAS for your application. 

# MYAPP application 

# 

Service /myapp/* /usr/lpp/WebSphere/uq56298/AppServer/bin/was350plugin.so:service_exit 

 

	was.conf

	A properties file used to configure the application server and web applications. The key here is to only use the "deployedwebapp" items, do not include any "webapp" items. This way, WAS will look for the "myapp.webapp" file in your path for the webapp configuration. 

#

# myapp application 

# 

deployedwebapp.myapp.host=default_host 

deployedwebapp.myapp.rooturi=/myapp 

deployedwebapp.myapp.classpath=/myapp/WEB-INF/classes:/myapp/WEB-INF/lib 

deployedwebapp.myapp.documentroot=/myapp

deployedwebapp.myapp.autoreloadinterval=30000 

	 

	myapp.webapp  

	An XML file that is similar to the web.xml standard for web application deployments.  (The PIU document claims that it is the same, but it's not.)  The online documentation for Visual Age contains information on it's tags and formatting.  Also, Kyle Brown's article discusses it with regard to configuring the WebSphere Test Environment on Visual Age for Java - http://www7.software.ibm.com/vad.nsf/Data/Document2558?OpenDocument&SubMast=1 Actually, the configuration for WAS on OS/390 seems to be very similar to the configuration for the WebSphere Test Environment in Visual Age for Java. Remember, this file MUST be EBCDIC. Here is a complete example file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<webapp>

<taglib>

<taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld</taglib-uri>

<taglib-location>/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld</taglib-location>

</taglib>

<taglib>

<taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld</taglib-uri>

<taglib-location>/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld</taglib-location>

</taglib>

<taglib>

<taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld</taglib-uri>

<taglib-location>/WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld</taglib-location>

</taglib>

<servlet>

<name>action</name>

<code>org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet</code>

<autostart>true</autostart>

<init-parameter>

<name>application</name>

<value>ApplicationResources</value>

</init-parameter>

<init-parameter>

<name>config</name>

<value>/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml</value>

</init-parameter>

<init-parameter>

<name>debug</name>

<value>2</value>

</init-parameter>

<init-parameter>

<name>detail</name>

<value>2</value>

</init-parameter>

<init-parameter>

<name>validate</name>

<value>true</value>

</init-parameter> 

<init-parameter>

<name>validating</name>

<value>false</value>

</init-parameter>

<servlet-path>*.do</servlet-path>

</servlet>

<welcome-file-list>

<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>

</welcome-file-list>

<servlet>

<name>jsp11</name>

<description>JSP 1.1 support servlet</description>

<code>org.apache.jasper.runtime.JspServlet</code>

<servlet-path>*.jsp</servlet-path>

<servlet-path>*.jsv</servlet-path>

<servlet-path>*.jsw</servlet-path>

<autostart>true</autostart>

</servlet>

<servlet>

<name>file</name>

<description>File Serving servlet</description>

<code>com.ibm.servlet.engine.webapp.SimpleFileServlet</code>

<servlet-path>/</servlet-path>

<autostart>true</autostart>

</servlet>

<servlet>

<name>ErrorReporter</name>

<description>Default error reporter servlet</description>

<code>com.ibm.servlet.engine.webapp.DefaultErrorReporter</code>

<servlet-path>/ErrorReporter</servlet-path>

<autostart>true</autostart>

</servlet>

</webapp>

 

Example Directory Structure and File Locations

The directory structure utilized for our application is detailed below. 

/myapp

	index.jsp 

/myapp/WEB-INF

	*.tld files 

/myapp/WEB-INF/classes

	myapp.webapp (EBCDIC)

	ApplicationResources.properties

	Any class files (not in jars) can be located under this directory in appropriate package/directory structure.

/myapp/WEB-INF/classes/WEB-INF

	struts-config.xml 

	web.xml 

/myapp/WEB-INF/lib

	jaxp.jar

	parser.jar

	struts.jar

	myapp.jar

/myapp/WEB-INF/pages

	*.jsp