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Remote WebSphere Connectors

Remote WebSphere connector support provides advanced WebSphere project deployment management along with application server control features for WebSphere servers not on the local machine. Configuring remote WebSphere servers differs slightly from configuring local WebSphere servers, but deployment and control features are the same for both.

1. System Setup

To configure a remote WebSphere connection, you need two systems containing a WebSphere installation. The systems can be two completely different systems (e.g., a desktop running Windows and a laptop running Linux) or a system hosting a virtual machine where the WebSphere server is installed and running. The system on which the WebSphere application server is running is referred to as the server-PC and the system on which MyEclipse is running is the client-PC. 

 

2. Server-PC Setup

  1. Launch the admin console, select Servers>Server Types>WebSphere Application Servers, and note the host name listed. If the server-PC is not discoverable to the client_PC and a domain mapping is required on the hosts file, find out the IP address of the server-PC using ip config. 

    WSAppServer
    WebSphere Admin Console

  2. Make sure your firewall settings allow connections on the SOAP port.

    Note: If you cannot correctly configure your firewall/antivirus, you can turn off your firewall//antivirus to allow client-PC to connect to server-PC. If the server-PC is Windows based, you may have to turn off Windows Firewall in addition to turning off antivirus software. This is not recommended and should only be used as a last resort.  

  3. Start the WebSphere application server. Make a note of the server’s SOAP_CONNECTOR_ADDRESS.

    WSPort
    SOAP connector port

3. Client-PC Setup

Note:  If server-PC is not discoverable through DNS from client-PC, you must first map the IP of the server-PC to a domain for the remote connector to properly function. Using the IP of server-PC directly results in connection and deployment issues. Complete the following steps if you need to map the server-pc’s IP to a domain:

  1. On the client-PC, open the hosts file with administrative privileges (located in C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts on Windows OS and /etc/hosts on Linux OS).
  2. In the hosts file, map a domain to the IP address of the server-PC (<ip-address-of-server-PC> REMOTEWAS-PC).
    For example, type 192.168.1.6 REMOTEWAS-PC if the IP of the server-PC is 192.168.1.6. 
  3. Save and close the file.

3.1 Setting Up the Client-PC

  1. Launch MyEclipse on the client-PC.
  2. Right click from the Servers view, select New>Server, expand WebSphere Application Server and select the version you want to connect to. Provide the domain name or host name configured in the hosts file above and click Next.


    NewWSServer-3
    Define a new WebSphere application server

  3. Provide the installation directory of the local WebSphere server installation and click Next. This is required for runtime creation.

    Note:  Due to WebSphere license limitations, MyEclipse cannot include stub runtimes for remote connections. You must have a local installation of WebSphere which will provide both runtime libraries for your WebSphere projects and libraries required to connect to the remote WebSphere server.

  4. Type the SOAP_CONNECTOR_ADDRESS value in the SOAP port field.  If administrative security is enabled on the profile, enter the security credentials.

    NewWSAppServerSoap
    Configuring a new server with a SOAP port and security

  5. Click Finish. MyEclipse automatically initiates a connection to the remote server.


4. Additional Server Options

The following WebSphere server level options are also available for remote WebSphere servers.

  • Restart—restarts the remote server in Run mode
  • Restart in Debug—restarts the remote server in debug mode
  • Publish—publishes local changes to the remote server
  • Clean (Redeploy)—cleans the deployment area of the remote server and redeploys all the projects to the remote server
  • Open Administrative Console—opens the administrative console of the remote server

The following options are available at a deployed project level:

  • Start—starts the selected module on the remote server
  • Stop—stops the selected module on the remote server
  • Restart—restarts the selected module on the remote server
  • Clean (Redeploy)—cleans the selected deployment and redeploys the project to the remote server
  • Browse deployment location…—opens the deployment location containing files that will be uploaded to the remote server upon publish

Limitations

Remote WebSphere connectors have the following limitations:

  • Actions like Run Administrative Script… and Import/Export Profile Configuration… are not available.
  • You cannot launch Application Client projects or generate JAX-WS/JAX-RPC web services.

5. Project Deployment

Deployment to a remote WebSphere connector is very similar to deployments on regular WebSphere servers. Please see WebSphere Connectors in MyEclipse for more details. 

Please note that remote WebSphere connectors support only Classic deployment mode (both Exploded and Packaged). In-Workspace deployment mode is not supported. For details regarding deployment modes supported by WebSphere, please see Deployment Modes.

WSServersView
Servers view

When you connect to a remote WebSphere server, the MyEclipse console is automatically activated and updated with the console output from the remote WebSphere server.

WSConsoleConsole view

6. Debugging with Remote WebSphere Server

Debugging and Hot Sync on remote WebSphere servers works the same as on regular WebSphere servers.