DevelopingStorm - Search and Destory

Jadmin

If you're like me and need to administer the components of IBM Workplace and or WebSphere but don't enjoy working with TCL, the default scripting language, then perhaps you will find this foundation for building Java based Workplace and Websphere utilities helpful. Jadmin provides a simple mechanism for writing and invoking WebSphere and Workplace MBeans in Java.

The secret to Jadmin simplicity is that it uses Java interface proxies to map standard Java calls to the less direct MBean calls. Rather than being required to call the .invoke() method of the MBean and supply a method name and array of parameters, with Jadmin you work with a Java interface that reflects the MBean.

Jadmin 1.1 provides direct support for the Workplace MailService MBean and WebSphere TraceService MBean but can easily be extended to work with other MBeans. If you have an MBean you think should also be included please let me know and I can add the interface to the distribution. But remember the intention of Jadmin is to provide a foundation for creating custom administration scripts not to provide an extensive set of pre-built scripts

What's New

1.1 - Released, Jan 27 2005

Adds embedded support for WebSphere's TraceService MBean
Bat files now automatically generated by the build.
Added new examples: GetTraceSettings and TraceMsgs

Installing Jadmin

1. Unpack the jadmin zip into the directory of your choice. I use a directory called jadmin within my AppServer directory.
2. Open a command prompt window and change directories into the jadmin directory.
3. Make sure the environment variable WAS_HOME is set to point to (WebSphere or Workplace)/AppServer directory.
4. Edit jadmin.properties and configure the properties as follows

com.developingstorm.jadmin.host=[The host of the
server that contain the MBean: localhost]

com.developingstorm.jadmin.port=[The port of the
server that contains the MBean: 8880 or 8881 or 8882, etc...]

com.developingstorm.jadmin.node=[The name of the
server node: mynode]

com.developingstorm.jadmin.user=[The WebSphere or
Workplace server's administrators user name]

com.developingstorm.jadmin.password=[The
WebSphere or Workplace server's administrators password]

These values will be the defaults used by the utilities you create. You can override them on the command line by using the flags: -host ?, -port ?, -node ?, etc...

Sample Utilities

Jadmin comes with seven sample utilities.

QueueReport	Asks the MailService MBean to generate a report on the contents of the mail queue.
ListPending	Asks the MailService MBean to list just the list of undelivered messages.
StopMailProcessing	Asks the MailService MBean to stop the handling and delivery of mail.
StartMailProcessing	Asks the MailService MBean to start the handling and delivery of mail.
MailProcessingStatus	Asks the MailService MBean the status of the SMTP server, Mail Handler and Mail Deliverer.
GetTraceSettings	Asks the TraceService MBean for the current trace settings.
TraceMsgs	Asks the TraceService MBean to add full tracing for LWP 2.5 MTA related activities.

Building Jadmin

The sub directory 'project' within the jadmin directory contains the sources for Jadmin. This also contain an Ant build script for compiling and jarring the Jadmin classes and for generating the bat files to run your utilities. You can modify the existing source and add new Java files as you need them.

Adding new Utilities
If you want to create a new utility I suggest copying an existing sample utility like QueueReport.java or ListPending.java as a starting point. This will save you the hassle of recreating the configuration loading and MBean discovery code. Once you have the MBean proxy instantiated you can call any of the methods it supplies.

Jadmin 1.1 will automatically generate batch files to call any class withing jadmin.jar that implements the marker interface com.developingstorm.jadmin.Utility. You no longer need to explicity call MakeBat like you did with Jadmin 1.0.

Adding new MBean Proxies
To create a new MBean proxy you will need to get some information on the methods the MBean supports. You can do this by consulting the documentation or by introspecting the MBean. Jadmin provides a utility that does the latter called MBeanReporter. MBeanReporter will list information about all the MBeans on a server and even generate a stub Java interface that may be used to call it.

    Usage: MBeanReporter

However you find out about your MBean's interface you will need to create a Java interface that reflects the MBean methods you want to call.   The methods of the interface must match the exact name of the MBean methods and the parameters must match the exact order and types of those passed to the MBean. Jadmin uses interface proxies to map calls to the interface's methods to the actual 'Invoke' calls of the MBean. If the name and parameters don't match it wont be able to map the two correctly.

The last step when adding a new MBean proxy is to create a factory for it. There is already a factory for the MailService MBean, called MailServiceFactory, so you can just copy that and modify it to reference your new interface.

Jadmin version 1.1