BEA WebLogic

Server ™

BEA WebLogic Server

Frequently Asked
Questions

Release 7.0
Document Revised: September 5, 2002
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 BEA Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Part Number Document Revised Software Version

N/A September 5, 2002 BEA WebLogic Server

Version 7.0
Contents

About This Document

Audience............................................................................................................ viii
e-docs Web Site................................................................................................. viii
How to Print the Document................................................................................. ix
Related Information............................................................................................. ix
Contact Us! .......................................................................................................... ix
Documentation Conventions .................................................................................x

Introduction to BEA WebLogic Server iii

 1. FAQs: Administration and Configuration
2. FAQs: Applets
3. FAQs: Clustering
4. FAQs: Code Examples
5. FAQs: Deployment
6. FAQs: EJB
7. FAQs: Installation
8. FAQs: Java
9. FAQs: J2EE Connector Architecture
10. FAQs: WebLogic JDBC
11. FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for MSSQL Server
12. FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle
13. FAQs: JMS
14. FAQs: JTA
15. FAQs: Plug-Ins
16. FAQs: Server-Related Questions
17. FAQs: Server-Side Java (Servlets)
18. FAQs: Security
19. FAQs: Upgrading
20. FAQs: Web Services

iv Introduction to BEA WebLogic Server

21. FAQs: Wireless-Related Questions
22. FAQs: XML

Introduction to BEA WebLogic Server v

vi Introduction to BEA WebLogic Server
About This Document

This document introduces BEA WebLogic Server™ Frequently Asked Questions.

Note: Some of the information in this document may be inconsistent with what you
observe in the WebLogic Server 7.0 Beta release.

The document is organized as follows:

! Chapter 1, “FAQs: Administration and Configuration,” contains questions and

answers about administering and configuring WebLogic Server.

! Chapter 2, “FAQs: Applets,” contains questions and answers about applets.

! Chapter 3, “FAQs: Clustering,” contains questions and answers about clustering.

! Chapter 4, “FAQs: Code Examples,” contains questions and answers about code
examples.

! Chapter 6, “FAQs: EJB,” contains questions and answers about EJB.

! Chapter 7, “FAQs: Installation,” contains questions and answers about installing

WebLogic Server.

! Chapter 8, “FAQs: Java,” contains questions and answers about Java.

! Chapter 9, “FAQs: J2EE Connector Architecture,” contains questions and

answers about J2EE Connector Architecture.

! Chapter 10, “FAQs: WebLogic JDBC,” contains questions and answers about
JDBC.

! Chapter 11, “FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for MSSQL Server,” contains questions
and answers about WebLogic jDriver for MSSQL Server.

! Chapter 12, “FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle,” contains questions and
answers about WebLogic jDriver for Oracle.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions vii

 ! Chapter 13, “FAQs: JMS,” contains questions and answers about JMS.

! Chapter 14, “FAQs: JTA,” contains questions and answers about JTA.

! Chapter 16, “FAQs: Server-Related Questions,” contains general questions and

answers about WebLogic Server.

! Chapter 17, “FAQs: Server-Side Java (Servlets),” contains questions and answers
about servlets.
! Chapter 18, “FAQs: Security,” contains questions and answers about security.

! Chapter 21, “FAQs: Wireless-Related Questions,” contains questions and

answers about wireless technology.

! Chapter 22, “FAQs: XML,” contains questions and answers about XML.

Audience
This document is written for application developers who want to build e-commerce
applications using the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) from Sun
Microsystems. It is assumed that readers know Web technologies, object-oriented
programming techniques, and the Java programming language.

e-docs Web Site

BEA product documentation is available on the BEA corporate Web site. From the
BEA Home page, click on Product Documentation.

viii BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

How to Print the Document
You can print a copy of this document from a Web browser, one main topic at a time,
by using the File→Print option on your Web browser.

A PDF version of this document is available on the WebLogic Server documentation

Home page on the e-docs Web site (and also on the documentation CD). You can open
the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader and print the entire document (or a portion of it) in
book format. To access the PDFs, open the WebLogic Server documentation Home
page, click Download Documentation, and select the document you want to print.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at no charge from the Adobe Web site at
http://www.adobe.com.

Related Information
The BEA corporate Web site provides all documentation for WebLogic Server.

Contact Us!
Your feedback on BEA documentation is important to us. Send us e-mail at
docsupport@bea.com if you have questions or comments. Your comments will be
reviewed directly by the BEA professionals who create and update the documentation.

In your e-mail message, please indicate the software name and version you are using,
as well as the title and document date of your documentation. If you have any questions
about this version of BEA WebLogic Server, or if you have problems installing and
running BEA WebLogic Server, contact BEA Customer Support through BEA
WebSupport at http://www.bea.com. You can also contact Customer Support by using
the contact information provided on the Customer Support Card, which is included in
the product package.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions ix

 When contacting Customer Support, be prepared to provide the following information:

! Your name, e-mail address, phone number, and fax number

! Your company name and company address

! Your machine type and authorization codes

! The name and version of the product you are using

! A description of the problem and the content of pertinent error messages

Documentation Conventions
The following documentation conventions are used throughout this document.

Convention Usage

Ctrl+Tab Keys you press simultaneously.

italics Emphasis and book titles.

monospace Code samples, commands and their options, Java classes, data types,
text directories, and file names and their extensions. Monospace text also
indicates text that you enter from the keyboard.
Examples:
import java.util.Enumeration;
chmod u+w *
config/examples/applications
.java
config.xml
float

monospace Variables in code.

italic Example:
text
String CustomerName;

x BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Convention Usage

UPPERCASE Device names, environment variables, and logical operators.

TEXT Examples:
LPT1
BEA_HOME
OR

{ } A set of choices in a syntax line.

[ ] Optional items in a syntax line. Example:

java utils.MulticastTest -n name -a address

[-p portnumber] [-t timeout] [-s send]

| Separates mutually exclusive choices in a syntax line. Example:

java weblogic.deploy [list|deploy|undeploy|update]

password {application} {source}

... Indicates one of the following in a command line:

! An argument can be repeated several times in the command line.
! The statement omits additional optional arguments.
! You can enter additional parameters, values, or other information

. Indicates the omission of items from a code example or from a syntax line.
.
.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions xi

xii BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions
CHAPTER

1 FAQs: Administration
and Configuration

! How do I bypass the prompt for username and password when I start a server?

! Can I start a Managed Server if the Administration Server is unavailable?

! How can I start a server with a clean (default) configuration?

! What is the easiest way to set the classpath?

! What are safeguards for modifying the config.xml file?

! How do I edit the config.xml file?

Q. How do I bypass the prompt for username and password when I start a server?
A. You can create and use a boot identify file, which contains your username and
password in an encrypted format.
If a server's root directory contains a valid boot identity file named
boot.properties, it uses this file by default. If you want to specify a different file
(or if you do not want to store boot identity files in a server's root directory), you can
specify a file name in the server’s startup command. If a server is unable to access its
boot identity file, it displays the standard username and password prompt in its
command shell and writes a message to the log file.

For more information, refer to Bypassing the Interactive Prompt in the WebLogic
Server Administration Guide.

Q. Can I start a Managed Server if the Administration Server is unavailable?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 1-1

1 FAQs: Administration and Configuration

A. By default, if a Managed Server is unable to connect to the specified Administration

Server during startup, it can retrieve its configuration by reading a configuration file
and other files directly. You cannot change the server’s configuration until the
Administration Server is available. A Managed Server that starts in this way is running
in Managed Server Independence mode. For more information, refer to Starting a
Managed Server When the Administration Server Is Not Accessible in the Managing
and Monitoring WebLogic Server Domains guide.

Q. How can I start a server with a clean (default) configuration?

A. If you run into problems in your environments and want to boot a server with a clean
(default) configuration, you can start a WebLogic Server in such a way that it generates
a new config.xml file. This new config.xml file contains only the default settings,
unless you use command-line arguments to override the defaults. For more
information, refer to Using the Default Configuration to Start a Server in the WebLogic
Server Administration Guide.

Q. What is the easiest way to set the classpath?

WebLogic Server installs the following script that you can use to set the classpath that
a server requires:
WL_HOME\server\bin\setWLSEnv.cmd (on Windows)
WL_HOME/server/bin/setWLSEnv.sh (on UNIX)

where WL_HOME is the directory in which you installed WebLogic Server. For more
information, refer to Setting the Classpath in the WebLogic Server Administration
Guide.

Q. What are safeguards for modifying the config.xml file?

A. BEA recommends that you use the WebLogic Server Administration Console to
edit the config.xml file. If you need to edit the config.xml file directly, we
recommend that:
! You always save a copy of your config.xml file before editing it. If your edits
cause errors that prevent you from booting, you can at least revert to your saved
version.

! You manually edit the config.xml file for a domain when a domain is not
active. If you edit the configuration file while the domain is active, any changes
you make manually will likely be overwritten by the system. Furthermore, all
changes you make by hand while the domain is active are ignored by the system
at run time.

1-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

! Because there is no validation or value checking when you edit config.xml
manually, type-checking occurs when you load the configuration file for the first
time, that is, when you restart the Administration Server. At that point, any
invalid XML or attribute value is detected and the domain fails to boot.

For more information on modifying the config.xml file and a reference of Mbeans
and attributes used config.xml, see the BEA WebLogic Server Configuration
Reference at http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/config_xml/index.html.

Q. How do I edit the config.xml file?

A. The persistent configuration for a domain of WebLogic Servers and clusters is
stored in an XML configuration file (config.xml). You can modify this file in the
following ways:
! The recommended way for users to modify or monitor a domain's configuration
is to use the Administration Console.

! WebLogic Server includes a configuration Application Programming Interface

(API), which programs can use to modify configuration attributes of resources in
the domain.

! You can access the attributes of a domain with the WebLogic Server
command-line utility. This utility is provided for people who want to create
scripts to automate domain management. See Commands for Managing a
WebLogic Domain in the Administration Guide at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/adminguide/cli.html.

! If you intend to edit the config.xml file directly, (not recommended) see the
BEA WebLogic Server Configuration Reference at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/config_xml/index.html.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 1-3

1 FAQs: Administration and Configuration

1-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

2 FAQs: Applets

! What are the alternatives to using applets?

! Can I use a “native” two-tier driver for a browser applet?

! Why doesn’t my browser applet connect to the database?

! Why does my applet work with Appletviewer, but not with a browser?

! What’s causing ClassFormatErrors with my applet?

Q. What are the alternatives to using applets?

A. BEA supports the use of server-side applications with HTTP servlets and Java
Server Pages (JSPs) as part of the J2EE platform. We recommend that before you
develop new applications, consider using either servlets or JSPs. A well-designed
series of interactive Web pages using servlets and Java Server Pages (JSPs) generally
yield a faster and more reliable Web site.If you are currently using applets, you may
find that most can be converted to Java applications using Java Web Start and you can
continue using WebLogic Server. For information, go to Sun's Java Web Start site.
For more information, see Using Applets With WebLogic Server at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/applets/usingapplets.html.

Q. Can I use a “native” two-tier driver for a browser applet?

A. No. Within an unsigned applet, you cannot load native libraries over the wire,
access the local file system, or connect to any host except the host from which you
loaded the applet. The applet security manager enforces these restrictions on applets as
protection against applets being able to do unsavory things to unsuspecting users.
If you are trying to use jDriver for Oracle from an applet, then you are violating the
first restriction. Your applet will fail when it attempts to load the native (non-Java
layer) library that allows jDriver for Oracle to make calls into the non-Java Oracle

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 2-1

2 FAQs: Applets

client libraries. If you look at the exception that is generated, you will see that your
applet fails in java.lang.System.loadLibrary, because the security manager
determined that you were attempting to load a local library and halted the applet.

You can, however, use the WebLogic JTS or Pool driver for JDBC connectivity in
applets. When you use one of these WebLogic multitier JDBC drivers, you need one
copy of WebLogic jDriver for Oracle (or any other two-tier JDBC driver) for the
connection between the WebLogic Server and the DBMS.

Q. Why doesn’t my browser applet connect to the database?

Problem: I’m using a WebLogic multitier driver in an applet as an interface to a
DBMS. If I run the class using the Sun Appletviewer on my local machine, I have no
problems. But when I try to run the applet in a Netscape browser, it will not connect.
A. If Appletviewer works and Netscape does not, it is an indication that you are
violating a Netscape security restriction. In this case, the violation is that an applet
cannot open a socket to a machine other than the one from which it loaded the applet.
To solve this problem, you will have to serve your applet code from the same machine
that hosts the DBMS.
In addition, the IP naming format you use in the applet CODEBASE and the constructor
for the T3Client must match. That is, you can’t use dot-notation in one place and a
domain name in the other.

Q. Why does my applet work with Appletviewer, but not with a browser?
Problem: I tried to run two of the applets in the examples directory of the distribution.
I installed the WebLogic classes on my local machine (NT server) and on another
machine (a Windows 95 client). I am not using any browsers, just trying to run the
applets with Appletviewer. The applets work fine when I run Appletviewer from the
NT server, but do not work at all from the Windows 95 client.
A. There are two possible problems: Either the CODEBASE tag is not properly set in
the applet HTML file, or the class files are not properly loaded on the HTTP server.
The applet works on the NT server because you installed the WebLogic distribution on
your NT server. Even if the applet cannot successfully load the necessary classes from
the HTTP server, it does find them in your local CLASSPATH. But when you try to run
it from the Windows 95 client, the applet must load the classes over the wire from the
HTTP server, and if you haven’t installed them correctly, it will fail.

2-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What’s causing ClassFormatErrors with my applet?
Problem: I downloaded your distribution and copied the classes to my HTTP server
DocumentRoot. I created an applet that I ran successfully from my Netscape server. I
placed it in the server directory /webz/ns-home/classes/applets/myapp.class
and called it with the following:
<APPLET
CODEBASE=http://myserver.com/webz/ns-home/classes
CODE=applets.myapp.class>

Then I set my attributes in the Administration Console to listen on port 7001, and I
started the WebLogic Server on the HTTP machine so I could use my applet with
WebLogic JDBC, like this:
<APPLET
CODEBASE=t3://myserver.com:7001/webz/ns-home/classes
CODE=applets.myapp.class>

When I changed the CODEBASE tag to point to the WebLogic Server, I started getting
ClassFormatErrors.
A. There are several problems with your setup. The most obvious have to do with your
CODEBASE:

1. The CODEBASE tag in your applet should point to your HTTP server, not to
WebLogic Server.

2. The directory path referenced in your CODEBASE tag is not an absolute directory
path on the HTTP server; it is a configured path that originates from the HTTP
Document Root. You are using the absolute path in your CODEBASE tag. If your
class “myapp” is in the “applets” package, then the correct CODEBASE for your
setup would be:
<APPLET
CODEBASE=http://myserver.com/classes
CODE=applets.myapp.class>

In addition, if you are getting a ClassFormatError, it signals a problem with your

HTTP server configuration. It could be that you haven’t loaded the WebLogic or applet
classes in the correct directory on the HTTP server, or you are specifying the
CODEBASE or the CODE incorrectly in your APPLET tag.

Remember, too, that if you installed the WebLogic distribution on the machine from
which you are running the applet, your applet will first look for the WebLogic classes
in your local CLASSPATH, which may obscure the fact that you haven’t properly

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 2-3

2 FAQs: Applets

installed the classes for serving from the HTTP server. To test your HTTP
configuration properly, you need to temporarily rename the WebLogic classes in your
local CLASSPATH or try your applet from another machine.

2-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

3 FAQs: Clustering

! How do stubs work in a WebLogic Server cluster?

! What happens when a failure occurs and the stub cannot connect to a WebLogic
Server instance?

! How does a server know when another server is unavailable?

! How are notifications made when a server is added to a cluster?

! How do clients learn about new WebLogic Server instances?

! How do clients handle DNS requests to failed servers?

! How many WebLogic Servers can I have on a multi-cpu machine?

! Should I use a separate network for multicast in a cluster?

! What should I do if my cluster “hangs” or “freezes”?

Q. How do stubs work in a WebLogic Server cluster?

A. Clients that connect to a WebLogic Server cluster and look up a clustered object
obtain a replica-aware stub for the object. This stub contains the list of available server
instances that host implementations of the object. The stub also contains the load
balancing logic for distributing the load among its host servers.

Q. What happens when a failure occurs and the stub cannot connect to a WebLogic
Server instance?
A. When the failure occurs, the stub removes the failed server instance from its list.
If there are no servers left in its list, the stubb uses DNS again to find a running server
and obtain a current list of running instances. Also, the stub periodically refreshes its
list of available server instances in the cluster; this allows the stub to take advantage of
new servers as they are added to the cluster.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 3-1

3 FAQs: Clustering

Q. How does a server know when another server is unavailable?

A. WebLogic Server uses two mechanisms to determine if a given server instance is
unavailable.
First, it uses a heartbeat mechanism with an internal timeout to monitor the status of
instances in a cluster. The heartbeat mechanism is based on the cluster’s multicast
address. Once a given server instance receives a set number of heartbeats, it is dropped
from the cluster.

Second, WebLogic Server monitors socket errors to determine when server instances
become unavailable. For example, if server instance A has an open socket to server
instance B, and the socket unexpectedly closes, server A assumes that server B is
offline.

Q. How are notifications made when a server is added to a cluster?

A. The WebLogic Server cluster broadcasts the availability of a new server instance
each time a new instance joins the cluster. Cluster-aware stubs also periodically
update their list of available server instances.

Q. How do clients learn about new WebLogic Server instances?

A. Once a client has done a JNDI lookup and begins using an object reference, it finds
out about new server instances only after the cluster-aware stub has updated its list of
available servers.

Q. How do clients handle DNS requests to failed servers?

A. If a server fails and DNS continues to send requests to the unavailable machine,
this can waste bandwidth. For a Java client application, this problem occurs only
during startup. WebLogic Server caches the DNS entries and removes the unavailable
ones, to prevent the client from accessing a failed server twice.
Failed servers can be more of a problem for browser-based clients, because they
always use DNS. To avoid unnecessary DNS requests with browser-based clients, use
a third-party load-balancer such as Resonate, BigIP, Alteon, and LocalDirector. These
products mask multiple DNS addresses as a single address. They also provide more
sophisticated load-balancing options than round-robin, and they keep track of failed
servers to avoid routing unnecessary requests.

Q. How many WebLogic Servers can I have on a multi-cpu machine?

3-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. There are many possible configurations and each has its own advantages and
disadvantages. BEA WebLogic Server has no built-in limit for the number of server
instances that can reside in a cluster. Large, multi-processor servers such as Sun
Microsystems, Inc. Sun Enterprise 10000, therefore, can host very large clusters or
multiple clusters.
In most cases, WebLogic Server clusters scale best when deployed with one WebLogic
Server instance for every two CPUs. However, as with all capacity planning, you
should test the actual deployment with your target web applications to determine the
optimal number and distribution of server instances. See Performance Considerations
for Multi-CPU Machines for additional information.

Q. Should I use a separate network for multicast in a cluster?

A. No. Multicast traffic is not heavy enough to require a separate network.

Q. What should I do if my cluster “hangs” or “freezes”?

A. If your WebLogic Server cluster “freezes,” you will need to collect certain
diagnostic information, including thread dumps and Java garbage collection metrics,
before contacting BEA Technical Support. For details, see Generate a Log File.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 3-3

3 FAQs: Clustering

3-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

4 FAQs: Code Examples

! Where are the examples located?

! Why won’t the examples work?

! Are the build.cmd and the build.sh scripts still being used?

! How do I use ANT?

Q. Where are the examples located?

A. Examples, if installed, are located in the samples\server\src\examples directory of
your WebLogic Server installation and are available from the Start menu.

Q. Why won’t the examples work?

A. Each example comes with detailed instructions for building the example class files,
configuring the server, and running the example. Make sure that you have completed
each of the example instructions.
Usually problems with examples are related to your environment. Here are some
troubleshooting hints:
1. If you are using a database, make sure you have run the utility utils.dbping
to verify that your JDBC driver is correctly installed and configured.

2. Run the setEnv script to make sure your CLASSPATH is correctly set in the shell
or DOS window in which you are running the examples. For more information,
see Setting your development environment at
http://www.weblogic.com/docs51/techstart/environment.html.

3. Check the instructions for the examples to make sure you have changed any
user-specific variables in the code before compiling.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 4-1

4 FAQs: Code Examples

4. Verify that you are compiling with the -d option to direct the class files into the
proper directory, as defined in the example instructions.

If the example is an applet, check the CODE and CODEBASE, and make sure
WebLogic Server is running.

For more information, see the WebLogic Server Examples Guide located at
samples/examples/examples.html in your WebLogic server distribution.

Q. Are the build.cmd and the build.sh scripts still being used?
A. No. They have been replaced by ANT.

Q. How do I use ANT?

A. Set up the Examples domain environment by running setExamplesEnv.cmd in
Windows or setExamplesEnv.sh in UNIX. Go into your examples directory and
type ANT to build the build.xml file. If you want to build your own build script, you
can pass in the name of the build script by typing ANT -f myBuild.xml where
myBuild is the name of your build script. For more information, see the Apache
website.

4-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

C HAPTER

5 FAQs: Deployment

! How can I set deployment order for applications?

! Can I refresh static components of a deployed application without having to

redeploy?

! When should I use the -nostage option?

! When should I use the external_stage option?

! Can I generate deployment descriptor files automatically?

! Can I set the deployment order for application components? For types of
components?

! What is the difference between the WL_HOME/config/examples/applications

folder and the WL_HOME/config/examples/production_apps folder?

! How do I turn the auto-deployment feature off?

! Where can I learn more about WebLogic 7.0 deployment?

Q. How can I set deployment order for applications?

A. WebLogic Server 7.0 allows you to select the load order for applications. See the
ApplicationMBean LoadOrder attribute in Application. WebLogic Server deploys
server-level resources (first JDBC and then JMS) before deploying applications.
Applications are deployed in this order: connectors, then EJBs, then Web
Applications. If the application is an EAR, the individual components are loaded in the
order in which they are declared in the application.xml deployment descriptor.

Q. Can I refresh static components of a deployed application without having to

redeploy?
A. Yes. You can use weblogic.Deployer to specify a component and target a server,
using the following syntax:

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 5-3

5 FAQs: Deployment

java weblogic.Deployer -adminurl http://admin:7001 -name appname

-targets server1,server2 -activate jsps/*.jsp

Q. When should I use the -nostage option?

A. Set the staging mode to -nostage (using weblogic.Deployer or the
Administration Console) if you don’t want it copied anywhere and want to run it from
its present location.

Q. When should I use the external_stage option?

A. Set -external_stage using weblogic.Deployer if you want to stage the
application yourself, and prefer to copy it to its target by your own means.

Q. Can I generate deployment descriptor files automatically?

A. Yes, WebLogic Builder automatically generates deployment descriptor files for
your J2EE applications. See WebLogic Builder Online Help.

Q. Can I set the deployment order for application components? For types of
components?
A. You can change the deployment order of components within a class (making this
EJB load before that EJB) using ComponentMBean DeploymentOrder attribute, but
not the deployment order of different classes (making startup classes load before
EJBs).
It looks like startup classes load after the J2EE deployment units, which load in this
order: JDBC, JMS, Connectors, EJBs, Web Applications.
If your application is an EAR and you are using the Acadia two-phase deployment
protocol, you can set the application deployment order using the ApplicationMBean
LoadOrder attribute.

Q. What is the difference between the WL_HOME/config/examples/applications

folder and the WL_HOME/config/examples/production_apps folder?
A. The applications folder is intended for experimental applications that are not yet
ready for a production environment. WebLogic Server dynamically deploys anything
in the applications folder. The production_apps folder (or a folder that you create for
the same purpose) is for applications that are ready for deployment in a production
environment. To deploy anything in the production_apps folder, you have to go to the
console, install the application and then browse to it.

5-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Any configuration changes you make to applications that are not in the config.xml
file, but reside in the applications folder will not be persisted to the config.xml file.
Any configuration changes you make to applications that reside in the
production_apps folder will be persisted.

Q. How do I turn the auto-deployment feature off?

A. The auto-deployment feature checks the applications folder every three seconds to
determine whether there are any new applications or any changes to existing
applications and then dynamically deploys these changes. The auto-deployment
feature is on by default. When WebLogic Server is in production mode, this feature
should be turned off.
To disable the auto-deployment feature using the console, click mydomain, click
Applications and then uncheck the Auto Deployed Enabled checkbox.

To disable this feature on the command line, include the following argument:
-Dweblogic.ProductionModeEnabled=true

Q. Where can I learn more about WebLogic 7.0 deployment?

A. Here: Deployment at http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/deployment.html.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 5-5

5 FAQs: Deployment

5-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

6 FAQs: EJB

General

! Why is there no polymorphic-type response from a create() or find() method?

! Must EJBs be homogeneously deployed across a cluster? Why?

! What is the free pool?

! Where can I get a copy of the EJB specification?

! Which versions of the EJB specification are supported by the WebLogic Server?

Stateless Session Beans

! How should I set max-beans-in-free-pool for stateless beans?

! How should I set initial-beans-in-free-pool for stateless beans?

! When are stateless EJBs passivated?

! Can I call remove() on a stateless session bean?

! When are ejbCreate and ejbRemove called on stateless EJBs?

Stateful Session Beans

! Can you explain passivation / activation?

! Why did I get a LockTimedOutException?

! What is the difference between the NRU and LRU cache?

! When should I use a Stateful session bean and when should I use a servlet
session?

! How big should I make the cache for a stateful session bean?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 6-1

6 FAQs: EJB

General Entity Bean Questions

! Can an entity bean be a listener for JMS messages?

CMP Entity Beans

! When are CMP fields loaded? Is it always determined by the finders-load-bean

setting? What is the default behavior?
! What's the purpose of the delay-database-insert-until deployment descriptor
element?

! Can I map an entity bean to more than one table?

! Can I use a join or intermediate table to implement a One-Many relationship?

! Why can't I hold on to a cmr-field (Container Managed Relationship) collection
and use it after the transaction commits?

! Can a foreign key column in the database be mapped to both a cmp-field and a
cmr-field?

! Why can't I call the setXXX method for a cmr-field during ejbCreate?
! How can I avoid violating NOT NULL constraints on foreign keys that are
mapped to cmr-fields?

! Does WebLogic support auto generating primary keys for entity beans?

Message Driven Beans

! Which security principal does an MDB use to connect to JMS?

EJBs and Transactions

! How should I obtain my JDBC connection so that it participates in the EJB

container's transaction?
! My transaction aborted, but my database changes did not rollback.

! Why did my JDBC code throw a rollback SQLException?

Q. Why is there no polymorphic-type response from a create() or find() method?

6-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. The EJB Specification prohibits this behavior, and the weblogic.ejbc compiler
checks for this behavior and prohibits any polymorphic type of response from a
create() or find() method.

The reason the create() and find() methods are not polymorphic is similar to the
reason constructors are not polymorphic in Java. The derived classes generally do not
know or cannot initialize the base class properly.

Q. Must EJBs be homogeneously deployed across a cluster? Why?

A. Yes. Beginning with WebLogic Server version 6.0, EJBs must be homogeneously
deployed across a cluster for the following reasons:
! To keep clustering EJBs simple

! To avoid cross server calls which results in more efficiency. If EJBs are not
deployed on all servers, cross server calls are much more likely.

! To ensure that every EJB is available locally

! To ensure that all classes are loaded in an undeployable way

! Every server must have access to each EJB's classes so that it can be bound into
the local JNDI tree. If only a subset of the servers deploys the bean, the other
servers will have to load the bean's classes in their respective system classpaths
which makes it impossible to undeploy the beans.

Q. What is the free pool?

A. The free pool is a data structure the EJB container uses to cache anonymous
instances of a given bean type. The free pool improves performance by reusing objects
and skipping container callbacks when it can.

Q. Where can I get a copy of the EJB specification?

A. You can download it from Sun's EJB site. Point your browser to:
http://java.sun.com/products/ejb/index.html.

Q. Which versions of the EJB specification are supported by the WebLogic Server?
A. The following table summarizeds EJB specification support, by WebLogic Server
version:

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 6-3

6 FAQs: EJB

WebLogic Server Version EJB Version

4.5.x 1.0

5.1 1.1

6.0 1.1 and 2.0 (PFDI)

6.01 1.1 and 2.0

7.0 1.1 and 2.0

Q. How should I set max-beans-in-free-pool for stateless beans?

A. This is explained in our documentation at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70//////ejb/EJB_environment.html#1135029

Q. How should I set initial-beans-in-free-pool for stateless beans?

A. This is explained in our documentation at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70//////ejb/EJB_environment.html#1029095

Q. When are stateless EJBs passivated?

A. Stateless ejbs are never passivated. Since stateless ejbs do not have state, there is
no need to passivate them. They are put back into the free pool after each method call
so they will be available to service other requests.

Q. Can I call remove() on a stateless session bean?

A. Yes. Currently, calling remove() on a stateless session bean is a noop.

Q. When are ejbCreate and ejbRemove called on stateless EJBs?

A. When the stateless beans are created and removed by the EJB container. Note that
this does not correspond to calls to create and remove on the stateless home.
Depending on your initial-beans-in-free-pool setting, beans may be created by the
container during deployment at which point they are placed in the free pool. Aside
from during deployment, beans will only be created to service requests when all of the
beans in the free pool are in use and the max-beans-in-free-pool limit has not been met.
Stateless beans are removed by the EJB container during undeployment.

6-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Can you explain passivation / activation?
A. Passivation and activation are a standard part of a stateful session beans lifecycle.
For details, point your browser to:
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70//////ejb/EJB_environment.html#1028773

Q. Why did I get a LockTimedOutException?

A. When you get a LockTimedOutException while invoking a stateful session EJB,
one of two things has occurred:
! You have <allow-concurrent-calls> set to true in your weblogic-ejb-jar.xml
descriptor and your call timed out while waiting to be processed. The timeout
used in this case is the value <trans-timeout-seconds> element of the
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml descriptor or its default value of 30 seconds.

! You do not have allow-concurrent-calls set to true and you attempt to invoke a
stateful session bean that is already busy processing another request. In this case,
the second method call will not block and a LockTimedOutException will be
thrown immediately.

Q. What is the difference between the NRU and LRU cache?

A. NRU cache works by avoiding passivation as much as possible. Stateful session
instances are only passivated when there is memory pressure (your # of beans in the
cache approaches the max-beans-in-cache size). This is the 'NRU' option in the
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml and the default behavior. The LRU cache works by passivating
a bean after it reached its idle-timeout-seconds. So if your max-beans-in-cache was
1000 and you only had 10 beans in memory, it would still write the 10 beans to disk
after their timeout period expired. This is the 'LRU' option in the weblogic-ejb-jar.xml.
This was added to 5.1 and 6.x because there were some customers that wrote
applications depending on the timeout behavior. The was also the default behavior in
3.1-4.5.

Q. When should I use a Stateful session bean and when should I use a servlet session?
A. The answer to this question is very application-specific and there are situations in
which either approach will work. A stateful session bean provides declaritive
transaction and security checking as well as failover to a secondary in a cluster.

Q. How big should I make the cache for a stateful session bean?
A. The cache for a stateful session bean should usually be equal to the maximum
number of concurrent clients of the bean. This is generally a much larger value than

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 6-5

6 FAQs: EJB

the number of execute threads in the server, therefore, stateful session beans will use
more server resources.

Q. Can an entity bean be a listener for JMS messages?

A. No. Message driven beans should be used to consume JMS messages.

Q. When are CMP fields loaded? Is it always determined by the finders-load-bean

setting? What is the default behavior?
A. Finders-load-bean is true by default. A bean is retrieved via a finder explicitly if
you call a findXXX() method to get the bean and implicitly if you retrieve the bean via
a cmr-field getXXX method. Either of these will result in eager loading of the bean's
fields if finders-load-bean is true for the bean.
If you aren't calling a finder, but just accessing the bean via a reference you obtained
in a different transaction, then fields are always loaded lazily when using 2.0 CMP, i.e.
they aren't read from the DBMS during ejbLoad, but rather when a getXXX() method
is called. By default there is a single field group that contains all the fields if you don't
define any field groups. So, calling a cmp-field getXXX() method loads all of the
persistent state of the bean by default.

Q. What's the purpose of the delay-database-insert-until deployment descriptor

element?
A. This setting allows you to specify at what point the database insert occurs when
creating a CMP bean. Non-null foreign key constaints in your database can make
creating CMP beans with relationships tricky. We offer this setting to give developers
more flexibility to satisfy those constraints. Also, this setting is necessary to enable the
bulk insert feature that was added in WLS 7.0. To enable the bulk insert feature and to
provide yourself the maximum amount of flexibilty to satisfy any non-null foreign key
constraints, we recommend setting the delay-database-insert-until option to commit.
For more information on this option, see
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70//////ejb/EJB_environment.html#1118482

Q. Can I map an entity bean to more than one table?

A. In WLS 7.0 it is possible to map an entity bean to multiple tables, however, there
are some restrictions. Namely, each table must contain the same primary key columns.
The columns can have different names in different tables, but they must contain the
same values. When a new bean is created a row will be inserted in each table, and when

6-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

a bean is removed a row is removed from each table. The rows in each table are related
via their primary key values. The rows mapped to a particular entity bean will always
have the same primary key value.
Point your browser to http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70//////ejb/cmp.html#1093392
for more information.

Q. Can I use a join or intermediate table to implement a One-Many relationship?

A. This is currently not supported. One-Many relationships require that the bean on
the Many side of the relationship contain a foreign-key in one of its tables.

Q. Why can't I hold on to a cmr-field (Container Managed Relationship) collection

and use it after the transaction commits?
A. This is prohibited by the EJB 2.0 specification. The reason for disallowing this is
that the DBMS data backing a cmr-field collection can change in unpredictable ways
once your transaction commits. Tracking these changes is difficult and can result in the
contents of the cmr-field collection changing when the application doesn't expect it.
The bottom line is that developers must retrieve and access cmr-field collections
within a single transaction.

Q. Can a foreign key column in the database be mapped to both a cmp-field and a
cmr-field?
A. Yes, this has been supported since WLS 6.0 SP1. Note that when the cmp-field is
a primary-key field the cmr-field is read-only. In other words, the setXXX method for
the cmr-field cannot be used. The value of the primary-key should be initialized as
usual in this case. Conversely, when the cmp-field is not a primary-key field, then the
cmp-field is read-only. The underlying column is updated via the cmr-field, and the
cmp-field just provides a read-only view of the foreign-key.

Q. Why can't I call the setXXX method for a cmr-field during ejbCreate?
A. This is disallowed by the EJB 2.0 specification because the primary-key of the
current bean isn't necessarily known during ejbCreate and it may be needed depending
on how the relationship is mapped to the underlying DBMS. Cmr-field setters should
be called during ejbPostCreate instead of ejbCreate if relationships need to be setup
during creation of a bean.

Q. How can I avoid violating NOT NULL constraints on foreign keys that are mapped
to cmr-fields?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 6-7

6 FAQs: EJB

A. In WLS 7.0, you can set delay-database-insert-until to 'commit' and assign the
cmr-field a value before the current transaction commits. You can also set
delay-database-insert-until to 'ejbPostCreate' and assign the cmr-field a value during
ejbPostCreate.

Q. Does WebLogic support auto generating primary keys for entity beans?
A. Yes, this feature was added in WLS 6.1. For more information, see the DTD
comments for the <automatic-key-generation> element. Point your browser to:
http://www.bea.com/servers/wls700/dtd/weblogic-ejb-jar.dtd.

Q. Which security principal does an MDB use to connect to JMS?

A. As of WLS 6.1 SP2, an MDB uses the same principle to connect to JMS as it does
to process messages. This is either the principle that is mapped to the run-as role
specified for the bean, or 'guest' if no run-as role is provided. Prior to WLS 6.1 SP2,
this behavior was not well defined.

Q. How should I obtain my JDBC connection so that it participates in the EJB

container's transaction?
A. You must get your JDBC connection from a TxDataSource or from the JTS driver.
If you get a JDBC connections from a plain DataSource or directly from the JDBC
driver, it will NOT participate in the EJB container transaction.
TxDataSources are recommended instead of accessing the JTS driver directly.
TxDataSources are the standard mechanism in JDBC 2.0 for connection pooling, and
they support 2PC/XA transactions.

Q. My transaction aborted, but my database changes did not rollback.

A. See previous question. You must obtain your JDBC connections from a
TxDataSource.

Q. Why did my JDBC code throw a rollback SQLException?

A. Your JDBC code may throw the following exception:
"The coordinator has rolled back the transaction.
No further JDBC access is allowed within this transaction."

6-8 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

The WebLogic JTS JDBC driver throws this exception when the current JDBC
connection transaction rolls back prior to or during the JDBC call. This exception
indicates that the transaction in which the JDBC connection was participating was
rolled back at some point prior to or during the JDBC call.

The rollback may have happened in an earlier EJB invoke that was part of the
transaction, or the rollback may have occurred because the transaction timed out. In
either case, the transaction will be rolled back, the connection returned to the pool and
the database resources released. In order to proceed, the JTS JDBC connection must
be closed and reopened in a new transaction.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 6-9

6 FAQs: EJB

6-10 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

7 FAQs: Installation

! Which platforms are available for WebLogic Server?

! I downloaded the WebLogic Server installation file, but the installation program
will not run. What should I do?

! Do I need to install WebLogic Server as root on Solaris?

! Can I run the Configuration Wizard outside the installer?

! I love the new domain configuration wizard. Can I create my own templates?

Q. Which platforms are available for WebLogic Server?

A. See the BEA WebLogic Server Platform Support page at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/certifications/certifications/index.htm
l.

Q. I downloaded the WebLogic Server installation file, but the installation program
will not run. What should I do?
A. The installation file may have been corrupted during the download. Run a checksum
on the installation file and check with technical support for the proper values.

Q. Do I need to install WebLogic Server as root on Solaris?

A. No you don't need to be root, depending on directory permissions.

Q. Can I run the Configuration Wizard outside the installer?

A. Yes. You can start the Configuration Wizard from the Start menu or using a script
in the utils directory. See Creating New Domains Using the Configuration Wizard.

Q. I love the new domain configuration wizard. Can I create my own templates?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 7-1

7 FAQs: Installation

A. Support for custom templates for the Configuration Wizard is coming soon.
Currently, it is an undocumented, unsupported feature.

7-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

8 FAQs: Java

! Can you help me debug my program?

! Where can I get help learning Java?

! Where do I get the JDK?

! How do I set up my CLASSPATH?

! Why won’t the examples work?

! Where can I get help with Java error messages?

! Why did a client-server message generate a StackOverflowException?

! Will a JIT make my Java application run faster?

! Can I redistribute the JDK that is bundled with WebLogic Server?

Q. Can you help me debug my program?

A. If the problem you are having is not directly related to our software, we suggest
that you use a Java development tool that helps you with debugging, and that you
invest in some books or training to help you learn Java. There are many ways to build
debugging into your program, and getting good training in Java programming is a good
start to understanding how to do this.

Q. Where can I get help learning Java?

A. There are a lot of books and online references to Java. A good starting place is at
the JavaSoft website documentation index at
http://www.javasoft.com/docs/index.html, which has links to white papers and the
Java Tutorial. You can find books on Java at any of the major online book shopping
sites.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 8-1

8 FAQs: Java

Q. Where do I get the JDK?

A. WebLogic 6.1 bundles JDK131. See our Platform support page for information
about specific JDKs that we have tested and certified for use with WebLogic software.
Once you determine which version of the JDK you will be using, go to the JavaSoft
website at http://www.javasoft.com/products/. Many platform vendors provide an
optimized version of the JDK for their computers.

Q. How do I set up my CLASSPATH?

A. Setting up your CLASSPATH correctly depends on what you are trying to do. The
most common tasks are described below:
! Starting WebLogic Server. See Setting the Classpath Option in the Starting and
Stopping WebLogic Servers section of the Administration Guide at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/adminguide/startstop.html. In addition, your
WebLogic distribution includes shell scripts that you can use to start the server.
These scripts, which are located in the domain directories under the config
directory of your WebLogic Server distribution, automatically set up the
CLASSPATH variable in the shell before starting the server.

! Compiling Application Classes or Using WebLogic Server Utilities. See

Setting the Classpath for Compiling in the Developing WebLogic Server
Components section of Developing WebLogic Server Applications.

! Working With WebLogic Server Code Examples. See the WebLogic Server
Examples Guide located at samples/examples/examples.html in your
WebLogic Server distribution.

Q. Why won’t the examples work?

A. Usually problems with examples are related to your environment. Here are some
troubleshooting hints:
1. If you are using a database, make sure you have run the utility utils.dbping
to verify that your JDBC driver is correctly installed and configured.

2. Run the setEnv script to make sure your CLASSPATH is correctly set in the shell
or DOS window in which you are running the examples. For more information,
see Setting your development environment at
http://www.weblogic.com/docs51/techstart/environment.html.

8-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

3. Check the instructions for the examples to make sure you have changed any
user-specific variables in the code before compiling.

4. Verify that you are compiling with the -d option to direct the class files into the
proper directory, as defined in the example instructions.

If the example is an applet, check the CODE and CODEBASE, and make sure
WebLogic Server is running.

Q. Where can I get help with Java error messages?

A. Many questions we receive at BEA are related to generic Java error messages and
are not specific to WebLogic Server. Here are some links that contain helpful
information about Java error messages.

Table 8-1
Source Description

Sun’s Java Developer Connection at This forum includes Questions and Answers on
http://developer.java.sun.com/develo a wide variety of Java topics, including error
per/ messages. Use the Search box for fast results.
For example, type "classpath error" in the
Search box.

Compiler Error Messages at An extensive list of compiler error messages,

http://www.mindprod.com/errormess including the infamous
ages.html NoClassDefFoundError.

Sun’s Java APIs at Check the Java API to see if there is an

http://java.sun.com/products/ exception description for the class you are
using.

Q. Why did a client-server message generate a StackOverflowException?

A. If you are sending a particularly large data structure using java.io.Serialization,
you may exceed the per-thread size limit for either the Java or native stack. You can
increase the stack size by using the following command line options:
-ss Stacksize to increase the native stack size or
-oss Stacksize to increase the Java stack size,

where Stacksize is expressed as an integer followed by “k” or “m” for kbytes or

mbytes. For example,

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 8-3

8 FAQs: Java

$java -ss156k (native)

$java -oss600k (Java)

The default native stack size is 128k, with a minimum value of 1000 bytes. The default
java stack size is 400k, with a minimum value of 1000 bytes.

Q. Will a JIT make my Java application run faster?

A. A Just-In-Time compiler will make some Java applications run faster. A JIT works
by storing generated machine code in memory and reusing it when possible. For
example, if you execute the same operation 1000 times in a loop, a JIT will improve
performance of this operation since the code will only be generated once. Applications
with a lot of native methods will not see as much performance improvement as
pure-Java applications.
If you use a JIT, you may want to turn off the JIT during debugging to facilitate
stacktracing. If you are doing performance testing with a JIT, make sure that you
execute the same test several times in the same invocation and then throw away the
first result to get an idea of how long the transaction will take when your application
is running in a steady state. The first time the code is executed, your test will take
longer (the “code generation hit”).

Q. Can I redistribute the JDK that is bundled with WebLogic Server?

A. BEA Systems has the non-exclusive right to grant a third party, such as an
independent software vendor (ISV), the right to redistribute the JDK that is bundled
with WebLogic Server without any modifications of any kind. The following are
caveats to this general statement:
! The ISV cannot remove or alter any proprietary legends or notices contained in
the JDK. The ISV shall not decompile, disassemble, decrypt, extract, or
otherwise reverse engineer or modify the JDK. The JDK may not be leased or
assigned in whole or in part.

! The ISV must enter into a signed agreement with its distributors on terms
substantially similar to those contained here in this redistribution policy
explanation.

! The ISV requires an end user license agreement with the product within which it
embeds WebLogic Server.

! The embedding of the JDK in ISV products does not include maintenance and
support of the JDK by the JDK Provider. BEA Systems shall be solely

8-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 responsible for providing maintenance and support for its ISVs and distributors.
The ISV shall be solely responsible for providing maintenance and support for
the end users of its products.

! If an ISV wants to ship a JDK that is different from the JDK that BEA ships
with WebLogic Server, that ISV needs to get those bundling rights directly from
Sun or HP. For example:
Assume that BEA ships WebLogic Server 6.0 with JDK 1.3 only, that BEA ships
WebLogic Server 5.1 with JDK 1.1 only, and that an ISV wants to ship JDK 1.1
with WebLogic Server 6.0 in an integrated product offered by that ISV. Unless
BEA, for BEA business reasons, elects to make WebLogic Server 6.0 with JDK
1.1 generally available, the ISV couldn't ship JDK 1.1 with WebLogic Server 6.0
in an integrated product offered by that ISV under BEA's agreement with that
ISV or under BEA's agreement with Sun. The ISV could, however, obtain its
own binary distribution agreement for the JDK from Sun and under that
agreement bundle JDK 1.1 with its value added software solution consisting of
the ISV applications and WebLogic Server 6.0 integrated.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 8-5

8 FAQs: Java

8-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

9 FAQs: J2EE Connector

Architecture

! Why do I get the following exception when viewing the JNDI tree?

! Is it possible to use the Oracle database rather than PointBase with the current
implementation of the WebLogic J2EE Connector Architecture?

! When deploying a resource adapter (.rar) to WebLogic Server, are its classes
placed in the WebLogic classpath?

! Why does WebLogic Server invoke the

ManagedConnection.addConnectionEventListener() function
whenever the sample EJB calls ConnectionFactory.getConnection()
to connect to the EIS?

! Why do I get an exception when I compile my EJB to use a Resource Adapter

that supports CCI?

! The BEA com.bea.adapter.dbms.cci.ConnectionImpl does not directly implement

javax.resource.cci.Connection. Is there a work-around for this?

Q. Why do I get the following exception when viewing the JNDI tree?
isSerializable(class.javax.naming.Binding)
java.io.NotSerializableException:
java.io.PrintWriter at
java.io.ObjectOutputStream.OutputObject
A. The Weblogic Server JNDI implementation requires objects to be serializable, not
referencable. A PrintWriter cannot be serialized and therefore should be declared
transient.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 9-1

9 FAQs: J2EE Connector Architecture

Q. Is it possible to use the Oracle database rather than PointBase with the current
implementation of the WebLogic J2EE Connector Architecture?
A. The sample provided contains a resource adapter that represents any database
system. By default, configurations are set to use PointBase. In particular, the
configuration properties in the weblogic-ra.xml file set a PointBase datasource.
This can be replaced with Oracle settings.
Also, the resource adapter (in particular the ManagedConnectionFactory) must be
implemented to support Oracle. The resource adapter provided in this sample makes
use of the JDBC and therefore can support any database system which the resource
adapter is configured to represent.

Q. When deploying a resource adapter (.rar) to WebLogic Server, are its classes
placed in the WebLogic classpath?
For instance, I am deploying an EJB and a resource adapter (.rar), the EJB has no
dependencies on the .rar because the EJB is writing to the common client interface
(CCI). The EJB client application has sends/marshals as parameter classes that are
defined in the .rar. For some reason the EJB's class loader hierarchy cannot find the
definition of this .rar-specific class, even though the .rar is deploying successfully.
I receive the following error on the EJB client:
java.rmi.UnmarshalException: error unmarshalling arguments; nested
exception
is:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException:
com.mycompany.InteractionSpecImpl
A. When you pass an instance of
com.myclientcompany.server.eai.InteractionSpecImpl as an argument to
yourEJB,the appServer needstode-serialize(unmarshal)theobject undertheEJB
context, and it needs the required class for unmarshalling, inside the
ejb-jar(raTester.jar). So if you include the interactionspecimpl class in
your ejb-jar file, then you do not need to include those classes in your server's
classpath.

Q. Why does WebLogic Server invoke the

ManagedConnection.addConnectionEventListener() function whenever the
sample EJB calls ConnectionFactory.getConnection() to connect to the EIS?
A. This is a requirement and is part of the contract between the Resource Adapter and
the application server.

9-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Why do I get an exception when I compile my EJB to use a Resource Adapter that
supports CCI?
I specify javax.resource.cci.ConnectionFactory in the resource-ref but I
get the following exception when I attempt to compile my EJB:
weblogic.xml.process.SAXValidationException:
ejb-jar.enterprise-beans.session.resource-ref.res-type.
must be one of the values:
javax.sql.DataSource,javax.jms.QueueConnectionFactory,
javax.jms.TopicConnectionFactory,
java.net.URL,
javax.mail.Session
at
weblogic.ejb20.dd.xml.EjbJarLoader_EJB11.__post_84
A. Make sure your ejb-jar.xml is referencing the EJB2.0 DTD instead of the
EJB1.1 DTD. The ConnectionFactory resource ref is only supported in the EJB
2.0 DTD.

Q. The BEA com.bea.adapter.dbms.cci.ConnectionImpl does not directly implement

javax.resource.cci.Connection. Is there a work-around for this?
A. Yes. The BEA com.bea.adapter.dbms.cci.ConnectionImpl extends
com.bea.adapter.cci.AbstractConnection; this in turn implements the
Connection interface. The Proxy is constructed using the interfaces from the
most-derived class (ConnectionImpl). The dumpFamilyTree printout shows that the
getInterfaces call on the ConnectionImpl class does NOT include the Connection
interface. However, the getInterfaces call on AbstractConnection does include
the Connection interface.
The work-around is that the ConnectionImpl class must directly implement the
interface class specified in the ra.xml file. (This might be a redundant statement in the
code, particularly if it extends a class that has already implemented the class.) Then
rebuild the adapter and try your test again.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 9-3

9 FAQs: J2EE Connector Architecture

9-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

10 FAQs: WebLogic JDBC

! When should I use a TxDataSource instead of a DataSource?

! When should I use MultiPools?

! How can I tell if a database is unavailable?

Q. When should I use a TxDataSource instead of a DataSource?

A. If your applications or environment meet any of the following criteria, you should
use a Tx Data Source instead of a Data Source:
! Uses the Java Transaction API (JTA)

! Uses the EJB container in WebLogic Server to manage transactions

! Includes multiple database updates within a single transaction

! Accesses multiple resources, such as a database and the Java Messaging Service
(JMS), during a transaction

! Uses the same connection pool on multiple servers

With an EJB architecture, it is common for multiple EJBs that are doing database work
to be invoked as part of a single transaction. Without XA, the only way for this to work
is if all transaction participants use the exact same database connection. WebLogic
Server uses the JTS driver and a TxDataSource (with Emulate Two-Phase Commit for
non-XA Driver selected) to do this behind the scenes without requiring you to
explicitly pass the JDBC connection from EJB to EJB. With XA (requires an XA
driver), you can use a Tx Data Source in WebLogic Server for distributed transactions
with two-phase commit so that EJBs can use a different database connections for each
part of the transaction. In either case (with or without XA), you should use a
Tx Data Source.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 10-1

10 FAQs: WebLogic JDBC

Q. When should I use MultiPools?

A. If you are using WebLogic Server in a single-server configuration, you can use
MultiPools in one of two ways 1) for high availability in the event a database
connection fails, or 2) for load balancing MultiPool. Because you can choose only one
option, you need to determine the primary purpose of your MultiPool. For more
information, see Using Multipools in the Configuring and Administering WebLogic
JDBC Features section of Programming WebLogic JDBC at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/jdbc/programming.html.

Q. How can I tell if a database is unavailable?

A. Fundamentally, there is no way to tell if a database has gone down except by trying
to make a connection and failing.
Furthermore, a database can become unavailable at any time after you make and use a
connection. We recommend that you write your code to be able to handle unexpected
failures, which can come in any form depending on what the client is doing when the
database goes down.

WebLogic Server does provide the dbping utility to test the connection between
WebLogic Server and your DBMS using a JDBC driver. See dbping in “Using the
WebLogic Java Utilities” in the Administration Guide.

10-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

11 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver

for MSSQL Server

! Can the Weblogic JDriver for MSSSQL Server connect to the database server
using a trusted connection on NT/WIN2K?

! How do I connect to an SQL Server instance that is running on a machine with

multiple instances of SQL Server 2000?

Q. Can the Weblogic JDriver for MSSSQL Server connect to the database server using
a trusted connection on NT/WIN2K?
A. Our driver doesn't support trusted connections.

Q. How do I connect to an SQL Server instance that is running on a machine with

multiple instances of SQL Server 2000?
A. Each instance of MS SQL Server must be listening on a different port. So, you can
use the port number in the properties that you pass to the getConnection() method
or, in case of connection pools, you can specify the port property in the following
properties:
server=machineName
port=instancePort

To find the port number where each MS SQL Server instance is running, run the server
network utility (in the Microsoft SQL Server program group), select the server
instance, select TCP/IP, and click the properties button.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 11-1

11 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for MSSQL Server

11-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

12 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver

for Oracle

! Why does FOR UPDATE in Oracle 8 cause an ORA-01002 error?

! What causes an OCIW32.dll error?

! What transaction isolation levels does the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle support?

! How do I use Unicode codesets with the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle driver?

! How do I use OS Authentication with WebLogic jDriver for Oracle and

Connection Pools?

! What type of object is returned by ResultSet.getObject()?

! How do I limit the number of Oracle database connections generated by

WebLogic Server?

! How do I call Oracle stored procedures that take no parameters?

! How do I bind string values in a PreparedStatement?

! Why do I get unexpected characters from 8-bit character sets in WebLogic

jDriver for Oracle?

! How do I learn what codesets are available in Oracle?

! How do I look up an "ORA" SQLException?

! What is error “ORA-6502?”

! Why do I get an error while trying to retrieve the text for ORA-12705?
! Why do I run out of resources during updates with Oracle’s database link?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 12-1

12 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle

! How do I prevent errors when running t3dbping?

! Why do I get error "ORA-03120" when trying to access multi-byte characters

from the CLOB/NCLOB column?

! Why does executing the PreparedStatement class cause a "TRUNC fails:

ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes" error?

Q. Why does FOR UPDATE in Oracle 8 cause an ORA-01002 error?

A. The Oracle 8 server generates an ORA-01002:fetch out of sequence
error message when you use a FOR UPDATE statement with AUTOCOMMIT turned
on (which is the default state when using JDBC). This is known to happen on Oracle
8.0 and 8.1 on Solaris and on Oracle 8.1 on Windows NT. If you turn AUTOCOMMIT
off, you will not receive this error. Because this problem is due to a change in the
Oracle 8 server, you should contact Oracle support for more information.

Q. What causes an OCIW32.dll error?

A. You may receive the following error message when using your JDBC driver for
Oracle: "The ordinal 40 could not be loaded in the dynamic link library OCIW32.dll."
This problem is caused by an out-of-date version of OCIW32.DLL in your system
directory. Some programs install this file in the system directory in order to run. If you
remove this file from the system directory you should no longer receive this error.

Q. What transaction isolation levels does the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle support?
A. Your servlet application may use Oracle Thin Drivers to access a database that
includes BLOB fields. If you install and try to use WebLogic jDriver for Oracle and
the same code fails and produces an exception similar to the following:

com.roguewave.jdbtools.v2_0.LoginFailureException:
TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED isolation level not allowed
The Stack Trace:
com.roguewave.jdbtools.v2_0.LoginFailureException:
TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED isolation level not allowed
at
com.roguewave.jdbtools.v2_0.jdbc.JDBCServer.createConnection
(JDBCServer.java :46)
at com.roguewave.jdbtools.v2_0.ConnectionPool.getConnection_
(ConnectionPool.jav a:412)
at com.roguewave.jdbtools.v2_0.ConnectionPool.getConnection
(ConnectionPool.java :109)

12-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Setting the Isolation_level to 1 in the code that calls the RogueWave JDBCServer
class works with the Oracle thin driver but fails with WebLogic jDriver for Oracle.

WebLogic jDriver for Oracle supports the following transaction isolation levels:

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE

According to the Oracle documentation, the Oracle DBMS only supports these two
isolation levels. Unlike other JDBC drivers, WebLogic’s drivers throw an exception if
you try to use an isolation level that is unsupported. Some drivers silently ignore
attempts to set an unsupported isolation level. WebLogic suggests testing whether the
Oracle thin driver is not just ignoring settings for unsupported isolation events.

Q. How do I use Unicode codesets with the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle driver?
A. To use Unicode codesets:
1. Install the appropriate codeset when you install Oracle. If you did not do this in the
original installation, you will need to re-run the Oracle installer and install the
proper codeset.
2. Define the NLS_LANG variable in the environment where the JDBC driver is
running. Do this by assigning the proper codeset to NLS_LANG in the shell from
where you start the WebLogic Server.

The Developers Guide has more information about internationalization support. For
general information about Unicode see the Unicode Web site at
http://www.unicode.org. For a list of Unicode language abbreviations, see the JavaSoft
Web site at
http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/guide/internat/encoding.doc.html.

Q. How do I use OS Authentication with WebLogic jDriver for Oracle and

Connection Pools?
A. Using OS authentication in connection pools essentially means that you are using
the UserId of the user who started WebLogic Server. OS authentication is available on
NT and UNIX, but not on Solaris. This means that database security will rely strictly
on the security of WebLogic; that is, if you are allowed to make a client connection to
the WebLogic Server and access the pool, then you can get to the database.
You can do this with WebLogic jDriver for Oracle because Oracle uses the process
owner to determine who is attempting the connection. In the case of WebLogic JDBC,
this is always the user that started the WebLogic Server.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 12-3

12 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle

To set up your Oracle instance to use this feature, your DBA needs to follow these
basic steps. The full procedure is described in more detail in your Oracle
documentation.

1. Add the following line to the INIT[sid].ORA file:

OS_AUTHENT_PREFIX = OPS$
Note that the string “OPS$” is arbitrary and up to the DBA.

2. Log in to the Oracle server as SYSTEM.

3. Create a user named OPS$userid, where userid is some operating system login
ID. This user should be granted the standard privileges (for example, CONNECT
and RESOURCE).

4. Once the userid is set up, you can connect with WebLogic jDriver for Oracle by
specifying “/” as the username property and “” as the password property. Here is
an example for testing this connection with the dbping utility:
$ java utils.dbping ORACLE "/" "" myserver

Here is a code example for WebLogic jDriver for Oracle:

Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("user", "/");
props.put("password", "");
props.put("server", "myserver");

Class.forName("weblogic.jdbc.oci.Driver").newInstance();
Connection conn = myDriver.connect("jdbc:weblogic:oracle",
props);

5. Use the Administration Console to set the attribute for your connection pool. The
following code is an example of a JDBC connection pool configuration using the
WebLogic jDriver for Oracle:
<JDBCConnectionPool
Name="myPool"
Targets="myserver,server1"
DriverName="weblogic.jdbc.oci.Driver"
InitialCapacity="1"

MaxCapacity="10"
CapacityIncrement="2"
Properties="databaseName=myOracleDB"

12-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What type of object is returned by ResultSet.getObject()?
A. WebLogic jDriver for Oracle always returns a Java object that preserves the
precision of the data retrieved. WebLogic jDriver for Oracle returns the following from
the getObject() method:
! For columns of types NUMBER(n) and NUMBER(m,n): a Double is returned if
the defined precision of the column can be represented by a Double; otherwise
BigDecimal is returned.

! For columns of type NUMBER: Because there is no explicit precision, the Java
type to return is determined based on the actual value in each row, and this may
vary from row to row. An Integer is returned if the value has a zero-valued
fractional component and the value can be represented by an integer.

For example, 1.0000 will be an integer. A long is returned for a value such as
123456789123.00000. If a value has a non-zero fractional component, a Double is
returned if the precision of the value can be represented by a Double; otherwise a
BigDecimal is returned.

Q. How do I limit the number of Oracle database connections generated by WebLogic

Server?
A. You can use connection pools to limit the number of Oracle database connections
generated by WebLogic Server in response to client requests. Connection pools allow
T3 applications to share a fixed number of database connections. For information on
how to set up connection pools, see Programming WebLogic JDBC at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/jdbc.html.

Q. How do I call Oracle stored procedures that take no parameters?

A. Here is what we use that works:
CallableStatement cstmt = conn.prepareCall("Begin procName;
END;");
cstmt.execute();

where procName is the name of an Oracle stored procedure. This is standard Oracle
SQL syntax that works with any Oracle DBMS. You might also use the following
syntax:
CallableStatement cstmt = conn.prepareCall("{call procName};");
cstmt.execute();

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 12-5

12 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle

This code, which conforms to the Java Extended SQL spec, will work with any DBMS,
not just Oracle.

Q. How do I bind string values in a PreparedStatement?

A. Suppose you are trying to get the PreparedStatement class to bind Strings in a
statement. The setString() method doesn’t seem to work. Here is how you have set
up the PreparedStatement:
String pstmt = "select n_name from n_table where n_name LIKE
'?%'";
PreparedStatement ps = conn.prepareStatement(pstmt);
ps.setString(1, "SMIT");
ResultSet rs = ps.executeQuery();

The preceding code does not work because the complete value needs to be specified in
a String (without using embedded quotes) and then bound to an unquoted
question-mark (?). Here is the corrected code:
String matchvalue = "smit%";
String pstmt = "select n_name from n_table where n_name LIKE ?";
PreparedStatement ps = conn.prepareStatement(pstmt);

ps.setString(1, matchvalue);
ResultSet rs = ps.executeQuery();

Q. Why do I get unexpected characters from 8-bit character sets in WebLogic jDriver
for Oracle?
A. If you are using an Oracle database with an 8-bit character set on Solaris, make
sure you set NLS_LANG to the proper value on the client. If NLS_LANG is unset, it
defaults to a 7-bit ASCII character set, and tries to map characters greater than ASCII
128 to a reasonable approximation (for example, &aacute;, &agrave;, &acirc; would
all map to a). Other characters are mapped to a question mark (?).

Q. How do I learn what codesets are available in Oracle?

A. To find out what codesets you currently have available in Oracle, execute the
following SQL query from SQLPlus at the command line:
SQL> SELECT value FROM v$nls_valid_values
WHERE parameter='CHARACTERSET';

The response lists of all codesets currently installed on your system. This listing will
look something like the following shortened list:

12-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 VALUE
-----------------------------------------------------------
US7ASCII
WE8DEC
WE8HP
US8PC437
WE8EBCDIC37
WE8EBCDIC500
WE8EBCDIC285
...

If you want to constrain the value in the query to a specific codeset you are searching
for, you might use a SQL query like the following:
SQL> SELECT value FROM v$nls_valid_values
WHERE parameter='CHARACTERSET' and VALUE='AL24UTFFSS';

This would produce the following response if the codeset is installed:

VALUE
-------------------------------------------------------------
AL24UTFFSS

You can use Oracle’s installation tools to install additional codesets. Contact Oracle at
http://www.oracle.com/ for more information.

Q. How do I look up an "ORA" SQLException?

A. If your WebLogic jDriver for Oracle application produces an SQLException such
as:
java.sql.SQLException: ORA-12536: TNS: operation would block

You can look up an Oracle error by using the oerr command. For example, the
description of error ORA-12536 can be found with the command:
> oerr ora 12536

Q. What is error “ORA-6502?”

A. The default length of a string bound to an OUTPUT parameter of a
CallableStatement is 128 characters. If the value you assign to the bound parameter
exceeds that length, you will get this error.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 12-7

12 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle

You can adjust the length of the value of the bound parameter by passing an explicit
length with the scale argument to the
CallableStatement.registerOutputParameter() method.

Q. Why do I get an error while trying to retrieve the text for ORA-12705?
A. This error occurs when you have not set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable
properly — a common mistake. In order to use WebLogic jDriver for Oracle, the
Oracle client software needs to be installed and ORACLE_HOME must be set.
You may also see this error message if you try to use WebLogic jDriver for Oracle’s
internationalization capabilities with a language/codeset combination that is not
installed on your system. If you get the ORA-12705 error with the correct error text,
then either you have set NLS_LANG improperly, or you do not have the right codesets
installed on your system.

Q. Why do I run out of resources during updates with Oracle’s database link?
A. When you use Oracle’s database link to update your database, you may get error
“maximum number of temporary table locks exceeded” even if you close your result
sets and statements when you finish.
The database link is an object in the local database that allows you to access tables,
views, and such in a remote database. The database link is controlled by the Oracle
server, so the driver has no control over its use of resources. The link appears to
perform the commit (since other processes could see the records that were being
created), but it doesn’t free any resources until the connection is closed. The solution
is to remove the database link and use the JDBC driver to do your selects, inserts, and
updates.

Q. How do I prevent errors when running t3dbping?

A. When you are testing your Oracle database connections under UNIX, you can run
SQL*PLUS and can successfully ping the database using utils.dbping. However,
when you use the multitier utils.t3dbping utility, you receive an ORA-12154 error
message.
First, make sure that your ORACLE_HOME environment variable is correctly set to
point to your Oracle installation. This variable must be set in the environment where
the WebLogic server is running.

In the C-shell issue the following command:

12-8 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 $ setenv ORACLE_HOME path

where path is the path to your Oracle installation.

In the Bourne shell, issue the following commands:

$ ORACLE_HOME=path
$ export ORACLE_HOME

where path is the path to your Oracle installation. When you ping your database using
the two-tier utils.dbping utility, the JDBC driver loads the database client library
and establishes the connection to the database. When you use the multitier
utils.t3dbping utility, the WebLogic Server loads a two-tier driver and uses it to
establish a database connection. In both cases, the same method is used to connect to
the database. SQL*PLUS works because it doesn’t require ORACLE_HOME to find
the client libraries.

If you are still experiencing problems, try this:

1. Open a command shell.

2. Run the two-tier version of utils.dbping in this shell.

3. Start WebLogic in this shell from the command line:

$ java -ms32m -mx32m weblogic.server

4. Open a second command shell.

5. Run the utils.t3dbping in the second shell against the server running in the
first command shell.
If this procedure doesn’t work, please send the output from these commands to
WebLogic technical support.

Q. Why do I get error "ORA-03120" when trying to access multi-byte characters from
the CLOB/NCLOB column?
A. Accessing exceeded characters would result in ORA-03120 error when getting the
length of the clob from the CLOB/NCLOB column returns a bigger value than the
actual length from the OCI layer. Using Oracle 8.1.6.3 solves this problem.

Q. Why does executing the PreparedStatement class cause a "TRUNC fails:

ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes" error?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 12-9

12 FAQs: WebLogic jDriver for Oracle

A. According to Oracle Metalink Bug Database Doc ID: 144784.1, in the absence of
explicit data typecasting, OCI assumes that a bind variable is a CHAR data type. If the
SQL statement intends to use the bind variable as a DATE data type, but OCI thought
it was a CHAR, the SQL parser will have a conflict in data types. The fix is to explicitly
use data conversion functions to convert the bind variables in the problem queries. For
example, a select string of
String st = "select count(*) from simple_table where
TRUNC(mydate) = TRUNC(?)";

should be changed to:

String st = "select count(*) from simple_table where
TRUNC(mydate) = TRUNC(TO_DATE(?))";

12-10 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

13 FAQs: JMS
The WebLogic JMS Product

! What makes WebLogic JMS unique?

! Which JMS features are new in WebLogic Server 7.0?

! Where can I learn more about WebLogic JMS?

! Are there C/C++ interfaces to WebLogic JMS?

! Is there a smaller version of the weblogic.jar file for supporting clients?

Configuration

! How do I start WebLogic Server and configure JMS?

! How do I configure WebLogic JMS security?

! Can I still use the default connection factories supported in WebLogic JMS 5.1?

! Why does JMSSession.createTopic or JMSSession.createQueue fail to create a

destination in WebLogic JMS 7.0? (It worked in version 5.1?)

! How do I programmatically get a list of Queues or Topics?

! How do I use a temporary destination?

! How do I use MBeans to print runtime statistics?

! Can two JMS servers share the same persistent store?

Persistent Stores
! Which types of JDBC databases does WebLogic JMS support?

! How do I use a third-party JDBC driver with WebLogic JMS?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-1

13 FAQs: JMS

! What if my JDBC database becomes corrupt?

! How do I use persistence?

! How does a file store compare with a JDBC store?

Administration

! How do the JMS server/destination message maximum and threshold values

work?

! How do I configure JDBC so that the JMS JDBC Store recovers automatically?

! What is the value of WebLogic JMS clustering in version 7.0?

! How can I control on which WebLogic Server(s) my application will run?

! How do I perform a manual fail-over?

! Does the WebLogic JMS server find out about closed or lost connections,
crashes, and other problems and does it recover from them?

! Do I need to use the WLS T3 protocol?

! How do I do HTTP tunneling?

! Does WebLogic JMS support SSL?

! How do I integrate non-WebLogic JMS providers with WLS?

Transaction Support

! How do two-phase or global transactions relate to WebLogic JMS?

! Why is my WebLogic JMS work not part of a user transaction (i.e., called within
a transaction but not rolled back appropriately)? How do I track down
transaction problems?

! How can an application do a JMS operation and have it succeed, independent of

the result of the transaction?

! What happens if acknowledge() is called within a transaction?

! Why do I get an error when using a non-transacted TopicSession from a

transaction-required EJB?

13-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

! Can I use a one-phase commit if my WebLogic JMS JDBC store is on the same
database for which I am doing other database work?

! How do I integrate an XAResource with WLS to get JTA transactions with

another resource manager?

! Why do I get an exception when I start up WebLogic JMS using an XA driver or

with a TX data source?

! Is WL JMS XAResource compliant?

! Why can't I receive a message that I send within a container-managed
transaction?

! What happens to a message that is rolled back or recovered?

JMS Programming Practices

! Is it possible to set aside a message and acknowledge it later?

! How should I use sorted queues?

! How does sorting on message priority work?

! How do I deal with a listener that doesn't keep up with messages being sent?

! How do I get a thread dump to help track down a problem?

! Do client identifiers need to be unique?

! Are messages passed by copy/value or reference?

! How do I manage a queue to view and delete specific messages?

! How do I close a queue so that the messages will not be reloaded at the next
server startup?

! Why does an Object Message print as null after it is received?

! In what order are messages delivered to a consumer?

! Why do I get an exception when trying to find a connection factory?

! Why should I avoid using message selectors?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-3

13 FAQs: JMS

! Is it possible to have multiple queue receivers listening on the same queue, using
message selectors (typically filtering on a correlation ID) to determine which
listener actually receives the message?

! Is there a way to make a queue such that if one application has one object as
listener on that queue, no other application can listen to the messages on that
queue?

! Why doesn't setting values work using javax.jms.Message.setJMSPriority,

DeliveryMode, Destination, TimeStamp or Expiration?

! What care must be taken when multi-threading WebLogic JMS clients?

! How should an application be set up to subscribe to multiple topics?

! How should I use blocking and asynchronous receive() calls?

! What precautions should I take when I use blocking receive() calls?

! What is the NO_ACKNOWLEDGE acknowledge mode used for?

! When should I use multicast subscribers?

! When should I use server session pools and connection consumers?

! How do I issue the close() method within an onMessage() method call and what
are the semantics of the close() method?

! How do I publish an XML message?

! How do I use WebLogic JMS in an applet?

! How do I use a startup class to initialize and later reference WebLogic JMS
objects?

! Is it possible to send or receive a message from within a message listener?

! How do I create a producer pool?

! What are pending messages in the console?

! How do I use a less than or greater than on a message selector in ejb-jar.xml?

! Is it better to have more or fewer sessions for a given number of subscribers?

! Are foreign destinations handled within foreign JMS messages?

13-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

! What is the standard way to create threads, do initialization, etc. within the
application server?

! Why do I get a JNDI problem when I name a Topic A.B and a second Topic
A.B.C?

! How many messages are sent across the network for processing topic messages?

! What should an XPATH selector look like?

! How do I handle request/response using WebLogic JMS?

! How do I put a message back on the queue for processing?

! Is it okay to add new sessions and subscribers to a Queue or Topic Connection

once it has been started?

! What can I do when I get java.lang.OutOfMemoryError because producers are

faster than consumers?

! Why have different connection factories?

! How should connections and sessions be allocated?

! How does an application know if an application server goes down?

! Is there a way to dynamically change an existing selector for a TopicConsumer

using setMessageSelect(String s)?

! How can I avoid asynchronous message deadlocks?

Message-Driven Beans

! What are the advantages of message-driven beans?

! How does concurrency work for message-driven beans?

! Can an MDB be a message producer or both a producer and consumer?

! If an MDB uses a durable subscription, will messages be accumulated if the

MDB is not deployed?

! How do I use non-WebLogic JMS provider destinations to drive MDBs?

! Can you use a foreign JMS provider to drive an MDB transactionally?

! How do I use JTA transactions within an MDB?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-5

13 FAQs: JMS

! How do server session pools and message driven beans compare?

Q. What makes WebLogic JMS unique?

A. The following features make WebLogic JMS unique:
! Strict adherence to the Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification.

! Solid reliability, scalability, and performance.

! Integration with the application server, WebLogic Server.

! Clustering support (two-tier or three-tier). In this case, the destination location is

transparent to client.

! In a clustered environment, configuration of multiple physical destinations as

members of a single distributed destination set.

! By using distributed destinations, WebLogic JMS can also spread or balance the
messaging load across multiple physical destinations.

! Two-phase transactions allowing interoperability between JMS applications and

other resource managers (primarily databases). JMS applications can participate
in transactions with other Java APIs that use Java Transaction API (JTA).

! File-based or JDBC-based persistent message storage.

! Message driven beans.

! Multicasting support allowing the delivery of messages to a select group of hosts

using an IP multicast address.

! NO_ACKNOWLEDGE acknowledge mode.

! Extensible Markup Language (XML) messages.

! Optional message quotas on a server or destination basis.

! Multiple queue sorting options.

! Message flow control options for instructing producers to limit their message
flow.

! Message paging options for swapping out messages from virtual memory to
persistent storage when message loads reach a specified threshold.

13-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

! Messaging bridge for transferring messages between any two JMS providers—
including separate implementations of WebLogic JMS.

! Dependable customer support.

Q. Which JMS features are new in WebLogic Server 7.0?

A. The following features are new in version 7.0.
! High Availability Enhancement – WebLogic JMS takes advantage of the
migration framework implemented in the WebLogic Server core for clustered
environments. This allows WebLogic JMS to properly respond to migration
requests and bring a JMS server online and offline in an orderly fashion. This
includes both scheduled migrations as well as migrations in response to a
WebLogic Server failure.
For more information, see “Managing JMS” in the Programming WebLogic JMS
guide.

! Distributed Destinations within WebLogic Clusters – The highly available

implementation of WebLogic JMS offers a level of service continuity in the
event of a single server failure by enabling you to configure multiple physical
destinations as members of a single distributed destination set. Specifically, an
administrator can configure multiple instances of a given destination within a
cluster. If one instance within the cluster fails, then other instances of the same
destination will be able to provide service to JMS producers and consumers.
For more information, see “Developing a WebLogic JMS Application” in
Programming WebLogic JMS and “Managing JMS” in the Administration
Guide.

! Flow Control – Using the Flow Control feature, you can enable a JMS server or
destination to slow down message producers when it determines that it is
becoming overloaded. Specifically, when a JMS server/destination exceeds its
specified bytes or messages thresholds, it instructs producers to limit their
message flow.
For more information, see “Managing JMS” in the Administration Guide.

! Messaging Bridge – A messaging bridge (also known as a JMS bridge) is

responsible for transferring messages between two JMS providers. The
WebLogic Messaging Bridge feature allows you to configure a store and
forward mechanism between any two messaging providers—including separate
implementations of WebLogic JMS.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-7

13 FAQs: JMS

For more information, see “Using the WebLogic Messaging Bridge” in the
Administration Guide.

! Message Paging – Made available in version 6.1 Service Pack 2, this feature can
free up valuable virtual memory during peak message load periods by swapping
out messages from virtual memory to persistent storage when message loads
reach a specified threshold. From a performance perspective, this feature can
greatly benefit WebLogic Server implementations with the large message spaces
that are required by today's enterprise applications.
For more information, see “Managing JMS” in the Administration Guide.

! Message-Driven Beans – In WebLogic Server 7.0, you can deploy an MDB that
supports container-managed transactions against a foreign JMS provider. See the
white paper, “Using Foreign JMS Providers with WebLogic Server”
(jmsproviders.pdf) on
http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers.jsp?highlight=whitepapers
for an example of how to configure an MDB to use a foreign provider.

Q. Where can I learn more about WebLogic JMS?

The following links provide more information about WebLogic JMS:

Programming WebLogic JMS

“Managing JMS” in the Administration Guide

Sun Microsystems’ JMS Specification

BEA’s dev2dev web site

Ask BEA

The WebLogic JMS “weblogic.developer.interest.jms” newsgroup available on the

BEA Newsgroup server.

Q. Are there C/C++ interfaces to WebLogic JMS?

A. No, this is not supported.
! Write your own interfaces using JNI.

13-8 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

! Setup a Servlet that your C/C++ client calls to generate a JMS message. You
should spawn multiple threads in C++ and use multiple posts to pass messages
via http.

Q. Is there a smaller version of the weblogic.jar file for supporting clients?

A. The “WebLogic Thin Client” whitepaper (WebLogicThinClient.zip) on on
http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers.jsp?highlight=whitepapers
describes the current options for building thin client applications with WebLogic
Server.
There is also a discussion about how to generate your own slimmed down version of
weblogic.jar in news://newsgroups.bea.com/3ad4ad17@newsgroups.bea.com.

Q. How do I start WebLogic Server and configure JMS?

A. Refer to “Managing JMS” in the Administration Guide for detailed instructions on
starting WebLogic Server, accessing the Administration Console, and configuring
Weblogic JMS.

Q. How do I configure WebLogic JMS security?

A. In previous releases of WebLogic Server, ACLs were used to protect WebLogic
resources. In WebLogic Server version 7.0, security policies answer the question "who
has access" to a WebLogic resource. A security policy is created when you define an
association between a WebLogic resource and a user, group, or role. A WebLogic
resource has no protection until you assign it a security policy.
For instructions on how to set up security for all WebLogic Server resources, see
“Setting Protections for WebLogic Resources” in the Administration Console Online
Help.

Q. Can I still use the default connection factories supported in WebLogic JMS 5.1?
A. Yes. For detailed information about using 5.1 connection factories in later versions
of WebLogic JMS, see “Porting WebLogic JMS Applications” in Programming
WebLogic JMS.

Q. Why does JMSSession.createTopic or JMSSession.createQueue fail to create a

destination in WebLogic JMS 7.0? (It worked in version 5.1?)
A. For a detailed explanation of this issue, refer to the “JMS FAQ” in the version 6.1
Frequently Asked Questions.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-9

13 FAQs: JMS

Q. How do I programmatically get a list of Queues or Topics?

A. The following program uses MBeans:
import weblogic.management.*;
import weblogic.management.configuration.*;

InitialContext ic = new InitialContext();

MBeanHome home = (MBeanHome)ic.lookup(MBeanHome.ADMIN_JNDI_NAME);

for(Iterator i = o.getMBeansByType("JMSTopic").iterator();
i.hasNext(); ){
WebLogicMBean wmb = (WebLogicMBean)i.next();
System.out.println("topic name found: " + wmb.getName());
}

for(Iterator i = o.getMBeansByType("JMSQueue").iterator();
i.hasNext(); ){
WebLogicMBean wmb = (WebLogicMBean)i.next();
System.out.println("queue name found: " + wmb.getName());
}

Q. How do I use a temporary destination?

A. You must create a template on every JMSServer where you want to be able to
create temporary destinations. You can specify multiple JMSServer entries to support
Temporary Template and the system will load balance among those JMSServers to
setup the temporary destination. See How do I start WLS and configure JMS? for a
description about how to configure JMS. The resulting template definition looks
something like the following:
<JMSTemplate Name="MyTemplate"/>

The JMSServer is defined something like:

<JMSServer Name="MyJMSServer" TemporaryTemplate="MyTemplate"
Targets="MyServer" >

After the template name, you can set any queue/topic attribute you want in the template
(not including a JNDI name or topic multicast settings). The template is at the outer
most level; that is, it should not be nested in your <JMSServer>.

Temporary destinations can only be consumed by the creating connection. Using

topics, you create your temporary topic and subscribe to that temporary topic. If you
want someone to publish to that temporary topic, you need to tell that someone what

13-10 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

your topic is. You can send them a message and include your temporary topic in the
JMSReplyTo field. The creator of the TemporaryTopic and the subscriber must be one
in the same.
import javax.jms.TopicSession;
TemporaryTopic myTopic = mySession.createTemporaryTopic();
TopicSubscriber = mySession.createSubscriber(myTopic);

Temporary topics do not get names and cannot be subscribed to by other connections.
When you create a temporary topic, the JMS provider returns a javax.jms.Topic.
You then need to advertise that topic to other parties (those who want to publish to the
topic), putting it in your JMSReplyTo field so that they can respond. In general, no one
else can subscribe to the topic. You advertise the topic any way you want. Topics are
Serializable (or, in our case, Externalizable), which allows you to pass them around in
RMI calls, through a file, binding it to a name in JNDI, etc. In short, create the topic at
the subscriber side and advertise so that others can publish. You can get multiple
subscribers on the same connection and get concurrent processing using multiple
sessions.

Q. How do I use MBeans to print runtime statistics?

A. Newsgroup article
news://newsgroups.bea.com/3B3B77A9.CDCE3954@not.my.address.com contains a
program to print JMS statistics based on runtime MBeans.

Q. Can two JMS servers share the same persistent store?

A. No. Each JMS server must have its own unique persistent store. Two file-based
JMS persistent stores may share the same directory, but their messages will be stored
in different files. In this case, the filenames will contain different prefixes.
Two JDBC-based JMS persistent stores may share the same database, but they must
be configured to use a different Prefix Name which will be prepended to the database
tables. For more information on configuring the JDBC Prefix Name, see "JMS JDBC
Stores" in the Administration Console Online Help. If they are configured with the
same Prefix Name, persistent messages will be corrupted and/or lost.

Q. Which types of JDBC databases does WebLogic JMS support?

A. The JMS database can be any database that is accessible through a JDBC driver.
WebLogic JMS detects some drivers for the following databases:
! Pointbase

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-11

13 FAQs: JMS

! Microsoft SQL (MSSQL) Server

! Oracle

! Sybase
! Cloudscape

! Informix

! IBM DB2

! Times Ten

The weblogic/jms/ddl directory within the weblogic.jar file contains JMS DDL
files for these databases, which are actually text files containing the SQL commands
that create the JMS database tables.

Q. How do I use a third-party JDBC driver with WebLogic JMS?

If your JDBC driver is not included in the list of drivers in the question about JDBC
databases supported by WebLogic JMS, then the tables required by JMS must be
created manually.

Note: WebLogic Server only guarantees support for the JDBC drivers included in
the previous list. Support for any other JDBC driver is not guaranteed.

The .ddl files located in the weblogic/jms/ddl directory of the weblogic.jar file
may be used as templates. Use the jar utility supplied with the JDK to extract them to
the weblogic/jms/ddl directory using the following command:
jar xf weblogic.jar weblogic/jms/ddl

Note: If you omit the second parameter (weblogic/jms/ddl), the entire jar file is
extracted.

Follow the procedures in JDBC Database Utility in Programming WebLogic JMS to

manually create the database tables for the JDBC store.

Another option is to consider using a file store instead of a JDBC store. File stores are
easier to configure and may provide significantly better performance.

Q. What if my JDBC database becomes corrupt?

13-12 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

The procedures for removing and regenerating the JDBC store tables or creating the
database tables manually are described in detail in JDBC Database Utility in
Programming WebLogic JMS.

Q. How do I use persistence?

A. Use the following guidelines:
1. Make sure the JMSServer you are using has a store configured. The JMSServer
configuration entry in the config.xml file should contain a line of the form
Store="<YOUR-STORE-NAME>"
Note that if JMS boots without a store configured, it is assumed the customer did
not want one, and persistent messages are silently downgraded to non-persistent
(as specified for JMS 1.0.2b).

2. Make sure you are not using "Message.setJMSDeliveryMode". This is

overwritten, as it is a vendor-only method.

3. Make sure you are calling either:

QueueSender.send(msg, deliveryMode, ...)
-- or --
QueueSender.setDeliveryMode(deliveryMode)
-- or --
set DefaultDeliveryMode mode on connection factory in the config.xml file
to persistent (the QueueSender.setDeliver/send overrides this value).
Similarly, for topics, you would set this via the TopicPublisher.

4. Make sure you don't have "DeliveryModeOverride" set to Non-Persistent on the

Destination in the config.xml file.

5. If you are using pub/sub, only durable subscriptions persist messages.

Non-durable subscriptions have no need to persist messages, as by definition they
only exist for the life of the server.

6. If you are using JDBC, the JDBC tables, JMSSTATE and JMSSTORE, are
created automatically when the JMS server boots. The DDL files used to create
the tables are stored in weblogic.jar in weblogic/jms/ddl. The example
configuration below shows a JDBC store for Oracle (refer to the Certifications
page at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/certifications/certifications/overvie

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-13

13 FAQs: JMS

w.html for the latest Oracle certification information). To manually create the
tables (also deleting any existing tables), run java utils.Schema as described in
the previous question.

See the question, "How do I start WLS and configure JMS?" for a description of how
to configure JMS.

Here is a sample config.xml file resulting from configuring JMS. It should look
similar to yours. If you want JMS to use a file store instead of a database, just change
JDBCStore to FileStore in the JMSServer section.

<Server Name="myserver"
ListenPort="7001" DefaultProtocol="t3"
ThreadPoolSize="8" >
</Server>
<Security Realm="defaultRealm"
GuestDisabled="false" />
<Realm Name="defaultRealm"
FileRealm="defaultFileRealm" />
<FileRealm Name="defaultFileRealm"
/>
<JMSServer Name="TestJMSServer"
TemporaryTemplate="TestTemplate1"
Targets="myserver" Store="JDBCStore">
<JMSQueue Name="TestQueue1"
JNDIName="jms.queue.TestQueue1"
Template="TestTemplate1"
/>
</JMSServer>
<JMSTemplate Name="TestTemplate1"
/>
<JMSFileStore Name="FileStore"
Directory="myfilestore"
JMSServer="TestJMSServer"
/>
<JMSJDBCStore Name="JDBCStore"
ConnectionPool="testpool2"
JMSServer="TestJMSServer"
/>
<JDBCConnectionPool Name="testpool2"
Targets="myserver"
URL="jdbc:weblogic:oracle"
DriverName="weblogic.jdbc.oci.Driver"
InitialCapacity="0"
MaxCapacity="1"
CapacityIncrement="1"
Properties="user=SCOTT;password=tiger;server=bay816"

13-14 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

/>
</Domain>

The following is a sample class that sends a Topic message on construction:

import javax.naming.*;
import javax.jms.*;
import java.util.Hashtable;

public class t

{
public final static String DESTINATION="jms.topic.TestTopic1";

private TopicConnectionFactory connectionFactory;

private TopicConnection connection;
private TopicSession session;
private TopicPublisher producer;
private TextMessage message;
private Topic destination;

public t()
{
try {
Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
"weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory");
env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, "t3://localhost:7001");
InitialContext ctx = new InitialContext(env);
destination = (Topic) ctx.lookup(DESTINATION);
connectionFactory = (TopicConnectionFactory)
ctx.lookup("javax.jms.TopicConnectionFactory");

connection = (TopicConnection)
connectionFactory.createTopicConnection();
session = (TopicSession) connection.createTopicSession(false,
Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE);

producer = (TopicPublisher) session.createPublisher(destination);

producer.setDeliveryMode(DeliveryMode.PERSISTENT);
message = (TextMessage) session.createTextMessage();
message.setText("hello world");
producer.publish(message);
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}
}

Q. How does a file store compare with a JDBC store?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-15

13 FAQs: JMS

A. The following are some similarities and differences between file stores and JDBC
stores:
! Both have the same transaction semantics, including rolling back transactions
(e.g., received messages are put back on the queue).

! Both have the same application interface (no difference in application code).

! The file store should be much faster.

! JDBC may make it easier to handle failure recovery since the JDBC interface
can access the database from any client machine; with the file store, the disk
must be shared or migrated.

! File store reliability is limited to reliability of disk and O/S; run it on Veritas or a
RAID 5 system. Database reliability may be higher.

! File stores will require more memory, but perhaps not significantly more; it
depends on how fragmented the file store gets, if the application works roughly

! FIFO it shouldn't get very fragmented at all.

! File stores generate no additional network traffic, database stores do if the

database server is on a different JVM or machine.

Q. How do the JMS server/destination message maximum and threshold values work?
A. The byte and message maximum values are quotas - not flow control. Message
quotas prevent a WebLogic JMS server from filling up with messages and possibly
running out of memory, causing unexpected results. When you reach your quota, JMS
prevents further sends with a ResourceAllocationException (rather than
blocking). You can set quotas on individual destinations or on a server as a whole.
The thresholds are also not flow control - though they would be better suited to that
application than the quotas. The thresholds are simply settings that when exceeded
cause a message to be logged to the console to let you know that you are falling behind.

Note: WebLogic JMS 7.0 has a flow control feature that enables a JMS server or
destination to slow down message producers when it is becoming overloaded.
Specifically, when a JMS server/destination exceeds its specified bytes or
messages thresholds, it instructs producers to limit their message flow. For
more information, see “Managing JMS” in the Administration Guide.

13-16 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Note that the messages maximum setting on a connection factory is not a quota. This
specifies the maximum numbers of outstanding messages that can exist after they have
been pushed from the server but before an asynchronous consumer has seen them; it
defaults to a value of 10.

Q. How do I configure JDBC so that the JMS JDBC Store recovers automatically?
A. If you are using a JDBC store when the DBMS goes down and then comes back
online, JMS cannot access the store until WebLogic Server is shut down and restarted.
To work around this problem, configure the following attributes on the JDBC
connection pool associated with the JMSJDBCStore:
TestConnectionsOnReserve="true"\
TestTableName="[[[catalog.]schema.]prefix]JMSState"

Q. What is the value of WebLogic JMS clustering in version 7.0?

A. In version 6.x, you could establish cluster-wide, transparent access to destinations
from any server in the cluster by configuring multiple connection factories and using
targets to assign them to WebLogic Servers, as described in “Managing JMS” in the
Programming WebLogic JMS. Each connection factory can be deployed on multiple
WebLogic Servers. The administrator could configure multiple JMS servers on the
various nodes in the cluster—as long as the servers are uniquely named—and can then
assign destinations to the various JMS servers.
For WebLogic JMS 7.0, the administrator can also configure multiple destinations as
part of a single distributed destination set within a cluster. Producers and consumers
are able to send and receive to the distributed destination. In the event of a single server
failure within the cluster, WebLogic JMS then distributes the load across all available
physical destinations within the distributed destination. For more information, see
“Configuring Distributed Destinations” in the Administration Guide.

WebLogic JMS 7.0 also takes advantage of the migration framework implemented in
the WebLogic Server core for clustered environments. This allows WebLogic JMS to
properly respond to migration requests and bring a JMS server online and offline in an
orderly fashion. This includes both scheduled migrations as well as migrations in
response to a WebLogic Server failure. For more information, see “Managing JMS” in
the Programming WebLogic JMS.

Q. How can I control on which WebLogic Server(s) my application will run?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-17

13 FAQs: JMS

A. A system administrator can specify on which WebLogic Server(s) applications

will run by specifying targets when configuring connection factories. Each connection
factory can be deployed on multiple WebLogic servers.

Note: If you use the default connection factory, you have no control over the
WebLogic Server on which the connection factory may be deployed. If you
would like to target a particular WebLogic Server, create a new connection
factory and specify the appropriate JMS server target(s).

Q. How do I perform a manual fail-over?

A. The procedures for recovering from a WebLogic Server failure, and performing a
manual failover, including programming considerations, are described in detail in
Managing JMS in the Administration Guide.

Q. Does the WebLogic JMS server find out about closed or lost connections, crashes,
and other problems and does it recover from them?
A. Yes, provided the client closes its resources, the network connection fails, or the
JVM it’s in exits, even for multicast pub/sub. It detects losses of "peers" and recovers.

Q. Do I need to use the WLS T3 protocol?

A. J2EE is all about making the interfaces standard. WebLogic's implementation of
the RMI specification uses a proprietary wire-protocol known as T3. Sun’s reference
implementation of RMI uses a proprietary protocol called JRMP. The fact is that
WebLogic developed T3 because they needed a scalable, efficient protocol for
building enterprise-class distributed object systems with Java.
While T3 is specific to WebLogic, your application code does not need to know
anything about T3 so you should not worry about this. Externalize the
"WebLogic-specific strings" (PROVIDER_URL, INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, etc.) to
a properties file (or somewhere) and you can make your code completely portable to
where you only need change these in the properties file to get your code to run on
another J2EE application server.

Q. How do I do HTTP tunneling?

A. If you want to use HTTP tunneling (wrap every message in HTTP to get through
a firewall), you need to add TunnelingEnabled="true" into your <Server>
definition in the config.xml file or check the appropriate box on the console. Then
use a URL like http://localhost:7001 instead of t3://localhost:7001 for
Context.PROVIDER_URL when getting your InitialContext. If you want HTTP

13-18 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

tunneling with SSL, use https://localhost:7002 (where https uses HTTP
tunneling with SSL and 7002 is the secure port that you configured). You will pay a
performance penalty for doing this, so only use tunneling it if you really need to (i.e.,
need to go through a firewall).

Q. Does WebLogic JMS support SSL?

A. Yes, SSL is supported in the WebLogic JMS implementation. It is automatically
used based on using a URL starting with “t3s:” instead of “t3:” when looking up the
initial JNDI context.

Q. How do I integrate non-WebLogic JMS providers with WLS?

A. Refer to the white paper, “Using Foreign JMS Providers with WebLogic Server”
(jmsproviders.pdf) on
http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers.jsp?highlight=whitepapers for a
discussion on integrating MQ Series, IBus MessageServer, Fiorano, and SonicMQ.

Q. How do two-phase or global transactions relate to WebLogic JMS?

A. A two-phase or global transaction allows multiple resource managers (including
EJBs, databases, and JMS servers) to participate in a single transaction.
For example, a client can use a two-phase transaction to send a message from a queue
on one JMS server (server A) to a queue on another JMS server (server B). Each server
has a unique persistent store. When the transaction is committed, the message is made
visible on server B. If the transaction rolls back, the message is put back on the queue
on server A.

Note: If both queues happen to be on the same JMS server, then a one-phase
transaction is used.

Q. Why is my WebLogic JMS work not part of a user transaction (i.e., called within
a transaction but not rolled back appropriately)? How do I track down transaction
problems?
A. Usually this problem is caused by explicitly using a transacted session which
ignores the external, global transaction by design (a JMS specification requirement).
A transacted JMS session always has its own inner transaction. It is not affected by any
transaction context that the caller may have.
It may also be caused by using a connection factory that is configured with
"UserTransactionsEnabled" set to false.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-19

13 FAQs: JMS

1. You can check if the current thread is in a transaction by adding these two import
lines:
import javax.transaction.*
import weblogic.transaction.*;
and adding the following lines (i.e., just after the begin and just before every
operation).
Transaction tran = TxHelper.getTransaction();
System.out.println(tran);
System.out.println(TxHelper.status2String(tran.getStatus()));
This should give a clear idea of when new transactions are starting and when
infection is occurring.

2. Ensure that the thread sending the JMS message is infected with a transaction.
Check that the code is not using a transacted session by setting the first parameter
of createQueueSession or createTopicSession to false. Note that creating the
connection and/or session is orthogonal to the transaction. You can begin your
transaction before or after. You need only start the transaction before you send or
receive messages.

3. Check that the UserTransactionsEnabled flag is explicitly set to true for the
connection factory in the config.xml file since the default for user-configured
connection factories for this value is false. If you are using one of the
pre-configured connection factories they are set as follows:
weblogic.jms.ConnectionFactory disables user transactions so
don't use this one for the case where user transactions are
desired;

javax.jms.QueueConnectionFactory and
javax.jms.TopicConnectionFactory enable user transactions.

4. You can trace JTA operations by starting the server with this additional property:
-Dweblogic.Debug.DebugJMSXA=true
You should see trace statements like these in the log:
XA ! XA(3163720,487900) <RM-isTransactional() ret=true>
This can be used to ensure that JMS is infected with the transaction.

Q. How can an application do a JMS operation and have it succeed, independent of

the result of the transaction?

13-20 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. Basically, the JMS operation must be done using a transacted session or the
transaction must be suspended/disabled as follows (pick one or more of the following).
1. Suspend the current transaction prior to making the JMS call and resume it after
completing it. The code looks something like this:
import javax.transaction.Transaction;
import javax.transaction.TransactionManager;
TransactionManager tranManager=
TxHelper.getTransactionManager();
Transaction saveTx = null;
try {
saveTx = tranManager.suspend();
... do JMS work, it will not participate in transaction
} finally {
// must always resume suspended transactions!
if (saveTx != null) tranManager.resume(saveTx);
}

2. Use a transacted session by specifying true for the first parameter to

createQueueSession or createTopicSession.

3. Use a connection factory with user transactions disabled. That is, check that the
UserTransactionsEnabled flag is explicitly set to false for the connection factory
in the config.xml file or use the default for a user-configured connection factory
for this value which is false. The pre-configured connection factory
weblogic.jms.ConnectionFactory disables user transactions.

A transacted JMS session always has its own inner transaction. It is not affected by any
transaction context that the caller may have. A non-transacted JMS session is more
complicated. If you use the WLS 6.x or later default factory
weblogic.jms.ConnectionFactory, the session does not participate in a user
transaction because the UserTransactionsEnabled flag is set to "False". However,
if you use the deprecated WebLogic 5.1 default
javax.jms.QueueConnectionFactory or
javax.jms.TopicConnectionFactory factories, or you define your own factory
and set the UserTransactionsEnabled flag to "True", the JMS session participates in the
outer transaction, if one exists and the JMS session is not transacted.

Q. What happens if acknowledge() is called within a transaction?

A. As per Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification, when you are in a transaction, the
acknowledgeMode is ignored. If acknowledge() is called within a transaction, it is
ignored.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-21

13 FAQs: JMS

Q. Why do I get an error when using a non-transacted TopicSession from a

transaction-required EJB?
A. Whenever two resources (such as JMS and a database) participate in a transaction,
the transaction becomes two-phase. The database driver you are using is not XA
compatible and can't normally participate in a two-phase transaction. The solution is
to either use an XA compatible driver, or to configure the JDBCTxDataSource value
to set enableTwoPhaseCommit to true. The caveat for the latter is that this can lead to
heuristic errors. If you don't want JMS to participate in the current transaction, see the
question "How can an application do a JMS operation and have it succeed, independent
of the result of the transaction?".

Q. Can I use a one-phase commit if my WebLogic JMS JDBC store is on the same
database for which I am doing other database work?
A. No. WebLogic JMS is its own resource manager. That is JMS itself implements
XAResource and handles the transactions without depending on the database (even
when the messages are stored in the database). That means whenever you are using
JMS and a database (even if it is the same database as the JMS messages are stored)
then it is 2PC.
You may find it will aid performance if you ensure the connection pool used for the
database work exists on the same server as the JMS queue—the transaction will still
be two-phase, but it will be handled with less network overhead. Another performance
boost might be achieved by using JMS file stores rather than JMS JDBC stores.

Q. How do I integrate an XAResource with WLS to get JTA transactions with another
resource manager?
A. See the white paper, “Using JTA Transactions to Envelope WLS JMS and IBM
MQSeries” (jmsjta.doc) on
http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers.jsp?highlight=whitepapers for a
discussion on integrating MQ Series.

Q. Why do I get an exception when I start up WebLogic JMS using an XA driver or

with a TX data source?
A. You cannot use a TX data source with JMS. JMS must use a JDBC connection
pool that uses a non-XAresource driver (you can't use an XA driver or a JTS driver).
Do not set the enableTwoPhaseCommit option. JMS does the XA support above the
JDBC driver.

Q. Is WL JMS XAResource compliant?

13-22 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. Yes. WebLogic JMS 7.0 fully implements the XAResource interface, as defined
in the JTA specification. Version 7.0 also supports the XAConnection,
XAConnectionFactory, XAQueueConnection, XAQueueConnectionFactory,
XAQueueSession, XASession, XATopicConnection,
XATopicConnectionFactory, and XATopicSession methods. These methods are
defined as optional in Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification and are not part of the
XAResource interface.

The XAResource interface has methods like start, prepare, and commit that the
transaction manager needs to manage a JTA transaction, and these are provided by
WebLogic JMS. When you wrap a JMS send or receive with a JTA transaction
(begin/commit), the JMS work is part of that transaction (unless you are using a
transacted session).

It does mean that you can't use an XAQueueConnectionFactory to get an

XAQueueConnection to get an XAQueueSession to call getXAResource().
However, WebLogic JMS is automatically registered by WebLogic JTA so you don't
need to worry about that. It also means that you can't use WebLogic JMS with another
transaction manager driving the transaction (at least, not with any documented
interfaces).

Q. Why can't I receive a message that I send within a container-managed transaction?

A. If you are using container-managed transactions, the original message sent from
the EJB will never be sent. Here is what is happening.
1. Container starts transaction.

2. Start method.

3. Generate new message.

4. Send message (message isn't sent – it's buffered until transaction commit).

5. Do a blocking receive on a queue.

6. End method.

7. Transaction Commit never Reached because original message was never sent
because you can't get past blocking receive.

The solution is to either use bean-managed transactions, or to break the send and
receive into two separate methods.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-23

13 FAQs: JMS

Q. What happens to a message that is rolled back or recovered?

A. When a message is rolled back or recovered, it is requeued. Where it goes in the
queue is a function of the message relative to the sort order for the queue and the other
messages in the queue.
In an unordered queue (most typical), the message would typically go at the head of
the queue (since the queue is still sorted by arrival time – FIFO) unless some other
message is being recovered at that same time, but still the sort order resolves any
conflicts. The message is redelivered to the first available consumer as soon as
possible. If there are no consumers when it is requeued, then it would just sit there until
there is one.

You can configure the maximum number of times that a message may be requeued.
You can also specify a delay time before which the message will not be available after
being requeued. If a message reaches its maximum requeue limit, it is put on an error
destination if one is configured or silently dropped.

Q. Is it possible to set aside a message and acknowledge it later?

A. There are no special primitives for doing this. Here are two possible solutions.
One approach is to use multiple sessions as in the following:
while (true) {
Create a session, subscribe to one message on durable
subscription
Close session
Save session reference in memory
To acknowledge the message, find the session reference and call
acknowledge() on it.
}

Another solution is to use transactions and suspend the work as follows:

start transaction
while(true) {
message = receive();
if (message is one that I can handle)
process the message
commit
} else {
suspend transaction
put transaction aside with message
start transaction
}
}

13-24 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

To "acknowledge" the message:
resume user transaction
commit

To "recover" the message:

resume user transaction
rollback

Each time you suspend, you need to push the transaction onto a stack or list possibly
with the message so you can process it or roll it back later. This solution is high
overhead in that there can be a large build up of outstanding transactions. Note that
transactions have timeouts and it may rollback on its own, which means you can get
the message again (in a different transaction). Note also that there are some practical
limits on the number of transactions you should leave outstanding. The default limit is
something like 10000. Eventually you want to go back to your stack/list and
commit/rollback the transactions. Note that transaction references
(javax.transaction.Transaction) are not Serializable.

Q. How should I use sorted queues?

A. Destination keys are used to define the sort order for a specific destination.
Destination keys can be message header or property fields. For a list of valid message
header and property fields, refer to the Programming WebLogic JMS.
Queues can be sorted in ascending or descending order based on the destination key.
A destination is considered to be first-in-first-out if a destination key is defined as
ascending for the JMSMessageID message header field, and last-in-first-out if defined
as descending. The key defined for the JMSMessageID header field, if specified, must
be the last key defined in the list of keys.

You can define multiple destination keys to sort a destination.

To create a destination key, use the Destination Keys node in the Administration
Console. For more information, refer to the Administration Console Online Help.

Q. How does sorting on message priority work?

A. First, you need to add a key to the destination (by default, they are not sorted),
choosing JMSPriority as the key. If you want 0 to be your highest priority, make the
key ascending. If you want 9 to be the highest priority, make the key descending.
Second, the priority must be set using either the producer or on the send, not the
message.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-25

13 FAQs: JMS

Third, the priority sorting only comes into play if there are multiple messages waiting
on the queue. If the receiver is always caught up with the sender, then the messages
will be processed in the order in which they come in.

Q. How do I deal with a listener that doesn't keep up with messages being sent?
A. Here are a few guidelines:
! Consider using multiple listeners.

! Consider reducing the processing in the listener (for example, don't call
"System.out").

! Sends are in general faster than receives. Consider lowering receive overhead by
not acknowledging every message, but by deferring acknowledge until several
messages have been received using client acknowledge. With asynchronous
listeners, the last few messages may not get acknowledged without extra code
logic if they don't fall on an acknowledge "boundary" (received 9 out of 10, but
don't receive the 10th).

Q. How do I get a thread dump to help track down a problem?

A. Ways to get a thread dump:
! Try running this from the command line (after running the setEnv script in
WL_HOME\server\bin):
java weblogic.Admin -url t3://localhost:7001 THREAD_DUMP

! On Windows, from the console window, enter Ctrl+Break .

! On UNIX, signal the server using kill -3.

Q. Do client identifiers need to be unique?

A. Using durable subscribers, if subscribing from two different clients and using the
same connection factory and the connection factory has a configured clientID,
distinct clientID's must be set for each after the TopicConnection has been created.
Each connection needs a unique clientID. If you configure a connection factory with
a clientID, you can only create one TopicConnection with that factory until that
one connection is closed.

Q. Are messages passed by copy/value or reference?

13-26 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. Messages, from an application point of view, are passed by value (a copy is made).
Internally, every effort is made to optimize message passing.
When the producer is on the same JVM as the JMS server, a copy is made of the
message before it is actually placed in the destination. If a consumer is on the same
JVM as the JMS server, a copy is made before it is given to the consumer. This
preserves the message that is actually in the destination. Passing by reference is a
violation of Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification. Specifically, if one person
produces a message and then modifies the message in their space it should not affect
the message that was already sent. As such, the message sent must be a copy. The same
is true on the receive side. If someone consumes the message and then does something
like a clear properties, sets a header field or makes any modification of any kind, that
change cannot affect the messages received by other consumers. So, the messages
given to receivers on the same JVM are also copies (one for each receiver). Also, if
you pass a reference to a receiver and the receiver modifies the message and then does
a rollback or a recover, the message in the destination would be modified for the person
who eventually does receive it. Then it appears that the message sent is not the message
received. It has been modified by someone who received it but then put it back.

Q. How do I manage a queue to view and delete specific messages?

A. Write a program that uses a QueueBrowser. Then delete specific messages by
using a selector with the message identifier as in the following example:
String selector = "JMSMessageID = '" + message.getMessageID() + "'";

Keep in mind that the queue browser is a not a “live” view of the queue. It is a
snap-shot.

Q. How do I close a queue so that the messages will not be reloaded at the next server
startup?
A. JMS does not define the deletion of queues. Using WebLogic JMS, you can
administratively create and delete queues. There is no way to dynamically delete
queues at run-time.
You can acknowledge the messages or not use persistence. Further, you can use
temporary queues. They exist only for the life of the connection. You can also use
durable subscriptions. A durable subscriber’s message gets deleted if that durable
subscriber unsubscribes, but the topic continues to exist.

Q. Why does an Object Message print as null after it is received?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-27

13 FAQs: JMS

A. The object isn't deserialized until ObjectMessage.getObject() is called. The

toString() will continue to print null until this occurs. WebLogic JMS 6.x or later
automatically deserializes the message if the application has not called setObject().

Q. In what order are messages delivered to a consumer?

A. Order is maintained between any producer and consumer for like delivery mode,
sort order, and selector in the absence of a rollback or recover. There are no guarantees
of order when multiple producers send to a single consumer or multiple consumers
receive from multiple producers.
Order is generally maintained between a producer and a consumer. However,
non-persistent messages can get ahead of persistent messages of a higher sort order
(i.e., higher priority), can move ahead of each other and a recover or rollback puts
messages that were already received back into the queue/topic, which affects order.

Most messaging systems (including WebLogic JMS) maintain order between a

producer and a destination and then order between the destination and the consumer.
So, once things arrive at the destination, the order does not change.
Finally, the asynchronous pipeline that is supported in WebLogic JMS affects the
ordering. By default there can be as many as ten outstanding messages pushed out from
the server to an asynchronous client that have not been seen by the client yet. If the
asynchronous consumer is "caught" up, these messages will not be sorted. Destination
sorting does not occur in the pipeline. If a destination is sorted by priority, and a new
message comes in of higher priority than those messages already in the pipeline, it will
not leap ahead in the pipeline, it will become first in the destination. The size of the
pipeline is configurable; see the MessagesMaximum setting on the connection factory
used. If you want real priority sorting, change the maximum number of messages on
the factory to one.

Q. Why do I get an exception when trying to find a connection factory?

A. The exception is usually something like java.io.InvalidClassException or
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError.

Make sure weblogic.jar is in the CLASSPATH of the client. Also make sure you have
the correct Java run-time jar files included (i.e., you might need rt.jar).

Q. Why should I avoid using message selectors?

A. We recommend avoiding an architecture that requires heavy use of selectors. If
you need to use selectors, try to use topic selectors. They only incur a charge once per

13-28 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

message per subscriber. If the message doesn't match a subscriber's selection criteria,
it is simply ignored and not placed in that subscriber's "subscription".
For Queues, selectors can be much more heavy-weight. Each receive request can incur
a scan of the entire queue in a search for a message that matches the receiver's selection
criteria. This can get really bad if the selection criteria are restrictive and the queue
depth is large.

The topic generally performs better. However, it depends on the message mix and
queue depth. When using queues, if there are a lot of messages that don't match what
you are looking for, you are going to compare your selector against those messages
over and over again each time you go back to look for one of yours. When using a
topic, each message is compared against all consumers exactly once. There is never
any duplicate work.

Also, if you are using synchronous queuing (posting a receive call), each time you go
you have to look for a message. That is, you wait during the time the server is
comparing. When you use topics, the message has been compared up front and
essentially put in your own private queue. You don't have to look at that point. It is
FIFO from your own private queue. The server can do the comparisons while you are
processing orders as opposed to your application blocking while the server finds you
a message.

Q. Is it possible to have multiple queue receivers listening on the same queue, using
message selectors (typically filtering on a correlation ID) to determine which listener
actually receives the message?
A. Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification does not define the behavior. WebLogic
JMS 6.x or later supports this. Whenever a message lands on the queue, JMS will look
at all of the consumers for the queue in the order in which they did their receives;
whoever is the first to match the message receives the message. For asynchronous
queue consumers, you must set your listener first, and then you will be first in the
consumer list. However, each time an asynchronous queue consumer receives a
message, the consumer goes to the end of the list. Note that unlike topics, if a message
does not match a selector, it is left in the queue until someone has no selector, or a
selector that does match.

Q. Is there a way to make a queue such that if one application has one object as listener
on that queue, no other application can listen to the messages on that queue?
A. No. An alternative is to create a topic with a single durable subscription because a
durable subscription may only have one consumer associated with it. The only
drawback is that selectors would no longer work the same as they do with queues.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-29

13 FAQs: JMS

Changing the selector on a durable subscription "resets" the subscription as per Sun
Microsystems’ JMS specification, causing all messages currently in the subscription
to be deleted.

Q. Why doesn't setting values work using javax.jms.Message.setJMSPriority,

DeliveryMode, Destination, TimeStamp or Expiration?
A. These methods are for vendor use only. The message values are overwritten on
each send/publish. You should use the equivalent methods on the MessageProducer,
QueueSender, or TopicPublisher to set these values (i.e., setJMSPriority,
setDeliveryMode, setTimeToLive). Check to see that these values are not being
overridden by the optional template configuration override values.

Q. What care must be taken when multi-threading WebLogic JMS clients?

A. The rules for multi-threading are described in section 2.8 of the JMS specification,
with additional language in sections 4.4.6 on session usage, 4.4.9 on using multiple
sessions, and 4.4.17 on concurrent message delivery. In a nutshell, it states that JMS
sessions are single-threaded. Consequently, if multiple threads simultaneously access
a session or one of its consumers or producers the resulting behavior is undefined. In
addition, if multiple asynchronous consumers exist on a session, messages will be
delivered to them in series and not in parallel.
To take advantage of multiple threads with JMS, use multiple sessions. For example,
to allow parallel synchronous receive requests, design the application so that only one
consumer may be active per session and use multiple sessions.

Q. How should an application be set up to subscribe to multiple topics?

A. If you want to listen to N topics, using N subscribers and N sessions gives you
concurrency up to N simultaneous threads of execution provided you have that many
threads to work with. N subscribers and 1 session serializes all subscribers through that
one session. If the load is heavy they may not be able to keep up without the extra
threads. Also, if you are using CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE, N sessions gives you N separate
message streams that can be individually recovered. Having 1 session crosses the
streams giving you less control.
As of version 6.x or later, WebLogic JMS on the server side efficiently uses a small,
fixed number of threads independent of how many client sessions there are.

Q. How should I use blocking and asynchronous receive() calls?

13-30 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. The synchronous receive() method blocks until a message is produced, the
timeout value, if specified, elapses or the application is closed. We strongly
recommend that you avoid using blocking receive() calls on the server side because
a synchronous receive() call consumes resources for the entire duration that the call
is blocked.
Server deadlock might also result if receiving messages use client servlets, as
described in the section “Receiving Messages with Client Servlets” in Programming
WebLogic JMS.

When methods are received asynchronously, the application is notified using a

message listener only when a message has been produced, so no resources are
consumed waiting for a message.

Q. What precautions should I take when I use blocking receive() calls?

A. If your application design requires messages to be received synchronously, we
recommend using one of the following methods listed in order of preference:
! Pass a timeout value as an argument to the receive() method and set it to the
minimum value greater than zero, that is allowed by the application to avoid
consuming threads that are waiting for a response from the server.

! Use the receiveNoWait() method which returns the next message or a null
value if no message is currently available. In this case, the call does not block.
The servlet should provide a way to return to or reschedule the request, without
calling wait().

Note: Use of this option should be minimized, as it may deadlock a busy server.

! Ensure that more threads are configured than the number of possible
simultaneous blocking receive() calls.

Q. What is the NO_ACKNOWLEDGE acknowledge mode used for?

A. The NO_ACKNOWLEDGE acknowledge mode indicates that received messages do not
need to be specifically acknowledged which improves performance, but risks that
messages are lost. This mode is supported for applications that do not require the
quality of service provided by session acknowledge and that do not want to incur the
associated overhead.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-31

13 FAQs: JMS

Messages sent to a NO_ACKNOWLEDGE session are immediately deleted from the server.
Messages received in this mode are not recovered and, as a result, messages may be
lost and/or duplicate message may be delivered if an initial attempt to deliver a
message fails.

Note: You should avoid using this mode if your application cannot handle lost or
duplicate messages. Duplicate messages may be sent if an initial attempt to
deliver a message fails.

In addition, we do not recommend that this acknowledge mode be used with persistent
messaging, as it implies a quality of service that may be too low for persistent
messaging to be useful.

Q. When should I use multicast subscribers?

A. Multicasting enables the delivery of messages to a select group of hosts that
subsequently forwards the messages to multicast subscribers. The benefits of
multicasting include:
! Near real-time delivery of messages to host group.

! High scalability due to the reduction in the amount of resources required by the
JMS server to deliver messages to multicast subscribers.

Note: Multicasting is only supported for the Pub/sub messaging model.

For an example of when multicasting might be useful, consider a stock ticker. When
accessing stock quotes, timely delivery is more important than reliability. When
accessing the stock information in real-time, if all, or a portion, of the contents is not
delivered, the client can simply request the information be resent. Clients would not
want to have the information recovered in this case because by the time it is redelivered
it would be out-of-date.

Multicast messages are not guaranteed to be delivered to all members of the host
group. For messages requiring reliable delivery and recovery, you should not use
multicasting.

Q. When should I use server session pools and connection consumers?

A. WebLogic JMS implements an optional JMS facility for defining a
server-managed pool of server sessions. This facility enables an application to process
messages concurrently. A ConnectionConsumer object uses a server session to
process received messages. If message traffic is heavy, the connection consumer can

13-32 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

load each server session with multiple messages to minimize thread context switching.
Multiple connection consumers can share server sessions in a server session pool.
To learn how to use the connection consumers within an application, see the section
Processing Messages Concurrently in Programming WebLogic JMS, or the
javax.jms.ConnectionConsumer javadoc.

Note: Server session pools can also be implemented using Message Driven Beans.
Using MDBs is preferable to using server session pools; this issue is addressed
in, "How do server session pools and message driven beans compare?" For
information on using message driven beans to implement server session pools,
see Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans.

Q. How do I issue the close() method within an onMessage() method call and what
are the semantics of the close() method?
A. If you wish to issue the close() method within an onMessage() method call, the
system administrator must select the Allow Close In OnMessage check box when
configuring the connection factory. For more information, see JMS Connection
Factories in the Administration Console Online Help guide. If this check box is not
selected and you issue the close() method within an onMessage() method call, the
call will hang.
The close() method performs the following steps to execute an orderly shutdown:

! Terminates the receipt of all pending messages. Applications may return a

message or null if a message was not available at the time of the close.

! Waits until all message listeners that are currently processing messages have
completed (except for the message listener from which the close() method is
being called).

! Rolls back in-process transactions on its transacted sessions (unless such

transactions are part of an external JTA user transaction).

! Does not force an acknowledge of client-acknowledged sessions. By not forcing

an acknowledge, no messages are lost for queues and durable subscriptions that
require reliable processing.

When you close a connection, all associated objects are also closed. You can continue
to use the message objects created or received via the connection, except the received
message's acknowledge() method. Closing a closed connection has no effect.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-33

13 FAQs: JMS

Note: Attempting to acknowledge a received message from a closed connection's

session throws an IllegalStateException.

When you close a session, all associated producers and consumers are also closed.

For more information about the impact of the close() method for each object, see the
appropriate javax.jms javadoc.

Q. How do I publish an XML message?

A. Follow these steps:
1. Generate XML from the DOM document tree.

2. Serialize the generated DOM document to a StringWriter.

3. Call toString on the StringWriter and pass it into message.setText.

4. Publish the message.

Q. How do I use WebLogic JMS in an applet?

A. This topic is covered in
news://newsgroups.bea.com/3ad321d5@newsgroups.bea.com.

Q. How do I use a startup class to initialize and later reference WebLogic JMS
objects?
A. This topic is covered in
news://newsgroups.bea.com/3ad0d7f3@newsgroups.bea.com. The sample code does
not cleanup properly at shutdown. You can use a shutdown class that does something
like the following:
JMSobject WLSobject = null;
try {
WLSobject = JMSStartUp.getJMSobject();
WLSobject.JMSCleanup();
} catch(Exception e) {}

Servlets can provide a nice solution to provide both initialization and cleanup. See the
question in this section "What is the standard way for creating threads, doing
initialization, etc. within the application server?".

Q. Is it possible to send or receive a message from within a message listener?

13-34 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. Yes. You can send to or receive from any queue or topic from within in a message
listener.
If it's not an MDB, you can use the same Connection or Session that the onMessage()
is part of to do this. When you create your message listener, you pass in a session in
your constructor. Then you have access to the session in your onMessage method and
you would be able to make synchronous, not asynchronous, calls from within the
onMessage method. Do not use another Session that is servicing another
onMessage() because that would multi-thread that Session and Sessions don't support
multi-threading.

When things are done non-transactionally, there can be duplicates or lost messages
(assuming your onMessage() code is attempting to forward messages):

1. If you call acknowledge after the publish() and the acknowledge fails for whatever
reason (network/server failure), then you will see the message again and will end
up publishing twice (possible duplicate semantics). You can try to keep track of
sequence numbers to detect duplicates but this is not easy.

2. If you call acknowledge before the publish(), you get at-most-once semantics.
If the publish() fails, you don't know if the failure occurred before or after the
message reached the server.

If you want exactly once, transactional semantics using onMessage, you must use
transactional MDBs. The onMessage() for a transactional MDB starts the transaction,
includes the WebLogic Server JMS message received within that transaction and the
publish() would also be in the same transaction. The following code sends a
response to each message that it receives. It creates the connection, etc. in the
ejbCreate method so that it doesn't need to create it every time onMessage is called.
The QueueSender is anonymous (null Queue) since we don't know to whom we will
have to reply. The ejbRemove method cleans up by closing the connection. This same
approach can be used to create a receiver, subscriber or publisher.
import javax.ejb.CreateException;
import javax.ejb.EJBContext;
import javax.naming.*;
import javax.naming.directory.*;
import java.util.Hashtable;
import javax.ejb.MessageDrivenBean;
import javax.ejb.MessageDrivenContext;
import javax.jms.*;

public class MDB

implements MessageDrivenBean, MessageListener {
public static final String WLSqcf =

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-35

13 FAQs: JMS

"javax.jms.QueueConnectionFactory";
public static final String WLSqname =
"jms.queue.TestQueue1";
public static final String WLSurl =
"t3://localhost:7001";
public static final String WLSJNDIfactory =
"weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory";
private MessageDrivenContext context;
private QueueSession session;
private QueueConnection connection = null;
private QueueConnectionFactory factory;
private InitialContext ctx;
private QueueSender QueueSender;

// Required - public constructor with no argument

public MDB() {}

// Required - ejbActivate
public void ejbActivate() {}
// Required - ejbRemove
public void ejbRemove() {
context = null;
if (connection != null) {
try {
connection.close();
} catch(Exception e) {}
connection = null;
}
}

// Required - ejbPassivate
public void ejbPassivate() {}

public void setMessageDrivenContext(

MessageDrivenContext mycontext) {
context = mycontext;
}

// Required - ejbCreate() with no arguments

public void ejbCreate () throws CreateException {
try {
// Get the initial context
Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, WLSJNDIfactory);
env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, WLSurl);
env.put(Context.REFERRAL, "throw");
ctx = new InitialContext(env);

factory = (QueueConnectionFactory)ctx.lookup(WLSqcf);

13-36 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 // Create a QueueConnection, QueueSession, QueueSender
connection = factory.createQueueConnection();
session = connection.createQueueSession(false,
Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE);
queueSender = session.createSender(null);
connection.start();
} catch (Exception e) {
throw(new CreateException(e.toString()));
}
}

// Implementation of MessageListener
// Throws no exceptions
public void onMessage(Message msg) {
try {
System.out.println("MDB: " +
((TextMessage)msg).getText());
msg.clearBody();
((TextMessage)msg).setText("reply message");
queueSender.send((Queue)msg.getJMSReplyTo(), msg);
}
catch(Exception e) { // Catch any exception
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

This approach creates a connection per EJB/MDB instance, so you might want to
create a producer pool that is shared by the EJB instances. This is done by writing a
class that populates a static pool with producers (see the next question for a sample
producer pool). The onMessage call grabs a producer when needed. Since Sessions
must be single threaded, make sure there is only one producer per session within the
producer pool.

Q. How do I create a producer pool?

A. The following is some pseudo-code for a producer class.
class ProducerPool {
static Hashmap pSets = new Hashtable();
static Hashmap inUse = new Hashtable();

QueueSender get(String contextURL,

String connectionFactoryName,
String destinationName) {
String lookup = contextURL+";"+connectionFactName+";"+destName;
synchronized(pSets) {
producer set = pSets.get(lookup);

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-37

13 FAQs: JMS

if (set != null && set not empty)

qs = set.removeFirst();
}
if (producer == null) {
create ctx
get connect factory
create connection
create session
look up destination
qs = create queue sender
}
synchronized(inUse) {
inUse.put(qs, lookup);
}
return qs;
}

void put(QueueSender qs) {

String lookup;
synchronized(inUse) {
lookup = inUse.remove(p);
}
synchronzied(pSets) {
producer set = pSets.get(lookup);
if (set == null) {
producer set = new producer set
pSets.put(lookup, producer set);
}
producer set.add(qs);
}
}
}

Note: Static classes may be garbage collected if there are no references to them, so
make sure the application server has a permanent pointer to them in some
manner. One way is to reference it permanently from within a servlet or EJB
when they are initialized at startup.

Here is an example of using the producer pool within the onMessage method.
onMessage() {
QueueSender qs = ProducerPool.get(...);
qs.send(...);
ProducerPool.put(qs);
}

You can pre-populate this pool by calling it from a startup class or a load-on-start
servlet class.

13-38 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What are pending messages in the console?
A. Pending means the message could have been:
! sent in a transaction but not committed.
! received and not acknowledged.

! received and not committed.

! subject to a redelivery delay (as of WebLogic JMS 6.1 or later).

! subject to a delivery time (as of WebLogic JMS 6.1 or later).

A rolled back message remains pending until the transaction actually rolls back.
Rolling it back multiple times does not cause double counting, nor does an exception
that set a transaction as rollbackOnly followed by an actual rollback.

Current implies messages that are not pending.

Total implies total since server last started. The byte counts only consider the payload
of messages which includes the properties and the body but not the header.

Q. How do I use a less than or greater than on a message selector in ejb-jar.xml?

A. Enclose the selector in a CDATA section. That will prevent the XML parser from
thinking that less than or greater than is a tag.
<jms-message-selector>
<![CDATA[ JMSXAppID <> 'user' ]]>
</jms-message-selector>

Q. Is it better to have more or fewer sessions for a given number of subscribers?

A. Using N sessions for N subscribers gives you concurrency up to N simultaneous
threads of execution provided you have as many threads to work with. Each Session
gets its own thread as long as there are enough threads available. Otherwise, the
sessions serially reuse the available threads.
One session for N subscribers serializes all subscribers through that one session. If the
load is heavy they may not be able to keep up without the extra threads.

If you are using CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE, N sessions gives you N separate message

streams that can be individually recovered. Having one session crosses the streams
giving you less control.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-39

13 FAQs: JMS

Q. Are foreign destinations handled within foreign JMS messages?

A. WebLogic Server JMS does not know what to do with foreign destinations that it
runs into. This issue has been discussed with Sun and the specification does not clearly
define destinations well enough for vendors to interoperate at that level. They agree
that it is sufficient not to handle foreign destinations preferably in such a way that
sending/receiving still work. For WebLogic JMS, if you do a setJMSdestination
(you should not because it is only for the provider to set it) with a foreign destination,
it gets ignored (set to null). Similarly, if you do a setJMSReplyTo for a foreign
destination, WebLogic JMS will ignore it (set it to null).

Q. What is the standard way to create threads, do initialization, etc. within the
application server?
A. Threads should generally not be created by the user directly is because things may
not work correctly. User-created threads do not have some of the thread-local variables
pre-set by WebLogic when it creates it's own execute threads, the associated
transaction context, or the environment such as the proper class loader. The
WebLogic-specific way of doing this is with a startup class or using the WebLogic
Time Services. The portable way to do this is to define a load-on-startup servlet, doing
the initialization in the init() method and the cleanup in the destroy() method. The
servlet itself does nothing. This approach also allows for undeploy/redeploy of the
application without restarting the server, including proper cleanup/initialization each
time. It also providers more dynamic management of the dependent classes without
restarting the server.

Q. Why do I get a JNDI problem when I name a Topic A.B and a second Topic A.B.C?
A. This is a JNDI implementation issue. JNDI uses the dots to build a directory-like
structure. A given element cannot be both a node and a leaf in the tree. In this example,
B is used as a leaf off of A, but then is used as a node off of which C is a leaf.

Q. How many messages are sent across the network for processing topic messages?
A. If there are three subscribers for a message, for example, one of which with a
selector that does not match, how many messages are sent?
In WebLogic JMS 6.x or later, when all three consumers are in the same session, we
send one copy of the message across the network for all subscribers that are not
flow-controlled. Once a consumer is flow-controlled for not acknowledging enough
messages, no messages are sent until flow control is eased. So, the answer is usually
one, but may be two. The selection is done on the server side so a subscriber that
doesn't match doesn't have to discard anything.

13-40 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What should an XPATH selector look like?
A. The following is an example of an XPATH selector. Pay careful attention to the use
of double and single quotes.
String selector =
"JMS_BEA_SELECT('xpath', '/recipient/transport/text()') =
'email'";
tsubscriber = tsession.createSubscriber(topic, selector, false);

JMS_BEA_SELECT is a built-in function in WebLogic JMS SQL syntax. You put it in

your selector string when you create a consumer. Note the use of single quotes around
xpath, the XML tab, and the string value.

Q. How do I handle request/response using WebLogic JMS?

A. There are several approaches to handling request/response processing with JMS.
! Use a temporary queue for each requestor and have the response go back to that
queue.

! Use the QueueRequestor class, which does the temporary queue for you, and
wait for the reply, as in the following:
// create temporary queue for receiving answer
qrequestor = new QueueRequestor(qsession, queue);
TextMessage msg = qsession.createTextMessage();
TextMessage reply = (TextMessage) qrequestor.request(msg);

! Use a dedicated response topic or queue with message selectors.

Q. How do I put a message back on the queue for processing?

A. The following are several approaches:
! Use a transacted session, then rollback the session so the message will go back
to the queue.

! Use Session.CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE when creating a session, then recover the

session so the message will go back to the queue.

! Use a JTA transaction, then rollback the transaction so the message will go back
to the queue.

Q. Is it okay to add new sessions and subscribers to a Queue or Topic Connection once
it has been started?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-41

13 FAQs: JMS

A. Yes, with one caveat. You may not add new subscribers/consumers to a session if
it already has active async consumers. Sessions must only be accessed single-threaded
as per Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification spec. If you feel you need to do this,
create a new Session and add it to that one instead.
You can add receivers to a started connection. A receiver in itself is not asynchronous.
You need a listener to make it asynchronous. The first creation of a receiver is always
safe. If you then add a listener for that first receiver, you have to worry for any future
receivers in that same session. You can create new sessions and the first receiver for
that session with no worries.

Once you want to create a second receiver in a session, if the first receiver has a
MessageListener, you have to take care to make sure there are no other threads of
execution in that session. You can do this by stopping the connection or actually
creating your receiver from the onMessage routine of the first receiver.

Q. What can I do when I get java.lang.OutOfMemoryError because producers are

faster than consumers?
A. Quotas can be used to help this situation. Your sender will then receive
ResourceAllocationExceptions and the server will stay up.

As of WLS 6.1 SP02 or later, you can use the Message Paging feature, which can free
up valuable virtual memory during peak message load periods by swapping out
messages from virtual memory to persistent storage when message loads reach a
specified threshold. For more information, see “Managing JMS” in the Administration
Guide.

Q. Why have different connection factories?

A. To get multiple different sets of connection attributes. Clients that need different
behaviors should use different factories. If all of your clients need the same behavior,
then one factory is sufficient.

Q. How should connections and sessions be allocated?

A. Think of a connection as a single physical connection (a TCP/IP link). A session
is a means for producing and consuming an ordered set of messages. Creating a
connection is generally expensive. Creating a session is less expensive. Generally
people use one connection and share across all the threads with each thread having its
own session. If you have thread groups and need to start/stop/close the resources for a
given group, one connection per group is good. A group can have exactly one thread.

13-42 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How does an application know if an application server goes down?
A. There are two exception listeners that you can register. Sun Microsystems’ JMS
specification defines Connection.setExceptionListener that tells you if there is
a problem with the connection. That means that all consumers under that connection
are also in trouble. The reason you will get the connection exception is because the
WebLogic server you connect to on the other side is dead or not responding or
someone killed your connection via the Mbean interface.
However, for WebLogic Server JMS, you may have multiple sessions in a connection,
with the sessions going to multiple backend servers. WebLogic Server has an
extension for this called WLSession.setExceptionListener that tells you if there
is a problem with a session. For more information see
http://e-doc.bea.com/wls/docs70/javadocs/weblogic/jms/extensions/WLSession.html.

Q. Is there a way to dynamically change an existing selector for a TopicConsumer

using setMessageSelect(String s)?
A. No. Once you instantiate the consumer the selector is fixed at the time that the
consumer is created. Changing the selector is like removing the current consumer,
removing all associated messages and then creating a new one.

Q. How can I avoid asynchronous message deadlocks?

A. Due to a limitation in Sun Microsystems’ JMS specification, asynchronous
messages can become deadlocked if the close() method of a session is inside a
user-synchronized block. To resolve this, you must move the close() method outside
the user-synchronized block. For example:
public class CloseTest() {
private void xxx() {
synchronized (this) {
create connection/session/consumer
initialize and set a listener for this consumer;
wait();
connection.close();
}
}

private void onMessage(Message message) {

synchronized (this) {
notify();
}
}
}

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-43

13 FAQs: JMS

Before the connection.close() method is closed, another message can be delivered

to the onMessage routine by the JMSProvider. The main() method thread owns the
monitor lock for the CloseTest method. Before the onMessage() method of the
CloseTest class fires, JMS sets INLISTENER as the state for the session in
JMSSession (the JMS specification says that the close() method must wait for the
onMessage routine), so that the main() method thread can wait for the onMessage
routine to complete.

Now when the onMessage routine tries to acquire the monitor lock, it blocks waiting
for the main() method thread to give up, and the main() method thread is waiting for
the onMessage to be completed.

JMS also blocks when the close() method of a consumer is done from an onMessage
routine and the allowCloseInOnMessage attribute is set to false in the config.xml
file.

Q. What are the advantages of message-driven beans?

A. The message-driven bean is a stateless component that is invoked by the EJB
container as a result of receiving messages from a JMS queue or topic. It then performs
business logic based on the message contents, effectually freeing you from any JMS
configuration and reconnection chores.
The message-driven bean model allows EJB developers to work with a familiar
framework and set of tools, and also provides access to the additional support provided
by the container. The goal of the message-driven bean model is to assure that
developing an EJB that is asynchronously invoked to handle the processing of
incoming JMS messages is as easy as developing the same functionality in any other
JMS MessageListener.

One of the main advantages of using message-driven beans in place of the standard
JMS MessageListener is that a JTA transaction can be started for you automatically
and the received message will be part of that transaction. In this case, other operations
can be infected with the same JTA transaction such as database operations. This is the
only way to infect a message from an asynchronous consumer and another JTA
operation with the same transaction.

For more information on message-driven beans, see Designing Message-Driven Beans

in Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans.

Q. How does concurrency work for message-driven beans?

13-44 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. The way concurrency is achieved for Queues is by spawning one JMSSession per
MDB instance in the pool. Since JMSSessions are processed in parallel by JMS,
concurrency is obtained naturally this way and JMS takes care of delivering the
message to, at most, one listener. If an MDB is deployed to multiple servers in a
cluster, JMSSessions are created for each MDB instance on each server and load
balancing will be done across them.
Within a single server, one topic consumer is used to pass out messages to multiple
threads to get the concurrency while producing only a single copy of each message.
You can configure multiple MDBs to listen on the same topic and each MDB will
receive a copy of every message. When using multiple servers, each server gets its own
consumer and therefore its own copy of each message. It is not currently possible to
share a consumer across multiple servers. If you want a message to be processed by
exactly one MDB, use a queue.

One customer had an example where topic MDBs are needed in which there will be
multiple implementations of the MDBs listening on the same topic. In other words,
more than one MDB with a different implementation may be subscribing to the same
topic. The client has no advanced way of knowing how many different kinds of MDBs
may be listening on the same topic, but it is possible for there to be more than one
listener, therefore topics, not queues. For each kind of MDB listening on the topic, the
message is delivered exactly once (i.e., the message will be delivered exactly once to
an instance in each named MDB pool listening on the topic).

Q. Can an MDB be a message producer or both a producer and consumer?

A. Yes. You have no JMS context inside the MDB so you will need to establish a
connection, session and producer yourself. One option is to do this every time you
come into the onMessage routine for the MDB. This is sufficient if the message rate
is relatively low. The second option is to establish the necessary objects in
ejbActivate(). Note that the objects are not serializable so they can't be passivated
for a stateful session bean or an entity bean. When the EJB deactivates, you need to
close the associated objects. The third option is that you could build up a JMS
connection/sender session pool within a startup class complete with your own
synchronization and blocking to get a connection. There is an example in the answer
to the question in this section, "Is it possible to send or receive a message from within
a message listener?".

Q. If an MDB uses a durable subscription, will messages be accumulated if the MDB

is not deployed?
A. Not at this time. Before the MDB is deployed the first time, no messages are
accumulated for when it is deployed. This is different from passivated. Just because

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-45

13 FAQs: JMS

the MDB is not currently active doesn't mean it isn't deployed. The container still
maintains the subscription and gives out messages to the MDBs.

Q. How do I use non-WebLogic JMS provider destinations to drive MDBs?

A. See the “Using Foreign JMS Providers with WebLogic Server” white paper
(jmsproviders.pdf) on
http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers.jsp?highlight=whitepapers for a
discussion on this topic.

Q. Can you use a foreign JMS provider to drive an MDB transactionally?

A. Yes. In WebLogic Server 7.0, you can deploy an MDB that supports
container-managed transactions against a foreign JMS provider. If the MDB is
configured with a “transaction-type” attribute of “Container” and a “trans-attribute” of
“Required”, then WLS will use XA to automatically enlist the foreign JMS provider in
a transaction. (See the next question for an example of an MDB that uses
container-managed transactions.)
If the foreign JMS provider does not support XA, then you cannot deploy an MDB that
supports container-managed transactions with that provider. Furthermore, if the JMS
provider does support XA, you must ensure that the JMS connection factory that you
specify in the weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file supports XA—each JMS provider has a
different way to specify this.

See the white paper, “Using Foreign JMS Providers with WebLogic Server”
(jmsproviders.pdf.doc) on
http://dev2dev.bea.com/resourcelibrary/whitepapers.jsp?highlight=whitepapers for an
example of how to configure an MDB to use a foreign provider.

Q. How do I use JTA transactions within an MDB?

A. In the ejb-jar.xml file, define the transaction type as Container and the
trans-attribute as Required, as in the following example:
<ejb-jar>
<enterprise-beans>
<message-driven>
<ejb-name>MDB</ejb-name>
<ejb-class>MDB</ejb-class>
<transaction-type>Container</transaction-type>
<message-driven-destination>
<destination-type>javax.jms.Queue</destination-type>
</message-driven-destination>

13-46 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 </message-driven>
</enterprise-beans>
<assembly-descriptor>
<container-transaction>
<method>
<ejb-name>MDB</ejb-name>
<method-name>*</method-name>
</method>
<trans-attribute>
Required
</trans-attribute>
</container-transaction>
</assembly-descriptor>
</ejb-jar>

To roll back a transaction, you can either use the Weblogic extension TXHelper or you
can use the MDB context as in the following code examples:
UserTransaction ut =
weblogic.transaction.TXHelper.getUserTransaction();
ut.setRollbackOnly();

or
private MessageDrivenContext context;

public void setMessageDrivenContext(

MessageDrivenContext mycontext) {
context = mycontext;
}
public void onMessage(Message msg) {
try { // some logic
}
catch(Exception e) {
System.out.println("MDB doing rollback");
context.setRollbackOnly();
}

Q. How do server session pools and message driven beans compare?

A. MDBs listen on exactly one destination. Consumers listen on exactly one
destination. ConnectionConsumers listen on exactly one destination.
A ServerSessionPool can have multiple ConnectionConsumers, which allows
you to have a single MessageListener being fed by multiple consumers.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 13-47

13 FAQs: JMS

ServerSessionPools do not infect the MessageListener with a transaction, so the

receipt of the message that initiated the listener is not part of the transaction. For an
MDB, you can specify transaction as being REQUIRED and the driving message is part
of the transaction.

ServerSessionPools have the limitation that the destination on which its connection
consumers are listening must be hosted by the same JVM. That is, you cannot have a
server session pool listening on a remote queue or topic and foreign (non-WebLogic
Server JMS) destinations are not supported. MDBs can be distributed and can have
foreign destinations.

MDBs currently receive one message per deployment (in Service Pack 1). If you have
an MDB with multiple instances on a single server listening on a topic, it will receive
only one copy of the a published messages regardless of the number of instances. If
you have an MDB deployed across multiple machines listening on a topic, each
deployment will receive a copy of any published message on that topic. You will get
multiple copies of the message distributed evenly across all of your MDB
deployments.

13-48 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

14 FAQs: JTA
! Can I use a non-XA driver in distributed transactions?

! Can I use more than one non-XA connection pool in distributed transactions?

! How do XA and non-XA drivers differ in distributed transactions?

! What XA drivers can I use in addition to the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle/XA?

! Can I use the Oracle thin driver as an XA driver in distributed transactions?

! Why do I get SQLException “Result set already closed” message?

! Do I need a 2PC licence when I use JMS with one JDBC non-XA driver?

! Why am I getting an exception when I use JMS with a non-XA driver?

! Can I obtain a JDBC connection before I start a distributed transaction?

! Can I close a JDBC connection after the distributed transaction is committed or

rolled back?

! I get the following XAER_RMFAIL XAException when accessing an

XAResource: "Internal error: XAResource '<name>' is unavailable". What does
that mean? How should I handle it?

Q. How can I incorporate MQSeries as an XA resource for distributed transactions in

WebLogic Server?
A. You can download a zip file with instructions, support classes, utilities, and an
example from the code samples for weblogic server page on BEA’s dev2dev site. You
can also directly download the package from
ftp://edownload:BUY_ME@ftpna2.bea.com/pub/downloads/wlsmqseries.z
ip.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 14-1

14 FAQs: JTA

Q. Can I use a non-XA driver in distributed transactions?

A. When the non-XA connection pool is the only resource participating in a
transaction distributed across multiple servers, you just need to configure a
TxDataSource for the non-XA driver.
However, when more than one resource participates in the distributed transaction, you
must also set the TxDataSource property EnableTwoPhaseCommit=true. For more
information, see Managing JDBC Connectivity in the Administration Guide. In both
cases, always obtain a connection via the DataSource interface, not through the
deprecated DriverManager interface. If you obtain a connection via DriverManager,
the interface cannot pick up the EnableTwoPhaseCommit setting of the
TxDataSource; this may result in unexpected behavior in distributed transactions.
Also, when you use the DataSource interface, you do not need to distinguish either the
URL or the specific WebLogic multitier driver (JTS, RMI, or pool.) The URL and
specific driver are obtained through the config.xml file and JNDI lookup.

Q. Can I use more than one non-XA connection pool in distributed transactions?
A. No. Even if you set EnableTwoPhaseCommit=true for both TxDataSources of
the connection pools, attempting to use two non-XA connection pools in the same
distributed transaction will result in:
"java.sql.SQLException: Connection has already been created in this tx context for
pool named <first pool's name>. Illegal attempt to create connection from another
pool: <second pool's name>"

when you attempt to get the connection from the second non-XA connection pool.

Q. How do XA and non-XA drivers differ in distributed transactions?

A. The differences between XA and non-XA JDBC drivers are:
! Atomicity Guarantee. An XA driver implements the XAResource interface and
can participate fully in the 2PC protocol driven by the WLS Transaction
Manager. This guarantees atomicity of updates across multiple participating
resources.
However, a non-XA driver does not implement the XAResource interface and
cannot fully participate in the 2PC protocol. When using a non-XA driver in a
distributed transaction, WLS implements the XAResource wrapper on behalf of
the non-XA driver. If the data source property enableTwoPhaseCommit is set to
true, then the WLS XAResource wrapper returns XA_OK when the
Transaction Manager invokes the prepare() method. When the Transaction

14-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 Manager invokes commit() or rollback() during the second phase, the WLS
XAResource wrapper delegates the commit() or rollback() call to the
non-XA JDBC connection. Any failure during commit() or rollback() results
in heuristic exceptions. Application data may be left in an inconsistent state as a
result of heuristic failure.

! Redirecting Connections. A non-XA driver can be configured to perform

updates in the same distributed transaction from more than one process, as
explained in Can I use a non-XA driver in distributed transactions?. WLS
internally redirects the JDBC calls made from different processes to the same
physical JDBC connection in one process. However, when you use a XA driver,
no such redirection will be done. Each process will use its own local XA
database connection, and the database ensures that all the distributed updates
made in the same distributed transaction from different processes will be
committed atomically.

! Connection Management. Whether you are using the non-XA driver or XA

driver in distributed transactions, WLS implements JDBC wrappers that
intercept all the JDBC calls and obtains a physical JDBC connection from the
connection pool on demand.
" When you use a non-XA driver in distributed transactions, in order to ensure
that updates made from different processes are committed atomically, WLS
associates the same physical JDBC connection with the distributed
transaction until it is committed or rolled back. As a result, the number of
active distributed transactions using the non-XA connection pool is limited
by the maximum capacity of the JDBC connection pool.
" When you use an XA driver, the connection management is more scalable.
WLS does not hold on to the same physical XA connection until the
transaction is committed or rolled back. In fact, in most cases, the XA
connection as only held for the duration of a method invocation. WLS JDBC
wrappers intercept all JDBC calls and enlist the XAResource associated with
the XA connection on demand. When the method invocation returns to the
caller, or when it makes another call to another server, WLS delists the
XAResource associated with the XA connection.
" WLS also returns the XA connection to the connection pool on delistment if
there are no open result sets. Also, during commit processing, any
XAResource object can be used to commit any number of distributed
transactions in parallel. As a result, neither the number of active distributed
transactions using the XA connection pool nor the number of concurrent
commit/rollbacks is limited by the maximum capacity of the connection pool.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 14-3

14 FAQs: JTA

Only the number of concurrent database access connections is limited by the

maximum capacity of the connection pool.

Q. What XA drivers can I use in addition to the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle/XA?
A. Theoretically, you can use any third party XA driver that is compliant with the
JDBC 2.0 standard extension specification with WLS. However, an individual
vendor's XA driver may have bugs that prevent it from working properly.
Refer to JDBC Configuration guidelines for details about how to configure them at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/adminguide/managetx.html.

Q. Can I use the Oracle thin driver as an XA driver in distributed transactions?

A. Oracle 8.1.7 thin driver has threading problems, so BEA developed the following
workaround: We use a dedicated XA connection for the duration of prepare, commit,
and rollback operation. This is different from the default XA connection management
model in that any XAResource object is used to commit any number of transactions in
parallel. This limits the number of concurrent commits to the max capacity of the XA
connection pool. Note that this workaround is an Oracle specific workaround and will
not affect the usage of other XA drivers.

Q. Why do I get SQLException “Result set already closed” message?

Problem: I am using WebLogic jDriver for Oracle/XA (transaction mode) from the
client side. Updating in a distributed transaction works fine. However, when I try to
perform a query, I get SQLException Result set already closed. How do I work
around this?
A. WebLogic jDriver for Oracle has a limitation that closes all open result sets when
the method returns to the caller.
Using the driver from the server side, for example, in a bean, does not have this
limitation. Using the driver from the server side is also recommended from application
architecture and performance perspective. Using the driver from the client side incurs
round-trip cost for every JDBC call being made.

This limitation exists because WebLogic jDriver for Oracle XA is implemented using
Oracle's OCI API and C XA switch, and there is an Oracle problem when using OCI
with XA in multi-threaded mode. Closing an OCI cursor in a thread that is different
than the thread in which it is opened may result in server crash or unexpected behavior.
As a result, the WebLogic driver implicitly closes all open result sets upon returning a
call to the caller.

14-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Do I need a 2PC licence when I use JMS with one JDBC non-XA driver?
A. Yes, you do. JMS is also a XAResource that participates in the distributed
transaction. Therefore, there are two resources participating in the distributed
transaction, and a 2PC license is needed.

Q. Why am I getting an exception when I use JMS with a non-XA driver?

Problem: I am using JMS with one JDBC non-XA driver. Transaction fails to commit
with the following exception javax.transaction.xa.XAException: JDBC
driver does not support XA, hence cannot be a participant in
two-phase commit.
A. As mentioned in the previous question “Do I need a 2PC licence when I use JMS
with one JDBC non-XA driver?”, JMS is also a XAResource that participates in the
distributed transaction. When more than one resource is participating in the distributed
transaction, you need to set the data source property EnableTwoPhaseCommit=true as
explained in “Can I use a non-XA driver in distributed transactions?”

Q. Can I obtain a JDBC connection before I start a distributed transaction?

A. This depends on whether you are using a non-XA or XA driver.
! When you use a non-XA driver in a distributed transaction, always obtain a
JDBC connection after the distributed transaction is begun.

! If you are using an XA driver, you can obtain the connection before or after the
distributed transaction begins.

Q. Can I close a JDBC connection after the distributed transaction is committed or

rolled back?
A. For both non-XA and XA driver, you can close the connection after the distributed
transaction is completed.

Q. I get the following XAER_RMFAIL XAException when accessing an

XAResource: "Internal error: XAResource '<name>' is unavailable". What does that
mean? How should I handle it?
A. JTA has its own resource health monitoring that works as follows:

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 14-5

14 FAQs: JTA

A resource is considered active either if there are no pending requests or if we get a

result from any of the XAResource pending requests that is not an XAER_RMFAIL. If an
XAResource is not active within the two minutes, it is declared dead. Any further
requests to the XAResource are shunned, and an XAER_RMFAIL XAException as
above is thrown. The intent is to prevent further loss of threads if the RM is dead.

A resource is declared active again, if you re-register the XAResource with the
WebLogic Server Transaction Manager by calling
weblogic.transaction.TransactionManager.unregisterResource followed
by registerStaticResource or registerDynamicResource, or after a timeout
period of 30 minutes. If you are using WLS JDBC connection pools, you only need to
enable the JDBC connection pool refresh feature (by specifying the "RefreshMinutes"
property of the connection pool), and, upon a successful connection pool refresh, the
corresponding XAResource will be re-registered automatically. If you are registering
your own XAResource, either via
weblogic.transaction.TransactionManager.registerStaticResource or
registerDynamicResource APIs, you will need to re-register the XAResource by
calling weblogic.transaction.TransactionManager.unregisterResource
followed by registerStaticResource or registerDynamicResource.

In general, a good way to debug potential RM problems is to turn on JTA XA

debugging, by specifying -Dweblogic.Debug=weblogic.JTAXA as JVM parameter
on WLS startup.

14-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

15 FAQs: Plug-Ins
! How does the Apache HTTP Server Plug-In work?

! How does the plug-in route the request for a sticky session?

! What is new for debugging a plug-in in WebLogic Server 6.0?

! What is expected in the wlproxy.log?

! What has changed in the 6.1 plug-in?

! What is static list, dynamic list, and general list?

! Does the 6.1 plug-in support two-way SSL?

! Sometimes a reponse from WebLogic Server to the plug-in contains the

Set-Cookie header. Is this normal?

! If I install mod_wl_ssl.so with mod_perl to Apache 1.3.19, why does

Segmentation Fault (11) occur in mod_wl_ssl.so when I access WebLogic via
the plug-in?

Q. How does the Apache HTTP Server Plug-In work?

A. For information on how a plug-in works, see Installing and Configuring the
Apache HTTP Server Plug-In in Using Web Server Plugins With WebLogic Server.

Q. How does the plug-in route the request for a sticky session?
A. If the browser sends a cookie, we look for "JSESSIONID" (configurable by a
parameter called "CookieName") in the "Cookie: " header.
If the cookie is disabled and URL re-writing is used, the session id is encoded in the
URL. In WebLogic Server 5.1 and earlier, it was encoded in the query string:
?WebLogicSession=my_dumy_session

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 15-1

15 FAQs: Plug-Ins

In WebLogic Server 6.0 and later, it was encoded in the parameter:

;JSESSIONID=my_dummy_session

If no session is found in the query string or parameter and if it is small enough to be

read into memory, WebLogic Server looks for the session in the postdata.

Q. What is new for debugging a plug-in in WebLogic Server 6.0?

"Debug = ON" logs only informational and error messages
HFC : headers from the client, informational, and error messages
HTW : headers sent to wls, informational and error messages
HFW : headers sent from wls, informational and error messages
HTC : headers sent to the client, informational and error messages
ALL : everything
OFF : nothing -- default(should be used in production)

The log file is configurable for 6.1. For later versions of WebLogic Server, the
WLLogFile was introduced to configure the debug filename and location.

Q. What is expected in the wlproxy.log?

Every request looks like the following:
"================New Request: [GET / HTTP/1.1] ================="

PathTrim, DefaultFileName, and PathPrepend will be performed in

order. The final request will be logged as the following: "Fri Jun
22 14:24:40 2001 The request string is '/index.jsp'"

Looking for session information and determining the primary:

"Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 Initializing lastIndex=0 for a list of
length=1 Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 create a new server node:
id='qa89:443' server_name='mint.beasys.com', port='18080'"

Init SSL if SecureProxy is set to ON:

“Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 INFO: SSL is configured Fri Jun 22
14:24:40 2001 INFO: Initializing SSL library Fri Jun 22 14:24:40
2001 Loaded 1 trusted CA's Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 INFO:
Successfully initialized SSL Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 INFO: SSL
configured successfully"

Initial connection being made:

15-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

"Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 general list: trying connect to
'172.17.9.180'/443 Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 Connected to
172.17.9.180:443"

Client headers and the post data (if present) being read:
"Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 Hdrs from clnt:[Accept]=[image/gif,
image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg,
application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword,
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, */*]"

Client headers and the post data (if any) being sent:
"Fri Jun 22 14:24:40 2001 Hdrs to WLS:[Accept]=[image/gif,
image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg,
application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword,
application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, */*]"

Response headers being obtained from WebLogic Server:

“Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 Hdrs from
WLS:[Set-Cookie]=[JSESSIONID=OzI19WqYmFnRviHEu5gKLvot42ABeD8NPWnF
0jW6cawSGcrp2mru!4038528127411848936!-1408169548!80!443; path=/]
Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 parsed all headers OK"

Response headers being sent to WebLogic Server and indicating if the connection is
close or keep-alive is here:
"Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 Hdrs to client:[Date]=[Fri, 22 Jun 2001
21:24:48 GMT] Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 Hdrs to
client:[Server]=[WebLogic WebLogic Server 6.1 beta 06/21/2001
10:44:44 #122398 - internal build by jlee on client jlee.qa89] Fri
Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 canRecycle: conn=1 status=200 isKA=0 clen=2705
isCTE=0 Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 closeConnection in load_utils:
deleting URL* Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 INFO: Closing SSL context
Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 INFO: sysSend 23 Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001
INFO: Error after SSLClose, socket may already have been closed by
peer Fri Jun 22 14:24:46 2001 r->status=200 returning 0"

Q. What has changed in the 6.1 plug-in?

A. The following has changed:
! HTTP1.1 support -- chunk-transferred and keep-alive (except for apache1.3.x)
! Session parsing (this breaks the backward compatibility)

! SSL support from the plug-in to WebLogic Server

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 15-3

15 FAQs: Plug-Ins

Q. What is static list, dynamic list, and general list?

A. They are defined as follows:
! Static list: the initial server list defined in the config file
! Dynamic list: the current server list sent by wls upon a successful request

! General list: the current server list (could be static or dynamic) besides the
primary and secondary servers associated with the current request

Q. Does the 6.1 plug-in support two-way SSL?

A. No. But the plug-in can be set-up to require the client certificate and pass it on to
WebLogic Server. For example:
apache ssl

SSLVerifyClient require

SSLVerifyDepth 10

SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +CompatEnvVars

+StrictRequire

Q. Sometimes a reponse from WebLogic Server to the plug-in contains the Set-Cookie
header. Is this normal?
A. Yes. WebLogic Server will send the Set-Cookie header in the response if the
Cookie header is missing from the request or X-WebLogic-Force-Cookie is
detected. If the plug-in fails to connect to a bad server, the plug-in will send the header
X-WebLogic-Force-Cookie: true to the next available server to force the client to
update the corresponding cookie which contains the correct session information.

Q. If I install mod_wl_ssl.so with mod_perl to Apache 1.3.19, why does Segmentation

Fault (11) occur in mod_wl_ssl.so when I access WebLogic via the plug-in?
A. The server could be any 6.x and the operating system could be any version of
Solaris. The environment is WebLogic Server 6.x (Use mod_wl_ssl.so), Solaris 2.x.
In order to avoid getting Segmentation Fault (11), add a VirtualHost block for HTTP
as in the following example:
# General setup for the virtual host
DocumentRoot "/export/home/tgoto/local/apache_1.3.19_dxu/htdocs"
ServerName tgoto1
ServerAdmin tgoto@toyota

15-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

ErrorLog /export/home/tgoto/local/apache_1.3.19_dxu/logs/error_log
TransferLog
/export/home/tgoto/local/apache_1.3.19_dxu/logs/access_log
</VirtualHost>

For the SSL port, also use the IP address in:

<VirtualHost 206.189.223.111:443>

Use any valid DNS name for the ServerName.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 15-5

15 FAQs: Plug-Ins

15-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

16 FAQs: Server-Related
Questions

! What should I do if my server “hangs” or “freezes”?

! How do I configure WebLogic to use a SOCKS proxy?

! How can I speed up connection responses?

! How does WebLogic support CORBA and client communication via IIOP?

! How do I speed up HTTP tunneling?

! Can WebLogic Server start with a UNIX boot?

! What affects servlet performance besides clients and traffic?

! Why do I get “NoClassDefFound”/“Too Many Open files”messages on Solaris?

! How do I increase WebLogic Server memory?

! Java-CORBA integration: RMI-IIOP or Java IDL?

! How do an RMI-IIOP application and an existing CORBA object interoperate?

! What is the function of T3 in WebLogic Server?

! How can I debug the Java code that I have running in WebLogic Server?

Q. What should I do if my server “hangs” or “freezes”?

A. If your WebLogic Server “freezes,” you will need to collect certain diagnostic
information, including thread dumps and Java garbage collection metrics, before
contacting BEA Technical Support. For details, see Generate a Log File and Check
Garbage Collection.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 16-1

16 FAQs: Server-Related Questions

Q. How do I configure WebLogic to use a SOCKS proxy?

A. You can configure a java.net socket to use SOCKS by setting a Java system
property. For details, see How do I make Java work with a proxy server? at
http://www.sunsite.unc.edu/javafaq/javafaq.html#proxy. Once the property is set,
WebLogic socket connections use the SOCKS proxy.

Q. How can I speed up connection responses?

A. Connection delays are often caused by DNS problems. WebLogic performs a
reverse lookup on the hostname from which a new connection is made. If the DNS
reverse lookup is not working properly because the connection is coming from a proxy
server, it could be responsible for the delay. You might want to work with your system
administrator to determine whether DNS and the third-party networking software are
working properly. Try writing a simple server program that performs a reverse lookup
on any connection made to it. If that lookup is delayed, then you know that the proxy
server is the source of the problem.

Q. How does WebLogic support CORBA and client communication via IIOP?
A. “CORBA” support means many things to many people. It often means simply IIOP
and ORB support and does not use many CORBA services. WebLogic supports
CORBA in multiple ways. The WebLogic Server 7.0 implementation of RMI-IIOP
allows you to: connect Java RMI clients to WebLogic Server using the standardized
IIOP protocol; connect CORBA/IDL clients, including those written in C++, to
WebLogic Server; interoperate between WebLogic Server and Tuxedo clients;
connect a variety of clients to EJBs hosted on WebLogic Server. For more information,
see Using WebLogic RMI over IIOP at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/rmi_iiop/index.html.

Q. How do I speed up HTTP tunneling?

A. Unfortunately, a significant performance hit occurs when you use HTTP tunneling.
We have optimized it somewhat, but, because everything is encapsulated in HTTP,
HTTP tunneling is slower than direct Java-to-Java TCP/IP connections.
Be sure that you really need to use HTTP tunneling. For example, if your firewall can
pass IP packets through port 80, you can use the fast T3 protocol on port 80.

If you must use HTTP tunneling to go through a firewall, e-Border at

http://www.eborder.nec.com has a product that performs better than HTTP proxies.

Q. Can WebLogic Server start with a UNIX boot?

16-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. You can add a startup script to your UNIX rc scripts to run WebLogic Server at
UNIX boot time. For information about creating startup scripts, refer to Starting an
Administration Server Using a Script in the WebLogic Server Administration Guide.

Q. What affects servlet performance besides clients and traffic?

A. Response time for a servlet is about 5 times slower when you are running a screen
saver on the machine, particularly for the OpenGL screen savers. Try turning off your
screen saver and see if that helps!

Q. Why do I get “NoClassDefFound”/“Too Many Open files”messages on Solaris?

Problem: When I am using WebLogic Server on Solaris and try to run my application,
I get a “NoClassDefFound” error, although the class causing the error does exist and
is in the right directory. In fact, there are other classes in the same directory that are
getting loaded. I also get a “Too many open files” error.
A. We have seen this situation when the user account runs out of file descriptors. On
Solaris, each user account has a certain limited number of file descriptors. You can find
out how many file descriptors you have with the limit command in csh.
You can increase file descriptors if you have enough privileges with the ulimit
command in the csh. Otherwise, ask your system administrator to increase the file
descriptors available to your processes.

Q. How do I increase WebLogic Server memory?

A. Increase the allocation of Java heap memory for WebLogic Server. (Set the
minimum and the maximum to the same size.) This example starts the server with a
fixed heap size of 200MB:
$ java ... -ms200m -mx200m ...

This allocates 32 megabytes of Java heap memory to WebLogic Server, which

improves performance and allows WebLogic Server to handle more simultaneous
connections. You can increase this value if necessary.

Q. Java-CORBA integration: RMI-IIOP or Java IDL?

A. It is important to understand the distinction between these two ways of integrating
Java with CORBA.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 16-3

16 FAQs: Server-Related Questions

RMI-IIOP is for Java programmers who want to program to the RMI interfaces but use
IIOP as the underlying transport. RMI-IIOP provides interoperability with other
CORBA objects implemented in various languages, but only if all the remote
interfaces are originally defined as Java RMI interfaces. It is of particular interest to
programmers using Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), because the remote object model for
EJB is RMI-based. It also allows you to use the standardized IIOP protocol and have
a lightweight (minimal weblogic classes) client.

Java IDL is for CORBA programmers who want to program in Java based on
interfaces defined in CORBA IDL. This is "business as usual" CORBA programming,
supporting Java in exactly the same way as other languages like C++ or COBOL. If
you want to integrate C++ (or any other language your orb supports into IDL) you
would use the CORBA IDL method of programming.

Q. How do an RMI-IIOP application and an existing CORBA object interoperate?

A. If the existing CORBA object has its remote interfaces defined originally in
CORBA IDL, then interoperability is not possible. RMI-IIOP applications can
interoperate with other CORBA objects only when their remote interfaces are
originally defined as Java RMI interfaces.
For example, to interoperate between an RMI-IIOP client and a C++ object you need
to:

1. Define the remote interface of the object in Java as an RMI interface..

2. Run rmic -idl against the interface to produce IDL compatible with the RMI
interface.

3. Run a C++ stub compiler against the IDL file to produce the C++ skeleton for
your C++ server object.

Q. What is the function of T3 in WebLogic Server?

A. T3 provides a framework for WebLogic Server messages that support for
enhancements. These enhancements include abbreviations and features, such as object
replacement, that work in the context of WebLogic Server clusters and HTTP and
other product tunneling.
T3 predates Java Object Serialization and RMI, while closely tracking and leveraging
these specifications. T3 is a superset of Java Object. Serialization or RMI; anything
you can do in Java Object Serialization and RMI can be done over T3.

16-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

T3 is mandated between WebLogic Servers and between programmatic clients and a
WebLogic Server cluster. HTTP and IIOP are optional protocols that can be used to
communicate between other processes and WebLogic Server. It depends on what you
want to do. For example, when you want to communicate between

! A browser and WebLogic Server-use HTTP

! An ORB and WebLogic Server-IIOP.

Q. How can I debug the Java code that I have running in WebLogic Server?
A. You can use tools such as WebGain, JBuilder, NetBeans and JDB that rely on the
Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA) to debug your Java code running in
WebLogic Server.
JPDA is integrated in the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) SDK 1.3 on all
platforms and SDK 1.2.2 for Linux. There is a download available from Sun to add
JPDA support to the J2SE SDK 1.2.2 on Solaris and Microsoft Window platforms. If
you are using J2SE SDK 1.2.2 on these platforms you must first get this download.

To allow a debugger to attach to the virtual machine that WebLogic runs you have to
start WebLogic in debug mode. In order to start WebLogic in debug mode using a Sun
virtual machine follow these steps (start with step one only if using a Solaris platform):

1. If using a Solaris platform, change the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable

to prepend $JAVA_HOME/lib/sparc:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$JAVA_HOME/lib/sparc:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

2. Add the following parameters to the java command line (before the
"weblogic.Server" string) that launches WebLogic server:
-Xdebug
-Xnoagent
-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket
server=y
address=<port_for_debugger_to_connect>
suspend=n
-Djava.compiler=NONE

Note that with the Hotspot Performance engine the -Xnoagent and
-Djava.compiler=NONE options are no longer required, but are accepted and ignored
for compatibility reasons.

If server=y and no address parameter is supplied, WebLogic Server chooses the

transport address and prints it to the standard output stream. So, if a line such as:

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 16-5

16 FAQs: Server-Related Questions

Listening for transport dt_socket at address: 46666

prints in your standard output stream when the server starts, the number 46666 is the
port number to be supplied to your tool's remote debugger in order to attach it to
WebLogic's virutal machine.

16-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

17 FAQs: Server-Side Java

(Servlets)

! How do I call a servlet with parameters in the URL?

! How can I run multiple instances of the same servlet class in the same WebLogic
Server instance?

! How do I deserialize an httpsession?

Q. How do I call a servlet with parameters in the URL?

A. The usual format of a servlet parameter is a name=value pair that comes after a
question-mark (?) at the end of the URL. To access these parameters, call the
getParameter() method on the HttpServletRequest object, then write code to test
the strings. For example, if your URL parameters are “func=topic,” where your URL
appears as:
http://www.myserver.com/myservlet?func=topic

then you could parse the parameter as follows, where “req” is the
HttpServletRequest object:

String func = req.getParameter("func");

if (func.equalsIgnoreCase("topic")) {
. . . do some work
}

Q. How can I run multiple instances of the same servlet class in the same WebLogic
Server instance?
A. If you want to run multiple instances, your servlet will have to implement the
SingleThreadModel interface. An instance of a class that implements the
SingleThreadModel interface is guaranteed not to be invoked by multiple threads

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 17-1

17 FAQs: Server-Side Java (Servlets)

simultaneously. Multiple instances of a SingleThreadModel interface are used to

service simultaneous requests, each running in a single thread.
When designing your servlet, consider how you use shared resources outside of the
servlet class such as file and database access. Because there are multiple instances of
servlets that are identical, and may use exactly the same resources, there are still
synchronization and sharing issues that must be resolved, even if you do implement the
SingleThreadModel interface.

Q. How do I deserialize an httpsession?

A. To deserialize an httpsession, construct a utility class that uses the current thread's
contextclassloader to load the user defined objects within the application context. then
add this utility class to the system CLASSPATH.

17-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

18 FAQs: Security
! What is the difference between the Compatibility realm and myrealm? Under
what circumstances should I use each of these realms?

! What are the default groups users and everyone used for?

! Is there still a guest user?

! I want to provide additional fields in my Web application for form-based

authentication. What application programming interfaces (APIs) should I use?

! I am using the 6.x security realm APIs in my application. How do I upgrade this
functionality to the security APIs in WebLogic Server 7.0?

! Does WebLogic Server support Diffie-Hellman or DSS/DSA digital certificates?

! Can a Weblogic Server deployment have one RSA and one non-RSA certificate?

! Must we pay RSA licensing costs for non-RSA client code?

! How do I use Netscape security certificates with WebLogic Server?

! How do I restrict access to servlets and JSPs?

! Can I use RSA encryption algorithms and javax.crypto.* API to build

applications?

! Can I use a JNDI Initial Context to pass the security credentials of a WebLogic
Server user?

! Are WebLogic Server passwords secure?

! Why do I get a Java security permission error when starting and running
WebLogic Server?

! Why do I get a certificate configuration error when I start the my Weblogic

Server?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 18-1

18 FAQs: Security

! Why can't I establish an outbound SSL connection when using the demonstration
certificates?

! Why do I get a configuration error when establishing an SSL connection to

WebLogic Server?

! Why doesn’t my Custom security provider show up (that is, it doesn’t appear as
a Configure a new Security_Provider_Type link) in the
Administration Console?

Q. What is the difference between the Compatibility realm and myrealm? Under what
circumstances should I use each of these realms?
A. If you have a 6.x config.xml file and you boot WebLogic Server 7.0, the
following realms are created:
! Compatibility realm—Allows you to use an existing 6.x security configuration
as is in the management environment provided in WebLogic Server 7.0. The
Realm Adapter providers allows access to existing stores of users, groups, and
access control lists (ACLS).

! myrealm—Is the default security realm in WebLogic Server 7.0. By default, the
WebLogic Security providers are configured in myrealm.

For more information, see Managing WebLogic Security.

Q. What are the default groups users and everyone used for?
A. The users and everyone groups are convenience groups that allow you to apply
global roles and security policies. All WebLogic Server users are members of the
everyone group. Only WebLogic Servers who are not the <anonymous> user are
members of the users group.
For more information, see Managing WebLogic Security.

Q. Is there still a guest user?

A. The guest user is no longer supported by default in WebLogic Server 7.0. In
WebLogic Server 6.x, guest was both the name of a user and the name for anonymous
logins. The new user name for an anonymous user is <anonymous>. You can change
this username by booting WebLogic Server with the following command line
argument:
-Dweblogic.security.anonymousUsername=newAnonymousUsername

18-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

This argument allows you to make the name of the anonymous user guest for the
purpose of backward compatibility.

If you want to have a guest user in WebLogic Server 7.0, create a user with the name
guest in the Authentication provider in the default security realm and give the user the
password of guest. If your code depends on the guest user, you should consider
rewriting it to use the utility methods in weblogic.security.WLSPrincipals.

Q. I want to provide additional fields in my Web application for form-based

authentication. What application programming interfaces (APIs) should I use?
A. The CallbackHandler implementation in the WebLogic Authentication provider
supports only stringified versions of a username and password when using form-based
authentication.
If a Web application requires more authentication information, use the
javax.security.auth.TextInputCallback interface of the JAAS Callback
application programming interface (API) in the code for your Web application. The
implementation of the javax.security.auth.TextInputCallback interface
needs to use the name of the authentication field as the prompt to the method
constructor. For example:
Callback[] callbacks=new Callback[1];
callbacks[1]=new TextInputCallback(“TextField”);

try{
callbackHandler.handle(callbacks)
textField1=((TextInputCallback)callbacks[2].getText
} catch (java.io.IOException ioe) {
throw new LoginException(ioe.toString());
}catch (UnsupportedCallbackException uce) {
throw new LoginException
(“Error:”+uce.getCallback().toString() +
“not available to garner authentication information” +
“from the user”);
}
//”textField1 is not set correctly

When the ServletCallbackHandler gets a TextInputCallback, the callback

looks for a field matching the prompt of the TextInputCallback. If there is a match,
the callback handler sets the value in the callback. If no match is found, an
UnsupportedCallback exception is raised.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 18-3

18 FAQs: Security

Q. I am using the 6.x security realm APIs in my application. How do I upgrade this
functionality to the security APIs in WebLogic Server 7.0?
Specifically, I am using the security.getRealm() method and then the
getGroup(), getGroups(), and getUser() methods on the returned realm.
A. You can use your 6.x application as is in the WebLogic Server 7.0 environment by
using Compatibility security.
The management of WebLogic Server changed in 6.0 away from direct calls on the
realm to the use of MBeans. This change was the first step in creating a unified
administration model for WebLogic Server. While the Security MBeans introduced in
6.0 mirrored the capabilities defined for the realm, they were not flexible enough to
allow security vendors to integrate their products with WebLogic Server. WebLogic
Server 7.0 provides a set of Security Service Provider Interfaces (SSPI) and Security
SPI MBeans that allow you to write custom security products for WebLogic Server.
These MBeans can also be used to replicate functionality in an existing application so
that the application can be used in the WebLogic Server 7.0 environment.
If you choose to upgrade your realm, you will need to write an implementation of the
MBeans found in the weblogic.management.security package. These MBeans
allow you to implement management methods that are specific to your 6.x realm. For
a description of using the MBeans in the weblogic.management.security
package, see Developing Security Providers for WebLogic Server.

The following are some hints that may help you upgrade applications based on security
realms to the security architecture available in WebLogic Server 7.0:

! If you are using the security realm to authenticate users, instead use the JAAS
API to authenticate users.

! Table 18-1 lists the mappings between the interfaces in the 6.x of the
weblogic.security.acl package to the interfaces in the 7.0 of the
weblogic.managment.security.authentication package.

Note: The weblogic.security.acl package is deprecated in WebLogic Server

7.0.

18-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Table 18-1 Interface Mapping
Methods in the 6.x Corresponding Method in the 7.0
weblogic.security.acl package weblogic.management.security.
authentication package

newUser() UserEditor.createUser()

deleteUser() UserRemover.removeUser()

newGroup() GroupEditor.createGroup()

deleteGroup() GroupRemover.removeGroup()

Group.addMember() GroupEditor.addMemberToGroup

Group.removeMember() GroupEditor.removeMemberFromGroup()

Group.isMember() GroupMemberLister.listGroupMembers()
or SubjectUtils.isUserInGroup()

Group.members() GroupMemberList.listGroupMembers()

userExists() UserReader.isUser()

isGroupMember() GroupReader.groupExists(),
GroupReader.isMember()

Q. Does WebLogic Server support Diffie-Hellman or DSS/DSA digital certificates?

A. No. The exportable version of WebLogic supports only 512 bit RSA with 40 bit
RC4. Additionally, Web browsers do not support these types of certificates, and there
are no commercial issuers for DSA certificates.

Q. Can a Weblogic Server deployment have one RSA and one non-RSA certificate?
A. No.

Q. Must we pay RSA licensing costs for non-RSA client code?

A. WebLogic Server has licensed RSA for SSL communications between WebLogic
Server and WebLogic clients. When using WebLogic Server, no extra licensing for
RSA is necessary, although different rules apply to VARs.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 18-5

18 FAQs: Security

Q. How do I use Netscape security certificates with WebLogic Server?

A. Netscape stores the private and public keys together in a key-pair file which
prevents you from separating the public and private keys. Therefore, you must
generate another request for a certificate, not using Netscape utilities. You can use the
Certificate Request servlet in WebLogic Server to generate a request for a new
certificate.

Q. Where does WebLogic Server store private keys?

A. WebLogic Server 7.0 looks for the private key in the configured Keystore
provider. Before a private key can be located in the Keystore provider, you need to
perform the following configuration steps:
1. Configure the Keystore provider using the Administration Console.

2. Load the private key into the configured Keystore provider.

3. Specify the Server Private Key Alias and Server Passphrase attributes on the SSL
protocol tab in the WebLogic Server Administration Console.

If the private key is not found, WebLogic Server looks in the file specified in the Server
Key File Name attribute on the SSL tab under the Server node.
For more information, see Managing WebLogic Security.

Note: The WebLogic Keystore provider is deprecated in WebLogic Server 7.0 SP01.

Q. How do I restrict access to servlets and JSPs?

The Java Servlet API Specification v2.3, at
http://www.java.sun.com/products/servlet/download.html#specs, allows you to
declaratively restrict access to specific Servlets and JSPs using the Web Application
Deployment descriptor. Section 13.3.2 of the specification has an example
deployment descriptor that uses declarative security. For more information, see
Programming WebLogic HTTP Servlets. You can also specify roles for EJBs and Web
applications through the Administration Console. For more information, see
Managing WebLogic Security.

Q. Can I use RSA encryption algorithms and javax.crypto.* API to build

applications?
A. No. WebLogic’s RSA license does not permit end-users to use RSA classes
directly. You must obtain your own license for the encryption libraries from RSA.

18-6 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Can I use a JNDI Initial Context to pass the security credentials of a WebLogic
Server user?
A. The ability to use JNDI to pass security credentials was deprecated in 6.1 of
WebLogic Server. You can still use this method in WebLogic Server 7.0. However,
BEA recommends using the Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS)
runAs() method rather than JNDI to associate a user with a security context. For more
information, see Programming WebLogic Security.

Q. Are WebLogic Server passwords secure?

A. The config.xml file no longer has clear text passwords. In place of clear text
passwords, the config.xml file has encrypted passwords. You cannot copy encrypted
passwords from one domain to another. Instead, you can edit the config.xml file and
replace the existing encrypted passwords with clear text passwords and then copy the
file to the new domain. The Administration Console will encrypt the passwords the
next time it writes to the file.

Q. Why do I get a Java security permission error when starting and running WebLogic
Server?
For example: java.security.AccessControlException:access denied
(description of error)

What should I do?

A. The RecordingSecurityManager utility can be used to detect permission problems
that occur when starting and running WebLogic Server. The utility outputs
permissions that can be added to your Java security policy file to resolve the
permission problems that the utility finds. The RecordingSecurityManager utility is
available from the following BEA download page.

Q. Why do I get a certificate configuration error when I start the my Weblogic Server?
For example: Alert> <WebLogicServer> <Security> configuration problem
with certificate file
A. It is possible that you did not specify a WL_HOME relative file name in your SSL
configuration files.
For more information, see Managing WebLogic Security.

Q. Why can't I establish an outbound SSL connection when using the demonstration
certificates?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 18-7

18 FAQs: Security

A. When establishing an SSL connection, the subject DN of the digital certificate

must match the host name of the server initiating the SSL connection. Otherwise, the
SSL connection is dropped. If you use the demonstration certificates, the host names
will not match. To avoid this situation, use the following command-line argument
when starting WebLogic Server:
-Dweblogic.security.SSL.ignoreHostnameVerification=true

This argument disables the Hostname Verifier which compares the subject DNs and
host names. This solution is recommended in development environments only. A more
secure solution is to obtain a new digital certificate for the server making outbound
SSL connections.

Q. Why do I get a configuration error when establishing an SSL connection to

WebLogic Server?
For example: <WebLogic Server> <SSLListenThread listening on port
8802> Failed to connect to t3s://localhost:8802.

A problem with the configuration of the SSL protocol will also raise the following
exception:
<java.io.IOException: Write Channel Closed, possible handshaking or
trust failure>
A. By default, WebLogic Server contains a Hostname Verifier that compares the
subject DNs of digital certificates and host names. When establishing an SSL
connection, the subject DN of the digital certificate must match the host name of the
server initiating the SSL connection. If you use the demonstration certificates the host
names will not match. To avoid this situation, use the following command-line
argument when starting WebLogic Server:
-Dweblogic.security.SSL.ignoreHostnameVerification=true

This argument disables the Hostname Verifier. This solution is recommended in

development environments only. A more secure solution is to obtain a new digital
certificate for your WebLogic client.

In WebLogic Server 7.0, WebLogic clients perform a trusted certificate authority

check on the digital certificate for WebLogic Server. The client may reject the digital
certificate of WebLogic Server if the certificate was not issued by a certificate
authority trusted by the client. Previous versions of WebLogic Server did not perform
this check.

Q. Why does my servlet return a no certificate message?

18-8 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

A. Unless WebLogic Server is configured to ask a client for its digital certificate
during the SSL handshake (referred to as Two-Way SSL), WebLogic Server will not
have the digital certificate. You get this error when a WebLogic servlet or JSP tries to
perform peer validation on the client. Set the Client Certificate Enforced attribute on
the SSL tab under the Server node to configure WebLogic Server to request client
certificates.

Q. Why doesn’t my Custom security provider show up (that is, it doesn’t appear as a
Configure a new Security_Provider_Type link) in the Administration Console?
A. Check to make sure the system administrator put the MBean JAR file (MJF) in the
lib/mbeantype directory.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 18-9

18 FAQs: Security

18-10 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

19 FAQs: Upgrading
! What is Compatibility mode?

! How do I run WebLogic Server 7.0 in Compatibility mode when upgrading?

! What is two-phase deployment?

! Why do I keep getting a NoSuchMethodError when running an application on

WebLogic Server 7.0?

! What is WebLogic Platform 7.0?

! If I am a WebLogic Server 7.0 GA customer, should I upgrade to WebLogic

Platform 7.0 (upgrade from 7.0.0.0 to 7.0.0.1)?

! I am a WebLogic Server 7.0 GA customer. How do I upgrade to WebLogic

Server 7.0.0.1?

! What WebLogic Server version will I see when I try to download 7.0.0.1?

! What about WebLogic Server 7.0 Service Pack 1?

Q. What is Compatibility mode?

A. When you upgrade to WebLogic Server 7.0 from WebLogic Server 6.x,
Compatibility mode allows you to keep your 6.x configuration of users, groups, and
ACLs.

Q. How do I run WebLogic Server 7.0 in Compatibility mode when upgrading?

A. WebLogic Server 7.0 recognizes your 6.x config.xml file and automatically runs in
Compatibility mode.

Q. What is two-phase deployment?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 19-1

19 FAQs: Upgrading

A. WebLogic Server 7.0 uses two-phase deployment. In previous versions of

WebLogic Server, when you deployed an application, a copy of the application file(s)
was sent to all the targeted servers, which in turn, loaded the application. If any of those
servers failed (or partially failed), the deployment was placed in an inconsistent state.
In the current release of WebLogic Server, the application is first prepared across the
servers and then activated in a separate phase. In the prepare phase, the application is
prepared for deployment without allowing user requests to the application. When the
servers are ready, the application is activated everywhere. With this model, it is still
possible to have a failure occur during the activation phase, which leads to the
inconsistent state, but it is much less likely to occur.

For more information on this deployment model and other 7.0 deployment features,
see WebLogic Server Application Deployment.

Q. Why do I keep getting a NoSuchMethodError when running an application on

WebLogic Server 7.0?
A. Make sure that you are not running the server with a patch for a previous version
of WebLogic Server. For exact information of a particular patch, contact Customer
Support.
Also make sure that you do not have any JAR files in your server CLASSPATH that
conflict with the version of J2EE that is supported by WebLogic Server 7.0, J2EE
version 1.3. The 1.3 version of J2EE is added to the WebLogic Server 7.0 CLASSPATH
by default. For example, you may have to remove j2ee12.jar from your server
CLASSPATH.

Q. What is WebLogic Platform 7.0?

A. WebLogic Platform 7.0 is a BEA product that was released on June 28, 2002 and
includes the following component products:
" WebLogic Server (WLS)
" WebLogic Portal (WLP)
" WebLogic Integration (WLI)
" WebLogic Workshop (WLW)

19-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

WebLogic Server and WebLogic Platform are at the 7.0.0.1 release level because
WebLogic Server was released prior to the Platform, and then augmented to 7.0.0.1 to
accommodate changes for the Platform release. WebLogic Platform reflects this
WebLogic Server release level. Whenever a component product releases a Service
Pack or a Rolling Patch, the WebLogic Platform release will be updated as well.

Q. If I am a WebLogic Server 7.0 GA customer, should I upgrade to WebLogic

Platform 7.0 (upgrade from 7.0.0.0 to 7.0.0.1)?
A. Some reasons to upgrade or not to upgrade to 7.0.0.1:
You may want to upgrade to 7.0.0.1 because:
" you are using a layered product like WLI, WLP or WLW.
" you want to incorporate the fix for a CR that is fixed in 7.0.0.1.
" you are using the JAX-RPC API (Web Services) in WebLogic Server and
want to use the implementation that is compatible with the finalized version
of the spec (1.0).

You may not want to upgrade to 7.0.0.1 because:

" you could avoid upgrading twice by waiting for WebLogic Platform 7.0
Service Pack 1, which is tentatively set for the beginning of September 2002,
and then upgrading from 7.0.0.0 to 7.0.1.0.
" you do not use any layered products.
" you want to wait for 7.0.1.0 so you can get incorporate even more fixes.

Q. I am a WebLogic Server 7.0 GA customer. How do I upgrade to WebLogic Server

7.0.0.1?
A. There is no upgrade installer, only full installers. Two ways to get to 7.0.0.1 are:
" From the Downloads section of www.bea.com, install WebLogic Server as
part of the Platform installer. Choose Custom Installation, not Typical
Installation, so that you can specify WebLogic Server only. Otherwise the
full 250MB Platform will be installed.
" After logging on to Customer Support, you can look under BEA WebLogic
Server Service Packs. You will notice 7.0.0.1 under WebLogic Server 7.0
Service Packs.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 19-3

19 FAQs: Upgrading

Q. What WebLogic Server version will I see when I try to download 7.0.0.1?
A. C:\bea\weblogic700\samples\server\config\examples>java weblogic.version
WebLogic Server 7.0 Thu Jun 20 11:47:11 PDT 2002 190955
WebLogic XMLX Module 7.0 Thu Jun 20 11:58:44 PDT 2002 190955
You can differentiate from WebLogic Server 7.0 GA by date and change number (i.e.
190955).

Q. What about WebLogic Server 7.0 Service Pack 1?

A. WebLogic Platform 7.0 will be fully synchronized for WebLogic Server 7.0
Service Pack 1 (WLS, WLI, WLP, and WLW will all be delivered on the same date).
The GA date for WebLogic Server 7.0 Service Pack 1 is still tentatively set for the
beginning of September 2002. A smart upgrade installer that will recognize what you
have installed and upgrade accordingly will be available with the WebLogic Platform
7.0 Service Pack 1 download.

19-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

20 FAQs: Web Services

! Does WebLogic Server 7.0 support SOAP Messages with Attachments?

! Does WebLogic Server 7.0 support SOAP?

Q. Does WebLogic Server 7.0 support SOAP Messages with Attachments?

A. Yes. As long as the data type of the attachment is on the list of supported JAX-RPC
data types, then WebLogic Server will automatically handle parameters to Web
services that are SOAP attachments. If you want to do further processing of the
attachment, you can use handlers to intercept the request and response SOAP message
(which includes the attachment.)

Q. Does WebLogic Server 7.0 support SOAP?

A. Yes. WebLogic Server’s implementation of SOAP is included as part of the Web
Services subsystem. For detailed information on creating Web Services with
WebLogic Server, see Programming WebLogic Web Services at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/webServices/index.html.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 20-1

20 FAQs: Web Services

20-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

21 FAQs: Wireless-Related
Questions

! What is a wireless (mobile) device?

! Can WebLogic Server support wireless devices?

! What should I consider when writing an application for wireless devices?

! What is WAP and what is i-Mode?

! Will my solution work on different networks such as CDMA, GPRS, TDMA and
PDC-P?

! What changes do I need to consider for 3G wireless networks?

Q. What is a wireless (mobile) device?

A. A wireless device in this context is a device that has connectivity to the Internet
without being physically plugged into a network with a wire. The most common
examples of these are the Internet-enabled cell phone such as a WAP Phone or i-Mode
phone, personal digital assistant (PDA) such as Palm VII, Pocket PC such as Wireless
iPaq, and pager such as RIM Blackberry.

Q. Can WebLogic Server support wireless devices?

A. Yes. For information on wireless support, see Using WAP with WebLogic Server.
Wireless examples, if installed, are located in the /samples/examples directory of your
WebLogicServer installation and are available from the Start menu.

Q. What should I consider when writing an application for wireless devices?

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 21-1

21 FAQs: Wireless-Related Questions

A. The following is a list of factors to consider when writing applications for wireless
clients:
! Content should be personalized based on the location of the device and/or the
type of the device.

! Device microbrowsers are usually not HTML-based; some are WML-based,

some are cHTML-based, some are HDML-based, some use Web Clipping, etc.

! Some devices have additional features such as Bluetooth, power keys and SMS
messaging that can be used to enhance an application.

! Often the devices can be used with voice portals using voice recognition and
text-to-speech.

! Most of the devices have smaller screens that may or may not display color or
graphical images.

! These screens range in form from a vertically-oriented rectangle to a square to a

horizontally-oriented rectangle.

! Many of the devices have a difficult data entry and selection mechanism with
numeric keypads or styli.

! Connectivity is often lost when the device is mobile.

! The devices usually have no PKI security capability.

! A few of the devices are limited in the amount of data that can be transmitted to
them for a page.

For more information see Wireless, Internet and Email.

Q. What is WAP and what is i-Mode?

A. WAP and i-Mode are the two major over-the-air (OTA) protocols for wireless
Internet communication with cell phones and some other devices. WAP stands for
Wireless Application Protocol and is found predominantly in Europe and North
America. i-Mode is the protocol used in Japan by NTT DoCoMo. A new protocol
called WAP-NG (WAP Next Generation) is being considered as a replacement for
both of these protocols.

21-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

Both WAP and i-Mode are comprised of both the OTA protocol and a markup
language understood by their microbrowsers. The WAP markup language is WML
(Wireless Markup Language) and cHTML (Compact HTML) is the markup language
specified by i-Mode. WML and cHTML may be superseded by XHTML (Basic) in the
future.

Note that other wireless carriers and devices use protocols and markup languages other
than WAP and i-Mode. For example, the Palm VII uses web clipping over a
proprietary protocol.

For more information about WAP, see http://www.wapforum.org/faqs.

Q. Will my solution work on different networks such as CDMA, GPRS, TDMA and
PDC-P?
A. Yes. WAP and i-Mode were designed to hide the network details from the
application developer. They will both work equally well on any underlying network.
Therefore, as carriers upgrade their networks, applications written for either WAP or
i-Mode will continue to work without any need for modifications. As the networks are
upgraded to higher speeds, the performance of wireless applications written in either
WML or cHTML should improve as well.

Q. What changes do I need to consider for 3G wireless networks?

A. None. As described in the previous answer, neither WAP nor i-Mode is dependent
on the underlying network. However, a developer may consider enriching an
application with streaming media or other content that requires greater bandwidth.

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 21-3

21 FAQs: Wireless-Related Questions

21-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

CHAPTER

22 FAQs: XML
! Which XML parser comes with WebLogic Server 7.0?

! Is an XSLT processor bundled in WebLogic Server?

! What version of the JAXP API specification is implemented in WebLogic Server

7.0?

! Can I use the getAttribute() and setAttribute() methods of Version 2.3 of the Java
Servlet API to parse XML documents?

! Can I plug in a version of Apache’s Xerces XML parser that is different to the
one that is built-in with WebLogic Server 7.0 (Xerces 1.4.4)?

! I plugged in a version of Apache Xalan that I downloaded from the Apache Web
site, and now I get errors when I try to transform documents. What is the
problem?

! How do I identify the document type of an XML document?

Q. Which XML parser comes with WebLogic Server 7.0?

A. We bundle the following two parsers with WebLogic Server 7.0:
" a built-in parser based on Apache’s Xerces 1.4.4 parser
" WebLogic FastParser, a high-performance non-validating parser that you can
use for small to medium sized XML documents.
The WebLogic XML Registry allows you to configure the parser you want to
use for specific document types.
You can also use the WebLogic XML Streaming API to parse your XML
documents. The Streaming API is based on the SAX API, but provides a more
procedural, stream-based handling of XML documents rather than having to

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 22-1

22 FAQs: XML

write SAX event handlers, which can get complicated when dealing with
complex XML documents.

Q. Is an XSLT processor bundled in WebLogic Server?

A. Yes, we bundle an XSLT processor, based on Apache’s Xalan 2.2 processor, in
WebLogic Server 7.0.

Q. What version of the JAXP API specification is implemented in WebLogic Server

7.0?
A. Version 1.1. This version includes pluggable XML transformation as well as
pluggable XML parsing.

Q. Can I use the getAttribute() and setAttribute() methods of Version 2.3 of the Java
Servlet API to parse XML documents?
A. Yes. Use the setAttribute() method for SAX mode parsing and the
getAttribute() method for DOM mode parsing. Using these methods in a Servlet,
however, is a WebLogic-specific feature. This means that the Servlet may not be fully
portable to other Servlet engines, so use the feature with caution.

Q. Can I plug in a version of Apache’s Xerces XML parser that is different to the one
that is built-in with WebLogic Server 7.0 (Xerces 1.4.4)?
A. Yes. The version of Xerces that you can plug in, depends on the specific service
pack of WebLogic Server 7.0 that you have installed.
If you have installed WebLogic Server 7.0.0.1 or lower on your computer, follow these
instructions:
You can plug in the following versions of Xerces:
" Xerces 1.2.2
" Xerces 1.2.3
" Xerces 1.3.0
" Xerces 1.3.1
" Xerces 1.4.0
" Xerces 2.0.0
" Xerces 2.0.1

22-2 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

 Warning: If you plug in version 2.0.0 or higher of Xerces, you cannot use the
Xalan compatibility classes.
To plug in a different version of the Apache Xerces parser, follow these steps:

a. Append the xerces.jar file to the end of WebLogic Server’s CLASSPATH

variable. This variable is set, by default, in the
WL_HOME/server/bin/startWLS.cmd script used to start instances of
WebLogic Server, where WL_HOME refers to the top-level directory of the
WebLogic Platform.
You can also put the xerces.jar file in the WEB-INF/lib directory of the
WAR file of your application. In this case, be sure you do not enable the
PreferWebInfClasses flag for your Web application.

b. Configure your XML Registry to use the org.apache.xerces.jaxp for the

DocumentBuilderFactory or SAXParserFactory factories. For details, see
Administering WebLogic Server XML at
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs70/xml/xml_admin.html.

If you have installed WebLogic Server 7.0 Service Pack 1 on your computer, follow
these instructions:
You can plug in any version of the Xerces XML parser.
To plug in a different verison of the Xerces parser, follow these steps:

a. Put the xerces.jar file in the WEB-INF/lib directory of your application. Be

sure you enable the PreferWebInfClasses flag for your Web application.

b. Configure the parser and builder factories through files in the

META-INF/services directory in one of the archives in WEB-INF/lib if they
are not already present in the xerces.jar file.
Warning: If you plug in a new version of Xerces using this procedure, you cannot
use Administratin Console to configure the XML registry to configure
the parser or entity resolution. If you need to configure the XML
registry, use the procedure for plugging in new parsers for version
7.0.0.1 or lower described in the beginning of this section.

Q. I plugged in a version of Apache Xalan that I downloaded from the Apache Web
site, and now I get errors when I try to transform documents. What is the problem?
A. You must ensure that the version of Apache Xalan you download from the Apache
Web site is compatible with the version of Apache Xerces you are using with

BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions 22-3

22 FAQs: XML

WebLogic Server. This version is either the built-in version of 1.4.4 or one of the
versions listed in the preceding question if you have plugged in your own version of
Xerces.

Q. How do I identify the document type of an XML document?

A. If the XML document has a Public ID, then that is its document type. For example,
if an XML document contains the following DOCTYPE declaration:
<!DOCTYPE mydoc PUBLIC "My public ID String"
"http://foo.com/url/to/my/dtd">

then its document type is My public ID String.

If the DOCTYPE declaration does not contain a Public ID, but specifies a System ID,
then the document type is the System ID. For example, in the following DOCTYPE
declaration:
<!DOCTYPE mydoc SYSTEM "http://foo.com/url/to/my/dtd">

the document type is http://foo.com/url/to/my/dtd.

Note: The System ID is of the DTD, not of the XML document itself. It can,
however, still be used as a way to identify the XML document.

If the XML document does not specify a DOCTYPE declaration, then the document
type can be either the root element name or the namespace URI, if it has one.

22-4 BEA WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions