Submitting jobs (deprecated)

In a flexible management environment, you can submit jobs to remote targets to manage applications, modify the product configuration on remote machines, or do a general purpose task such as run a script. You can specify when the jobs start, whether they are recurring, and when they expire.

Before you begin

Deprecated feature: The job manager is deprecated. Instead of job manager, use Urban Code Deploy to install the product, to deploy applications, and to manage remote hosts. To manage WebSphere® Application Server installations, you also can use swinging profiles. See Swinging profiles between product installations.

Before you can submit a job, you must have registered at least one target with the job manager. A target can be an application server node that was first registered with an administrative agent, a deployment manager node, or a host computer.

Start the job manager and the targets. If a target is a stand-alone application server, also start the administrative agent.

Your ID for the job manager must be authorized for the administrator role or the operator role to submit jobs. When you submit a job, you can specify a user name and password for authentication and authorization at the target or targets. If you do not provide a user name and password in the job parameters, the credentials for the job submitter at the job manager are used for this purpose. When you submit a job to multiple targets, the user name and password or the credentials for the submitter must apply to all the job targets.

You can simplify administration of multiple targets by submitting jobs against groups of targets. Each group of targets represents a group of targets. Before you can submit a job for a group of targets, you must have created the group of targets.

Job manager functionality exists in a job manager and in a deployment manager. For simplicity, this documentation refers to the functionality as the job manager.

About this task

You can use the administrative console of the job manager or deployment manager to submit jobs to do tasks such as manage applications, modify the product configuration on remote workstations, or do general-purpose tasks such as run a script. To complete the job submission, choose the type of job, choose the targets on which you want the job to run, specify the job parameters that are specific to the job type, schedule the job, review the summary, and submit the job.

The topics in this section describe how to submit jobs using a job manager console or a deployment manager console. Instead of using a console, you can submit jobs from the command line using the wsadmin submitJob command in AdministrativeJobs command group. See the topic on administrative job types.

Procedure

Click Jobs > Submit from the navigation tree of the job manager console or deployment manager console.
Choose the job type.
1. Select the job type from the list.
  The list of job types varies based on the targets that you have registered with the job manager. The values displayed in the list are retrieved from the getJobTypes and getJobTypeMetadata commands of the AdminTask object. You can have job types that manage applications, modify the product configuration on remote machines, or do general-purpose tasks such as run a script.
  The following job types exist:
2. Optionally specify a description of the job.
  
  The description is a string that can be up to 256 characters. The default description is the job type. You can change or add to the default description. The description is useful when using the Find option to view existing jobs.
3. Click Next.
Choose the job targets.

You are determining the targets on which you want the job to run.
1. Select a group of targets from the list, or select Target name.
  
  Only groups of targets that are valid for the job type that you selected are displayed in the list of groups of targets.
2. If you selected Target name, then enter a target name, and click Add, or generate a list of targets by using the Find option.
  Target name that you enter
  
  If you enter a target name, it must be a target that has been registered to the job manager. The target name is validated when you click Next.
  
  List of target names
  Click Find.
  The Find targets page is displayed.
  
  For Target type, select All, Host, or Node. The default value is All.
  
  If you want to run the Find operation on specific keywords, specify a valid operator and a text string.
  The list of keywords is dynamic. Valid operators are = (equal to), != (not equal to), is null, and is not null. The text string can be complete or partial and can contain an asterisk (*) to include variable or unknown characters.
  
  Click Find.
  The results are displayed in the Excluded targets list and are selected.
  
  Move targets that you want to target from the Excluded targets list to the Chosen targets list.
  
  To move specific targets from the Excluded targets list to the Chosen targets list, select targets in the Excluded targets list and click >.
  
  To move specific targets from the Chosen targets list to the Excluded targets list, select targets in the Chosen targets list and click <.
  
  After you have a list of the wanted targets in the Chosen targets list, click OK.
  The targets display on the Choose job targets page.
3. If the target requires authentication, specify a user name and password so that the target can run the job.
  For example, to access a target host, you typically specify values for User name and Password authentication. The user name and password are the login values for the host. If the target host does not require a password, leave the fields blank.
  If you want a substitute user to perform commands on the target host, select Use sudo to change users before a job runs, and then specify the user name and password for the substitute user as needed. sudo means substitute user do. If the target host does not require a password, leave the password fields blank. The following selection combinations are valid:
  - Select Use sudo, and leave the user name and sudo password blank. These selections use the default user that is set in the /etc/sudoers file and use the password of the connection user.
  - Select Use sudo, specify a user name, and leave the sudo password blank. These selections use the specified user and use the password of the connection user.
  - Select Use sudo, specify a user name, and specify a sudo password. These selections use the specified user and sudo password.
  The default is not to use sudo. The sudo option is supported on AIX, HP-UX, Linux, and Solaris operating systems only.
  If you want to use public-private key authentication, select Public-private key authentication and then specify the full path to the keystore and, if required for the keystore, the passphrase.
  Best practice: To use public-private key authentication, first generate a pair of keys using a key generation tool such as ssh-keygen. Next, add the public key to the authorized_keys file of the user on the target host. Then, on this Choose job targets page, specify the user name, fully qualified private key file, and optionally the fully qualified passphase.
4. Click Next.

Specify the job parameters.

The list of job parameters is dynamic and based on the job type. For example, if the job type is to install an application, specify the application name, the location of the application to install, and optionally the name of the server where the system installs the application.

When you submit a job to multiple targets, the parameter values must apply to all the job targets.

The following table describes the types of parameters.

Parameter Type	Description
String	You can enter text for the appropriate parameters. The text is not validated until the job is submitted.
Target resource	You can select a target resource. The Find option is available for you to search for the resource, depending on the job type that you selected in the first step.

Optionally click Find if it is available.

The Find target resources page is displayed.
If you want to run the Find operation on specific keywords, specify a valid operator and a text string.

The list of keywords is dynamic. Valid operators are = (equal to), != (not equal to), is null, and is not null. The text string can be complete or partial and can contain an asterisk (*) to include variable or unknown characters.
Click Find.

The results are displayed in the Available resources common to all selected endpoints list.
Click OK to save the results and return to the page on specifying job parameters.
Click Next.

Schedule the job.

The times and dates that you specify are relative to the job manager.
1. Optionally specify one or more email addresses where notifications are sent when the job is done.
  
  If you specify multiple email addresses, separate them with commas. The email addresses are saved in your console preferences. Each email address is validated for format errors.
2. Select when the job is available for submission.
  
  You can submit the job to be available now, or specify a time and date that the job is retrieved from the job manager.
3. Select the job expiration.
  
  The job expiration is the time at which the job is no longer available for targets to run. You can use the default expiration, specify a time and date for the job expiration, or specify an amount of time in which the job expires. The default expiration is defined on the Job manager configuration page.
4. Optionally specify a recurring interval for the job, a start date and time for the interval, and an end date and time for the interval.
5. Click Next.
Review the summary, and submit the job.
1. If you want to change the options, click Previous until you reach the page that you want to change. Make the correction on that page, and then proceed through the pages until you review the Summary and submit the job page.
2. When you are satisfied with the options, click Finish to submit the job.
  
  The Job status collection page is displayed where only the status for the job that you submitted is displayed.

Results

After you submit a job, the job might not be run immediately. The job manager queues submitted jobs. The administrative agents and deployment managers poll the job manager for jobs when they are online, based on their configured polling intervals. The default polling interval is 30 seconds. It takes at least two polling cycles for administrative agents and deployment managers to retrieve jobs and then return results to the job manager. Depending on how long it takes for the target to process the job, it might take more cycles to complete the job.

What to do next

After you submit a job, the Job status page shows a unique job ID; for example, 122763380912576341. You can use the job ID to query, suspend, resume, or delete the job. When you click a job ID, you see the specific properties of that job, including activation and expiration time of the job and its status. If you click the job status link, you see the job history for each job target. Click the status refresh icon Specifies the refresh view icon for job status to refresh the displayed status.

You can check the state and status of a job using the job manager console or a wsadmin command.

The job state shows where the job is in the execution process from the job manager perspective. Table 1 lists the job states.

Table 1. Job states . The state indicates whether the job is active.
Job states	Description
Pending	You submitted the job, but the job is not available yet to be run on the targets.
Active	One or more targets have started running the job.
Expired	The job has expired. If a target started to run the job before it expired, the job continues running. After a job expires, a target cannot start running the job.
Suspended	The job suspended operation. If a target started to run the job before it is suspended, the job continues running. After a job is suspended, a target cannot start running the job.

The job status shows a history of the job processing on a managed target. A typical job history is for the status to progress from Distributed to In progress to Succeeded. Table 2 shows the job status values.

Table 2. Job status descriptions . The status indicates whether the job completed successfully.
Job status	Description
Not attempted	The target has not received the job. The status is NOT_ATTEMPTED.
Distributed	The target has received the job. The status is DISTRIBUTED.
In progress	The target is running the job concurrently with other jobs. The status is ASYNC_IN_PROGRESS.
Failed	The job failed and is no longer running. The status is FAILED.
Rejected	The target rejected the job because, for example, the target does not support the job type. The status is REJECTED.
Succeeded	Job completed successfully. The status is SUCCEEDED.
Partially succeeded	Applies only to startCluster and stopCluster jobs where the cluster has multiple cluster members and to startApplication and stopApplication jobs where the application is installed on multiple targets. If only some cluster members are started or stopped or the application does not start on all application targets, the status of the job is PARTIALLY_SUCCEEDED.

By default, submitted jobs remain active for one day (24 hours). An active job is a running Java process that consumes machine resources. Delete jobs that you no longer need. You can use the job manager console Job status page. Click Jobs > Status, select the jobs, and click Delete.