You can use the Explore tool to view and manage resources in the Liberty topology.
In version 21.0.0.4 and
later, see the Open Liberty website for Admin Center documentation.
About this task
The Explore tool offers the following options to work with application, server, cluster, host,
and runtime resources. Admin Center on a collective
controller has all the options. Admin Center on a
stand-alone server offers options to view information about the stand-alone server and its
applications, to stop, start or restart resources, and to search for resources.
Procedure
-
View a summary of all resources on the Explore tool Dashboard.
The Dashboard is shown for Admin Center on a
collective controller and not for Admin Center on a
stand-alone server.
From the Toolbox, select Explore . The Explore page, or "Dashboard," shows the number of applications, servers,
clusters, hosts, and runtimes that Admin Center is
managing. The Dashboard also shows the number of resources that are running, stopped, or in an
unknown state. If an alert condition is met, the alert is shown on the Dashboard with a link to the
appropriate resource page. The resource name, total, and status also have links to the appropriate
resource pages.
-
View a summary of all applications, servers, clusters, hosts, or runtimes.
For Admin Center on a stand-alone server, you can view
a summary of its applications. Select Applications on the vertical navigation
bar.
For Admin Center on a collective, from the Dashboard,
select a link on the Applications, Servers,
Clusters, Hosts, or Runtimes
panel. For example, to see a summary of all servers, select the View All link
on the Servers panel. The state of all servers is shown. Whether a server is
a collective controller or stand-alone server is also shown.
If an alert condition is met, an exclamation mark Alert is shown on the resource card. Select Alert for details on the alert condition.
To filter the view, select an icon that shows the number of resources in a specific state. For
example, select the 1 Alert icon to display the one server with an alert
condition.
For more timely updates to server and application status, add the websocket-1.1
or websocket-1.0
feature to the server configuration for your servers that use the
adminCenter-1.0 feature.
-
View details about a resource.
For a collective, from the Explore page, select a link on the
Applications, Servers,
Clusters, Hosts, or Runtimes
panel and then a specific resource. For example, to see details about a server, select a link on the
Servers panel and then one of the servers.
For Liberty servers, the details show the
applications that are installed on the server and their state. For Node.js
servers, applications are not shown because there can be only one application on that server and it
cannot be interacted with. The details can also show that a Liberty or Node.js server is a member of a
cluster or that a Liberty server is in a
Docker container.
If an alert condition is met, the alert is described with a link to the appropriate resource
page.
If the apiDiscovery-1.0
feature is in
the configuration file for a server, the API definition icon with the View server API definition link is shown
in details about the server. When the server is stopped, the View server API
definition link is unavailable. For information about the
apiDiscovery-1.0
feature, see Discovering REST API documentation on a Liberty server.
For resources on Liberty servers, select a
resource to see more details. For example, select Applications and then an
application to display details about the application on one of the servers. From the application
details page, you also can access the Monitor view
for each application.
-
View details about all servers on a Liberty or Node.js runtime.
From the Dashboard:
- Select a link on the Hosts panel, a host, Runtimes on the vertical navigation bar, and then a runtime.
- Select a link on the Servers panel, a server, and then Liberty Runtime on the horizontal navigation bar.
The Runtime view displays details about the runtime, such as
the number and states of servers on the runtime. The runtime details are useful for distinguishing
among servers with the same name on the same host. For Liberty runtimes, the view also displays whether
the runtime is in a Docker container.
-
Start, stop, or restart a resource.
Attention: To start, stop or restart resources in Adm ion Center, the user must be in
the administrator role.
To start, stop, or restart one resource, select the Resource Actions for the resource, select the available action from the popup dialog, and then
confirm the selection.
Alternatively, select . You can start, stop, or restart multiple resources with this option. For example, to
start two stopped servers:
- When viewing Servers, select Actions .
- Select two servers in a stopped, partially started, or unknown state.
- Select the Start button.
- Confirm the selection.
Restriction: If a resource has an enabled scaling policy
, you cannot use the Explore tool to start, stop, or restart the resource. The start, stop,
or restart button is unavailable. This button is also unavailable if you select multiple resources,
and one or more of the resources has an enabled scaling policy. Use
Liberty APIs to start, stop, or restart a
resource that has an enabled scaling policy, if needed. You likely do not need to start and stop
auto-scaled resources manually because the scaling controller manages the lifecycle of the
resources.
To start a server or cluster with the
Start --clean option:
- Select Resource Actions , Expand ... on the Start action,
and the Start --clean option. Then, confirm the selection.
- Select Actions , a server or cluster, More, and the Start
--clean option. Then, confirm the selection.
To remotely start and stop
servers on Windows operating systems, complete the steps for Windows computers in Setting up RXA for Liberty collective operations.
-
Search for resources.
Select Search , specify the search criteria, and then select Search . To add search criteria, select Add Search Criteria and then specify additional values. To clear the entire search field, select
Clear Search Field .
The search results list details about resources that fit the search criteria. To see more details
about a resource, select the resource name.
To change a resource status or, for hosts, to deploy a server package, select Resource
Actions and then select an available action from the popup dialog. To perform an action
for multiple applications, servers, clusters, or hosts, select .
You can filter the search results by entering a string in the search field. For example, enter
er to show resources that contain the "er" string.
To show or hide columns, select Grid Actions and the columns to display.
What to do next
For a collective, select Dashboard to return to the Explore tool Dashboard. Select a previously viewed resource
page on an Explore tool navigation bar to return to that page.
To directly launch the Explore tool in the future, you can use the URL that is shown in the
browser when viewing the Explore tool. For example, to directly view information about a particular
resource in the future, you can use the URL that is shown in the browser when viewing information
about the resource in the Explore tool. Each resource in the Explore tool has a unique URL that you
can bookmark and use to directly launch the same resource page.
To return to the Toolbox, select Toolbox .