Solving SOA Suite installation issues

The last months I’ve been a frequent visitor of the SOA Suite forum on OTN. The reason for this is that I’ve been busy getting acquainted with new SOA Suite. And the forum was helpful in resolving some of the problems I’ve encountered during the learning track of this new product and the installation of it.

Like most people, the most problems I ran into were during the installation and configuration of the product. Here is a how-to for solving the most of these issues:

Using SOA Suite against a “real” Oracle database

If you are going to use the Suite against a real oracle database, i.e. XE, SE or EE in stead of OLite. you first have to install the esb, bpel and wsm schema’s using IRCA.zip before installing the SOA Suite. This zip file is included in the download but can also be downloaded from OTN separately here. The thing is that the script only makes a BPEL tablespace for use of the BPEL schema and does not do anything extra to support the ESB- and WSM schemas. The objects of these schema’s are created in the SYSTEM tablespace. Most DBA’s don’t like this too much, so you are likely to change the create_user*.sql scripts by adding a default tablespace for both schemas.

Oracle HTTP Server configuration fails for SSL

The HTTP server (OHS) is configured with SSL enabled. But this does not work on Linux (both SuSE and Oracle unbreakable). This results in being unable to start the HTTP server. This cascades to other faults during the configuration.

To solve this you can edit opmn.xml before the configuration starts. On Linux this can be done during the time you have to run the root script. The installation has just completed, the configuration will start after pressing the OK button.

Original opmn.xml:

…
<ias-component id=”HTTP_Server”>
<process-type id=”HTTP_Server” module-id=”OHS”>
<module-data>
<category id=”start-parameters”>
<data id=”start-mode” value=”ssl-enabled”/>
category>
..

Adjusted opmn.xml

…
<ias-component id=”HTTP_Server”>
<process-type id=”HTTP_Server” module-id=”OHS”>
<module-data>
<category id=”start-parameters”>
<data id=”start-mode” value=”ssl-disabled”/>
</category>
..

Could not get DeploymentManager error during installation

During the configuration of the ESB and BPEL components the log file shows the following error:

…
Result: 150
Running batch script by:
java admin_client.jar deployer:oc4j:opmn://myserver.mydomain:6003/home -script /ora01/soaSuite_10.1.3.1/integration/esb/install/ant-tasks/esb_deployadapters.txt

Failed at “Could not get DeploymentManager”.

This is typically the result of an invalid deployer URI format being supplied, the target server not being in a started state or incorrect authentication details being supplied.
..

This sometimes happens on both Linux and Windows installations, but strange enough not always. I don’t know what’s happenig here, but because the password is never written to file, a probable cause could be that the oc4jadmin password is not cached properly? The ant-script that is being executed therefore lacks the password and cannot succesfully execute. To solve this you can edit the following file bpel-esb-install.xml, located in the following two directories:

1. for ESB in  : ${soa_home}/j2ee/integration/esb/install/ant-tasks/
2. for BPEL in : ${soa_home}/bpel/system/services/install/ant-tasks/

See also metalink bug nr 5047601 and metalink note nr. 364692.1 for details and on the OTN forum: http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=414991&tstart=0 (among others…).

Both scripts can be executed after installation is complete by opening a terminal session or DOS-box and execute:

cd ${soa_home}\j2ee\home
java -jar admin_client.jar deployer:oc4j:opmn://myserver.mydomain:6003/home -script ../../integration/esb/install/ant-tasks/esb_deployadapters.txt

Note the added -jar option! For more info on usage of admin_client.jar, type java -jar admin_client.jar -help

WSIL not being installed properly

When the OHS does not start up properly during the configuration stage, the WSIL component will not get installed. WSIL should be installed in the home instance. Install it manually by opening a terminal session or DOS-box and run the ant-script located in ${soa_home}/webservices/lib/wsil-install.xml by copy/pasting the spawned commands from the logfile in ${soa_home}/cfgtoollogs/configtools.log

ESB and BPEL inter-communication mishap due authorization

After succesfull completion ESB and BPEL probably can’t communicate with each other. The default password of oc4jadmin is welcome1. If you’ve used another password you will hit an authorization error whenever you mix (inter-communicate) ESB services and BPEL processes.

To solve this edit the admin.password of oc4jadmin in the following file: ${soa_home}/bpel/utilities/ant-orabpel.properties by replacing welcome1 by your password and restart the whole Suite.

OPMN controller unable to stop the oc4j processes

The suite runs succesfully, but whenever it is stopped, it results in the following error in logfile ${soa_home}/opmn/logs/default_group~*.log:

———

07/01/07 16:53:12 Stop process

———

Error: Missing ormi[s]://:

Normally Google is my friend in finding a solution, but in this case I’ve not been able to find any resources, threads on OTN or metalink to resolve this issue. The system is forcefully shutdown anyway and all processes are down, so it seems okay, but it annoys me that the suite doesn’t stop normally like it does on Windows.

Wrap up

I think it is absolutely wonderful that Oracle publishes all her software on the internet so that developers and DBA’s can try it out for free. I only whish other companies would follow this initiative. On the other hand, I think it is a pity that the Oracle SOA Suite, as being an important addition to the Oracle product stack, does not install smoothly (on linux). This might drive developers, DBA’s, software architects, etc. away from using it. Looking at the number of threads logged on the OTN Soa Suite forum on this subject I guess the deadline for delivering the product were really ambitious. Makes you wonder if testing is only performed on a Windows desktop with Olite.

Finally, don’t believe the installer when it says that it has successfully completed your installation: Check your logfiles!