(Tip for Jazz Administration) : Hide port numbers from the public server URI

This article provides tips for administrators looking for hiding port numbers from the public server URL when configuring the Jazz server initially. It covers both Tomcat and WebSphere server configurations.

Hide port numbers from the public server URI

For eased user access or for later administration purpose, you may want CLM2011 applications to answer with URLs including no port. For example :

https://clm.example.org/ccm rather than https://clm.example.org:9443/ccm
or
https://ccm.example.org/ccm rather than https://ccm.example.org:9443/ccm
https://qm.example.org/qm rather than https://qm.example.org:9443/qm
https://rm.example.org/rm rather than   https://rm.example.org:9443/rm

Reminder

By default :

• web servers use port 80 for non secure communications over HTTP and port 443 for secure communications over HTTPS.
• web browsers could access HTTP(S) servers configured this way without having to include the port number in the URL.

Once you have set the Public URI of your applications, you cannot change it afterwards. For more information, see Planning your URIs.

Procedure for a Tomcat server

Following steps guide you for this :

1. In a text editor, open JazzInstallDir/server/tomcat/conf/server.xml.
2. Search for the <Connector>element for the non-secure port.
   Note : by default, this <Connector> element is not commented out, has a comment above it that says
   <!– Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 9080 –>, and has a redirectPort attribute.
3. Modify the value of the port attribute with port number 80 to use for non-secure connections.
4. Modify the value of the redirectPort attribute with port number 443 to use for secure connections.
5. After you have modified the <Connector> for the non-secure port, search for the <Connector> element for the secureport.
   Note: by default, this <Connector> element is not commented out and has the attribute secure=”true”.
6. Modify the value of the port attribute with the port number 443 to use for secure connections.
7. Save the server.xml file.
8. Start the application server.

As a result, you should have a server.xml file looking like this :

<!– Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 80 –> <Connector port=”80″ … redirectPort=”443″ …./> <!– Define a SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 443 –> <Connector port=”443″ … scheme=”https” secure=”true” …./> ….

Procedure for a WebSphere Application Server

Following steps guide you for this :

1. Start the application server.
2. Log in to the Integrated Solutions Console as an application server administrator.
3. Click Servers > Server Types > WebSphere Application Servers > server_name > Ports.
4. Modify the value for WC_defaulthost with port number 80 to use for non-secure, HTTP connections. Note : make sure this value is not used already.
5. Modify the value for WC_defaulthost_secure with port number 443 to use for secure, HTTPS connections. Note : make sure this value is not used already.
6. Click Apply, then click “Save directly to the master configuration”.
As a result, “Ports” should now appear this way :

7. Stop, and then restart the application server.

Next step : Configure the Jazz Team Server

You can now use the setup wizard to configure the Jazz Team Server. Make sure you use the public URL with no port ! For more information, see Running the setup wizard.

N.B. (for Linux users): all ports below 1024 are “privileged” ports (only root may open a privileged port).

General notes

Here, assumption is made that ports 80 and 443 are available on the machine. This might not be the case :

• if another server is using one of these ports, or
• if your CLM applications (JTS, CCM, QM and/or RM) are running on different servers but are at least partly collocated on the same machines.

As mentioned in the Summary, only an initial configuration of the Jazz server was considered in this article.

If you must change the port number your Jazz server is responding on – while also maintaining URL stability -, consider using a reverse proxy to route requests using the old port number to the appropriate new location.

For more information

1. Moving Jazz Servers and URI Stability with CLM 2011
2. Change the default port
3. WebSphere 7 Information Center
4. Using virtual host names in your topology
5. Using a reverse proxy in your topology
6. Configuring Enterprise CLM Reverse Proxies, Part 1: Understanding Reverse Proxy
7. Configuring Enterprise CLM Reverse Proxies, Part 2: WebSphere and IHS Plugin method

How to Jazz monitor your CLM 2011…

Sharing with you this interesting note I got from Eric Jodet, who is a member of the IBM Jazz Development – L3 Maintenance team.

If you want to monitor your CLM 2011, you could start by :

Checking the log feeds URL :

http(s)://<server:port>/<app>/service/com.ibm.team.repository.common.internal.IFeedService?category=SystemLog

Example of URLs:
https://jts.mycompany.net:9443/jts/service/com.ibm.team.repository.common.internal.IFeedService?category=SystemLog

https://ccm.mycompany.net:9443/ccm/service/com.ibm.team.repository.common.internal.IFeedService?category=SystemLog

https://qm.mycompany.net:9443/qm/service/com.ibm.team.repository.common.internal.IFeedService?category=SystemLog

Checking the server diagnostics URL :

http(s):<server:port>/<app>/admin#action=com.ibm.team.repository.admin.serverDiagnostics

Example of URLs:
https://jts.mycompany.net:9443/jts/admin#action=com.ibm.team.repository.admin.serverDiagnostics

From the above, you’d normally have checked for common configuration errors or failures…

If your server still appears to be slow, you could :

1. Check your environment vs. :
• the CLM topologies
• the CLM 2011 Sizing Guide 
• the System Requirements for Rational Team Concert 3.0.1, Rational Quality Manager 3.0.1 and Rational Requirements Composer 3.0.1
2. Investigate even further (thanks to Philippe Mulet as this part was mostly borrowed from him) by :
• logging to your CLM application Admin Web UI and check the Statistics.
  It’s available at URL : http(s):<server:port>/<app>/admin#action=com.ibm.team.repository.admin.statistics
  Example of URL : https://jts.mycompany.net:9443/jts/admin#action=com.ibm.team.repository.admin.statistics
  Find out if any request has been running for an unexpectedly long time.
  Note: you could get even more detailed information with URL:  http(s):<server:port>/<app>/service/com.ibm.team.repository.service.internal.counters.ICounterContentService (already mentioned in version 2.x-related article : Tuning the Rational Team Concert 2.0 server ).
• checking server heap utilization. Note that the server caches heavily and will utilize as much heap as possible, by design. So there could be an issue only if it’s near zero on multiple and consecutive refreshes.

If your CLM solution is deployed on IBM Websphere Application Server, you could also monitor your CLM applications with IBM Tivoli ITCAM which lets you :

• Monitor application response to ensure business expectations are met
• Understand transaction flows over complex topologies
• Monitor infrastructure performance and availability
• Diagnose application performance issues
• Increase application availability and customer satisfaction
• Improve MTTR and MTBF.

I hope it will help…

Get things clear about the CLM 2011 reporting capabilities…

I’m regularly asked the following questions regarding the reporting capabilities in CLM 2011:

• “Shall we use Insight which has more capabilities than RRDI ?”
• “Better if we use RRDG or… RPE ?”
• “RRDG stands for…  what exactly ?”

After discussing a few minutes the details, we generally… touch base and go back to more common questions :

• “What kind of reports your company would like to generate ?”
• “What’s the difference between all these products ?”
• “Do you know what’s is Development Intelligence ?”
• “Do you want me to explain you the basics around the reporting architecture in CLM 2011?”
• etc…

As a result of this, I’ve summarized the basics of reporting capabilities in CLM 2011:

Yes, I know this is a map. Some like them, some do not….

In all cases, I hope you could now :

• have a clear idea of where each product stands in the reporting area.
• share with colleagues about reporting with more confidence.
• speak about the “double bubble chart”

You could Report that to me if it worked !

Templates for you…

Once you have completed the “Money That Matters” tutorial on your CLM Beta 3 install, you certainly feel like Bob, Deb, Marco, Rebecca and Tanuj are familiar to you.

Having a step back, would you wonder : “How would I create my own Lifecycle Application Project – let’s say- from scratch” ?

Getting Started section of the documentation is here to guide you.

Let’s focus on RQM for a while. Its basic workflow still in mind :

would its enterprise version (you just saw if you clicked the upper image) makes you wonder how adhoc process should be implemented by your team ?

Actually, RQM provides templates which you can take benefit from : for Test Plans, Test Cases, Test Suites. Of course, you can also create/customize  your own ones.

And back to CLM :  you have templates for Lifecycle Projects (also with customization capability)

Tip of Day : for CLM Beta 3 release installed on Windows machines, make sure you don’t install the Build System Toolkit at a location including space characters (like C:\Program Files). It doesn’t support it (compilation errors are raised).

Welcome to my technical blog !

As the most recent (to-date) member of the Jazz JumpStart team, I’d to share some tips and best practices around deployments of Jazz technology. This personal and unofficial blog could cover any topic about the Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) offering by IBM Rational. But it will certainly focus on the Rational Quality Manager (RQM) product.

Hope you’ll enjoy it.