Few Tips to install Oracle WebCenter 12c (12.2.1.0.0)

Oracle released its long-awaited 12c version of WebCenter on 23/10/2015.

Interesting thing about WebCenter versioning is that Oracle released its first 12c version with released 2 (12cR2=12.2.x) to match their latest FMW versioning scheme. There is no 12c R1 (12.1.x) version for WebCenter.

In this post, we will see how can we install WebCenter Portal and WebCenter Content quickly for production environment.

Prerequisites

               1.       You must have atleast JDK version 1.8.0_51 or above.

               2.       WLS 12c and WCP12c installer must be executed with JDK not with JRE.

               3.       Database 11g XE is not certified but you can use it for development purpose.

               4.       Unlike SOA suite installation, you need to install Weblogic Server 12c (12.2.1) before you install Oracle WebCenter Portal 12c.

              5.       You must install Weblogic Server with Fusion Middleware Infrastructure installer. This installer will also install JRF and EM Fusion Middleware Control which are required by WCP 12c. 

             6.       Please note that “Oracle Weblogic Server Quick Installer for Developer” and “Generic” installer will not work with WebCenter Portal installation.

      Installation

                  1.       Start the FMW infrastructure installer with following command.

java -jar fmw_12.2.1.0.0_infrastructure.jar

2.    No need to create any domain at this stage. Start the WCP & WCC installer with following command:-

java -jar fmw_12.2.1.0.0_wcportal_generic.jar
java -jar fmw_12.2.1.0.0_wccontent_generic.jar

     
2. RCU is also installed when we install FMW Infra. You will rcu.bat file at C:\middleware12c\Infra\oracle_common\bin\.  Process is same to install schema as we had in 11g.

3.       Use the Configuration Wizard to create a domain using the required domain configuration templates.

4.       By selecting RCU Data in Database Configuration Type screen of configuration wizard, it connect to the database and Service Table (STB) schema to automatically retrieve schema information for schemas needed to configure the domain.

Some Issues:

From 12c, NodeManager is available per host or per domain. If you try to start nodemanager per host, you will get following two errors:-

1.       It will throw error “Identity key store file not found” and shutdown the nodemanager.

Solution:

Quick solution is copy the DemoIdentity.jks file from <DomainHome>\security\ to

<MiddlewareHome>\oracle_common\common\nodemanager\security\ for development domain. 

2.       Processing for domain 'wcp_domain' failed due to configuration error: [The domain 'wcp_domain' at 'null' was not registered in the nodemanager.domains file and dynamic domain registration is not supported. Please register the domain in the nodemanager.domains file.

Solution:

Cop the nodemanager.domains file from <DomainHome>\nodemanager\

To <MiddlewareHome>\oracle_common\common\nodemanager

Alternatively, you can register WebLogic domains with Node Manager using the WLST command, nmEnroll.

Oracle Weblogic Server : Enabling Log rotation of .out file

There is no way to rotate out file from Oracle Weblogic Server Console or EM. To enable log rotation of the out log file on a Linux-based system, perform the following steps:

1. Ensure that you have the logrotate binary installed on your operating system:

ls /usr/sbin/logrotate

2. Create a logrotate configuration file (for example, under /home/oracle/ scripts/logrotate.conf) with the following contents, setting [Domain] to your domain name:

/home/oracle/SOA_DOMAIN/servers/soa_Srv01/logs/soa_Srv01.out {

missingok

copytruncate

compress

rotate=5

size=5M

}

3. Create a logrotate status file (for example, under /home/oracle/scripts/ logrotate.status) with the following contents, setting [Domain] to your domain name:

logrotate state -- version 2

"/home/oracle/SOA_DOMAIN/servers/soa_Srv01/logs/soa_Srv01.out" 2012-1-1

4. Add a new crontab entry by typing crontab -e and adding the following line:

0,15,30,45 * * * * /usr/sbin/logrotate -s /home/oracle/scripts /logrotate.status /home/oracle/scripts/logrotate.conf

This will check every 15 minutes to see if it is necessary to rotate the soa_server1.out standard out file based on the rules defined in the logrotate.conf configuration file. If new log files are added, you must ensure that they are added to the status file or they will not be rotated. This can be repeated for other managed servers as necessary.

You can run the cron job manually to test it.
/usr/sbin/logrotate -s /home/oracle/scripts/logrotate.status /home/oracle/scripts/logrotate.conf

Note: 

You can apply above steps for any Oracle middlware products like Oracle Weblogic Server, WbCenter, SOA, BPM, IDM etc. As this is a linux cron job, I believe its not WLS version specific. 

Oracle WebCenter 11g R1 PS7 (11.1.1.8.0) has been released and new features of WebCenter Portal 11g PS7

Oracle WebCenter 11g R1 PS7 (11.1.1.8.0) has been released and includes the following products:

• Oracle WebCenter Content 11g R1 (11.1.1.8.0)
• Oracle WebCenter Portal 11g R1 (11.1.1.8.0)
• Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g R1 (11.1.1.8.0)
• Oracle Fusion Middleware Repository Creation Utility 11g R1 (11.1.1.8.0)

About Oracle WebCenter Portal 11g R1 PS7

WebCenter Spaces is no more in WebCenter Portal world, Spaces is renamed to Portal. Simply speaking, if you are running Spaces or you are running custom portal means you are just running portal. Here are some of the highlights of the release:

1. Portal Builder: Browser-based Tools

This release focused on optimizing the browser-based tools to make it faster and easier for non-technical users to create and manage the portal experience.  The key themes in these enhancements are intuitiveness and efficiency.  Examples include:

• Streamlined interface to manage all portals and portal assets.
• Quickly create new portals based on templates.
• Quickly add pages and manage navigation structure when creating a new portal. 
• Drag and drop components onto page from the resource catalog.
• Save the resulting portal as a portal template. 
• No more popup windows


2. Multi-Channel Portal Experiences
In this release, WebCenter Portal adds easy-to-use tools which allow for creation and management of tailored experiences for target client devices (smartphones, tablets, kiosks, etc.).  Some key features include seeded profiles for the most common devices such as iPad®, iPhone®, Samsung Galaxy S®, etc.  Ability for knowledge workers to create tailored experiences leveraging techniques such as adaptive/responsive design, variant pages and preview/emulate the experience within the browser.
3. Performance
This release has a number of performance gains including improved response time for initial page request, responsiveness of Portal Builder and increased transactions per second for server performance.
4. Simplified deployment
You can use Portal Builder administration or WLST commands to export a portal archive (.par file) and then import portals from the file.

5. Terminology changes

Prior to 11g PS7	In 11g PS7
WebCenter Portal: Spaces	WebCenter Portal
space	portal
space template	portal template
resource	asset

For detail about Portal deployment, see http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E29542_01/webcenter.1111/e27738/wcadm_deploy_portal.htm#CHDFDFHJ
Oracle WebCenter Portal 11g R1 PS7 (11.1.1.8.0) Documentation : WebCenter Portal 11.1.1.8.0 Documentation

Hiden Gem of Oracle WebCenter: Spaces Automatic Services Configuration

Spaces supports automatic configuration of certain Oracle WebCenter Portal services.  Mean, you don’t need to set discussion, portlet, UCM services etc from the EM manually. This feature is available from 11G PS3 onward.

The Automatic Service Configuration only worked if the following conditions are met:

• Spaces and the target component must be installed in the same domain.
• The managed server of the target component must have an explicit listening address. If its listening address is empty or null or "localhost", then it must have a system associated to it that has an explicit address.
• The target component (like discussions, ucm, pagelet etc) must not be deployed to a cluster.
• You must start the managed servers associated to the WebCenter Portal services first. Then, start the WC_Spaces managed server.

Currently, automatic Service Configuration is implemented for the following Services:

Component/Service	Default Connection Name	Specific Rule
Discussions and Announcements services	WebCenterSpaces-Discussions	The user granted the Administrative role exists in discussions.
Documents service	WebCenterSpaces-ucm
Pagelet producer	WebCenterSpaces-PageletProducer
Personalization service	Conductor-WCPSSpaces  and Properties-WCPSSpaces
Preconfigured portlet producers	wc- OmniPortlet wc-WebClipping wc-WSRPTools
Worklist service and Spaces workflows	WebCenterSpaces- Worklist

Every time you start Spaces it will try to create the connections unless they already exist. This will be true until the service is configured for the first time unless you disable automatic service configuration. If the automatic configuration fails for a specific component, then you will have to manually configure the service.

You can verify from the EM that service connections are automatically configured for the Spaces application when you start the managed servers.

If required, you can disable the auto-configuration feature by setting the following Java property in domain_home/bin/setDomainEnv.sh  (on UNIX) or domain_home\bin\setDomainEnv.cmd (on Windows). 

-Dwebcenter.spaces.disableAutoConfigure=true

Reference:

Oracle® Fusion Middleware Installation Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal
11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6.0)


4.2 Working with Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/install.1111/e12001/wc_components.htm#CHDGEJFG

Why Web Server for WebCenter? Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) vs Apache HTTP Server? How to configure Apache HTTP Server as a Web server for WebCenter?

Why Web Server for WebCenter?

To configure any HTTP Server for WebCenter is important in following scenarios:-

a.      For a good integration between WebCenter and UCM

b.   To configure SS0

c.       Access UCM few functionalists like Document Manager, document rendition support, advanced metadata edit, the IFRAME functionality, and so on.

Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) vs Apache HTTP Server

You can also use Oracle Web Tier that also has HTTP Server (OHS) instead of Apache HTTP Server. The advantage of using Apache HTTP Server is easy to download due to small size, easy to install and its light weight. The advantage of using OHS is that it’s also based on Apache HTTP Server, already configured for Weblogic Server.

Configure Apache HTTP Server as a Web server for WebCenter

Assuming that WebCenter and UCM is installed and configured. Start the Admin Server and other manage servers. You can access Weblogic Console with the URL http://localhost:7001/console, WebCenter Spaces with http://localhost:8888/webcenter and UCM with http://localhost:16200/cs.

1.      Download the Apache HTTP Server at http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi#apache22 according to your OS

2.      Install the Apache HTTP Server 2.2.x

3.      Start the Apache HTTP Server and access the Apache HTTP Server using http://localhost. If you see message that “It Works!”, its mean its installed successfully

4.      Copy the mod_wl_22.so from $WL_HOME\wlserver_10.3\server\plugin\win\32\mod_wl_22.so to APACHE_HOME\modules

5.      Open the httpd.conf file at APACHE_HOME\conf

6.      By default, Apache HTTP Server listen on port 80, you can change the port using Listen property like Listen 7777. We will use default port.

7.      Add the following line in

httpd.conf LoadModule weblogic_module   modules/mod_wl_22.so

8.      Add the following request to proxy

<Location /console>

 SetHandler weblogic-handler

 WebLogicHost localhost

 WebLogicPort 7001

</Location>

#Spaces

<Location /webcenter>

WeblogicHost localhost

WebLogicPort 8888

SetHandler weblogic-handler

</Location>

<Location /webcenterhelp>

WeblogicHost localhost

WebLogicPort 8888

SetHandler weblogic-handler

</Location>

# Discussions

<Location /owc_discussions>

    WebLogicHost localhost

        WebLogicPort 8890

    SetHandler weblogic-handler

</Location>

#UCM

<Location /cs>

WeblogicHost localhost

WebLogicPort 16200

SetHandler weblogic-handler

</Location>

<Location /adfAuthentication>

WeblogicHost localhost

WebLogicPort 16200

SetHandler weblogic-handler

</Location>

9.      Start the Apache HTTP server

10.  Open the browser and test the following URLs:

http://localhost/console

http://localhost/webcenter

http://localhost/cs 

 You will see that its working now without any Admin Server port.

How to configure embedded (default) LDAP for WebCenter Collaboration Server (i.e. Discussion and Announcement Services)?

Applies to Oracle WebCenter 11G PS3 & PS4

Steps:

If you want to revert back from external or custom LDAP to embedded LDAP, you will not get clearly written steps in WebCenter Administration and Security Guides. Following are the simple steps in order to use embedded LDAP again:-  

Step 1. Enable Embedded LDAP Access

When WebLogic Server is installed, the LDAP access credential is set as a randomized value and encrypted in the config.xml file To reset the access credential for the embedded LDAP:

1.      Log in to the WebLogic Server Administration Console.

2.      In the Domain Structure pane, click wc_domain.

3.      In the Settings pane for wc_domain, click the Security tab, and then click the Embedded LDAP tab.

The Settings Pane for wc_domain displays the embedded LDAP settings

4.      Enter a new password in the Credential field, and reenter it in the Confirm Credential field.

5.      Click Save to save your settings.

6.      Restart the WebLogic server.

After this, you are ready to access the embedded LDAP server with the following values:

·         the DN value for admin access is "cn=Admin"

·         the password is the value you entered in the Credential field

·         the port is the same as the admin port, which by default is 7001

Step 2. Enabling Discussions Setup

1. Stop WC_Collaboration managed server (MS)

2. Change <setup>true</setup> entry to false on

<WebCenter-Domain-Home>\ config\fmwconfig\servers\WC_Collaboration\owc_discussions\jive_startup.xml.

...

<jive>

<!-- When setup is false, you can access the setup tool. -->

<setup>false</setup>

<!-- Database settings -->

3. Start WC_Collaboration MS

Step 3. Running Discussions Setup Screen

1. Log in to the Discussions Server Administration Console at:

http://localhost:8890/owc_discussions/admin

2.  On the Installation Checklist page, click Continue.
3. On the Database Settings page, choose JNDI Datasource, and click Continue.

4. Enter jdbc/OWC_DiscussionsDS in the JNDI Datasource Name field and click Continue.

5. For User, Group and Authentication Systems, select LDAP and click Contrinue.

6. Enter the following values for the embedded LDAP system and click Continue.

LDAP Host : localhost

LDAP Port: 7001

Base DN: ou=people,ou=myrealm,dc=wc_domain

Admin DN: cn=Admin

Admin Password: <Password of embedded LDAP>

7. For Admin Account Setup, enter the user name (i.e. weblogic)of the user for the Discussions (Jive) administrator.

You can now log in to Oracle Discussions with any user available in the embedded LDAP server.
You can log in to the Oracle Discussions Admin Console at: http://localhost:8890/owc_discussions/admin (use weblogic/<password>)

How to add a Worklist component to a page at runtime using WebCenter Space?

If you want to add Worklist service component to a page at runtime (i.e. from WebCenter Space), you have to perform following two tasks:-

1. Creation of BPEL Connection:
i. Login to your Enterprise Manager
ii. Click WebCenter -> Settings -> Service Configuration -> Worklist
iii. Add a new Connection, select Active Connection, enter your BPEL SOAP URL (like http://<SOA_SERVER_HOSTt>:<SOA_SERVER_PORT>/)
iv. Restart Webcenter managed server.

2. Adding a Worklist component to a page
Once connection has been established successfully, 2nd step is how to add Worklist components from the Resource Catalog to a page. For this follow the following steps:-
i. Login to WebCenter Spaces
ii. Navigate to the relevant page where you want to add Worklist service (OR) create a new page.
iii. Open a page in Edit mode. You can also open page in edit mode by pressing Ctrl+Shift+E
iv. Click the Add Content button on the target region to open the Resource Catalog
v. Navigate to the Alerts and Updates --> Worklist component  and click Add link next to it.
vi. Click Save and then Close to exit page edit mode.

NOTE: Pls note that Worklist tasks will be displayed inside authenticated pages only. 2ndly, WebCenter Space and BPEL should configured with same LDAP server (Recommended way). You can add worklist task flows in personal pages only.

For Administration of Worklist Connection, pls see http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E15523_01/webcenter.1111/e12405/wcadm_worklist.htm#CHDFCDGA

How to add Component on a page, pls see http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17904_01/webcenter.1111/e10149/pages_build.htm#CHDHJEEB

How Configure WebCenter Space Development ZIP file?

All the WebCenter Space resources like skin, page templates, page style, navigation, mashup styles etc are deployed as a WebCenter Space shared library.When you are going to configure WebCenter Space Development ZIP on windows environment, you will face few issues. In this post i will explain those missing steps as well.

Pre-requsits:

a.        WebCenter Spaces is installed, configured, and working as expected.

b.       JDeveloper 11G is installed

a.        WebCenter Framework and Services Design Time Extensions are installed

Steps:-

1.    Download the WebCenter Spaces development ZIP file (DesignWebCenterSpaces.zip) from Oracle Technology Network:

http://download.oracle.com/otndocs/tech/webcenter/files/DesignWebCenterSpaces.zip

2.        Unzip the content.

3.        Copy the content of copy_to_common directory into jdeveloper/Oracle_Home directory

4.        Copy the content of copy_to_jdev_ext directory into jdeveloper\jdev\extensions directory

5.        Restart JDeveloper.

6.        Open the project DesignWebCenterSpaces.jws in jdeveloper

7.        Change the config.properties according to your WebCenter Space environment.  If working for Windows, use \\ . For example  jdeveloper.install.home.directory=D:\\Oracle\\Middleware

8.        Change the WebCenterSpacesExtensionLibrary \built.properties file according to your WebCenter Space environment. This step is missing in WebCenter’s Developer Guide (E10148-12) and you will face class patch and XML parsing issues.

9.        Add ant-contrib.jar into jdeveloper\modules\net.sf.antcontrib_1.0.0.0_1-0b2\lib directory. You can download it from http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/. This step is also missing in WebCenter Developer Guide (E10148-12).

10.     Right-click build.xml, located under WebCenterSpacesExtensionLibrary and choose Run Ant Target > clean-stage

11. Now, your project is configured and ready to deploy on WebCenter Spaces environment via shared library, choose Run Ant Target > deploy-shared-lib.