Project Wonder additions to wotaskd and JavaMonitor

• • • Introduction
    • Where to get them
    • Statistics
    • Direct Actions to many tasks
    • Automatic archive of SiteConfig.xml
    • Bounce feature
    • REST routes

Introduction

WebObject's wotaskd and JavaMonitor deployment tools were open sourced in WebObjects 5.4. The source was then quickly modified and included in Project Wonder. Substantial improvements in both functionality and look-and-feel have been made over the years since their release as open source. These improved versions of wotaskd.woa and JavaMonitor.woa are available as full Wonder applications.

Where to get them

You can either download them pre-built from Wonder's Hudson build server or build them from the source code.

To build them from the Wonder source code, simply run the following command from the Wonder directory at the root of the Wonder source.

Statistics

If you call http://monitorhost:port/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JavaMonitor.woa/wa/statistics, the answer send you back statistics, in JSON format, about instances, per application. Sample :

If JavaMonitor is configured with a password, and I hope you do, pass pw=monitorpassword as a argument to the query :

http://monitorhost:port/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JavaMonitor.woa/wa/statistics?pw=monitorpassword

Direct Actions to many tasks

You can do most of the standard tasks you do in Monitor by calling direct actions. They are in a different query handler, /admin. They follow the same format and use the same query parameters. Those DA can be useful if you need to restart instances or other tasks within ant or other build/deployment systems.

?type=all : return details about all applications and instances
?type=app&name=AppName : return details about all instances of a specific application
?type=ins&name=AppName-InstanceNo : return details about one specific instance

For example, if you want to get details about all instances and applications, you call :

http://hostname:56789/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JavaMonitor.woa/admin/info?type=all

To get details about the AjaxExample application :

http://hostname:56789/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JavaMonitor.woa/admin/info?type=app&name=AjaxExample

And for a specific instance :

http://hostname:56789/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JavaMonitor.woa/admin/info?type=ins&name=AjaxExample-1

The response for the direct actions will either send a JSON array or YES/NO. For example, the query info for all instances will return :

List of available direct actions :

/info : return details (number of deaths, state, etc.; see above), in JSON, about an instance.
/running : return YES if the instance is running, NO if not.
/stopped : return NO if the instance is running, YES if not.
/bounce: more on it later.
/clearDeaths : clear the number of deaths (same action as clicking the "Clear deaths" in JavaMonitor)
/turnScheduledOn : turn scheduling on for an application or instance. Call /turnScheduledOff to do the opposite.
/turnRefuseNewSessionsOn : turn "Refuse new sessions" on, call turnRefuseNewSessionsOff to do the opposite.
/turnAutoRecoverOn : guess what? It activate "Auto recover" And guess again? /turnAutoRecoverOff do the opposite
/forceQuit : force quit an application, might be useful to call it from a monitoring system.
/stop : stop an application/instance the normal way.
/start : start an application/instance the normal way.

Automatic archive of SiteConfig.xml

On every change you do to the configuration, a backup of SiteConfig.xml will be done in, by default, /Library/WebObjects/Configuration.

Bounce feature

In the "list instances" page, you get a "Bounce" action link. This action only work if you have at least one active instance and one inactive. What it does is :

• Find the inactive (eg : not started) instance and start it
• Find the active instances (minus the one started the step below) and enable "Refuse New Session"
• Bounce the active instances when the minimum session count is reached

This feature, from my understanding, allow you to upload new versions of your app, start up the new version and refuse sessions for the instances running on the older version. I don't know how this will work if your new version use migrations to change your schema (eg : old instances might raise exceptions because of database schema changes), so try it out on a test server before and put your results here.

REST routes

On September 28th 2010, REST routes were added in JavaMonitor. Those routes + the direct actions explained in this document allow you to control almost everything remotely (make sure that your JavaMonitor installation is secure). As the direct actions, append ?pw=XXXX to the URLs if JavaMonitor is password protected.

Examples of REST calls :

Fetching the details of all applications :

Adding a new application :

Adding a new instance :

Delete an application :

Delete an instance :

Adding a new host :