You can use the Explore tool to view and manage resources in the Liberty
topology.
About this task
The Explore tool offers the following options to work with application, server, cluster, host,
and runtime resources:
- View a summary of all resources on the Explore tool Dashboard.
From the Toolbox, select
. 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.
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
is shown on the resource card. Select
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.
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.
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
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
Apps 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 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.
- Start, stop, or restart a resource.
To start, stop, or restart one resource, select
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
.
- 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 life cycle of the
resources.
Search for resources. Select
, specify the search criteria, and then select
. To add search criteria, select
and then specify additional values. To clear the entire search field, select
.
The search results list details about resources that fit the search criteria. You can select
and then select an available action from the popup dialog to change the resource status or,
for hosts, to deploy a server package. To see more details about a resource, select the resource
name.
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
and the columns to display.
What to do next
Select
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
.