Operating connectors may include such tasks as starting, pausing, stopping, and shutting down connectors.
You can start, pause, stop, and shut down connectors from the Web-based System Monitor.
This section covers the following topics:
"Starting, stopping, and pausing connectors"
Configuring flow control for connectors
You can view the state of a connector by logging on to the Web-based System Monitor and opening a view that contains connector states.
To see the state of connectors using the Web-based System Monitor, do the following:
When the product is installed, the default view is set to System Overview, and the default monitor contained in that view is set to System Overview. These defaults can be changed to suit your monitoring needs. See Using Views for instructions.
Figure 10.
Web-based System Monitor, System Overview displaying connector
status
This section describe how to start, stop, and pause connectors. The following topics are covered:
"Running, stopping, and pausing connectors using System Monitor"
Commands for changing connector states
"Manually starting a connector"
"Setting Automatic and remote restart for a connector"
"Using OAD as a Windows service"
The first time you start a connector, it must be initialized. Initializing a connector requires that you start it manually. For instructions on manually starting a connector, see Manually starting a connector
If the connector does not start, check to make sure that the command line to start it includes the current InterChange Server Express name.
After the connector has been initialized, you can start, stop, and pause it using Web-based System Monitor from System Manager:
Web-based System Monitor
The following list describes the commands you can use to change the connector state and describes their processing actions:
When you install the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapters on a Windows machine, a shortcut is created for each installed connector on the IBM WebSphere program menu. The connector is defined in the InterChange Server Express repository and is loaded when you load the repository.
Starting InterChange Server Express automatically initializes every connector defined in the repository. The connector is available for use whenever InterChange Server Express is running.
You can start the connector in several ways:
Start the connector by double-clicking the desktop shortcut created as part of the installation procedure.
Open a DOS Command Prompt window and navigate to the appropriate connector directory. At the prompt, enter the one of the statements below, depending on whether the connector is a Java connector or a C++ connector:
Java connector
start_Sap ConnectorName InterChangeServerName
C++ connector
start_connector ConnectorName InterChangeServerName
where ConnectorName is the name of the connector and InterChangeServerName is the name of the InterChange Server Express instance.
You can customize the startup for each connector by modifying the connector shortcut or the start_connector.bat file. Use the connector startup parameters listed in Table 6 to customize the startup of a connector.
Table 6. Connector Startup Parameters
Parameter | Function |
---|---|
-c configFile | Name of the configuration file to be used during startup. If the filename specifies a relative path, the startup script looks for the file in the directory where the product is installed. This parameter is required only to use a local connector configuration file. If you are not using a local configuration file, enter the name of the configuration file used by InterChange Server Express (by default, InterchangeSystem.cfg). |
-c | Causes the default configuration file to be used if the user-specified configuration file does not exist. |
-d | Specifies the name of the C++ connector's library file, which is a dynamic link library (DLL). This DLL name does not include the .dll file extension. The startup script specifies this option for all C++ connectors. |
-f pollFrequency | Poll
frequency is the number of milliseconds between polling actions.
The value of this parameter overrides any repository definitions. You can specify either -fkey or -fno, but not both. |
-j | Specifies that the connector is written in Java. This parameter is optional if you specify -l className. |
-l className | Specifies the name of the Java connector's global class, which is an extension of the connector base class. The startup script specifies this option for all Java connectors. |
-n connectorName | Specifies the name of the connector to start. |
-p password | Specifies the password that the connector uses to access InterChange Server. |
-s serverName | Specifies the name of the InterChange Server. This parameter is required. The name is case-sensitive. |
-t | Turns on the connector property SingleThreadAppCalls. This property guarantees that all calls the connector framework makes to the application-specific connector code are with one event-triggered flow. The default value is false. Important: Do not change the value of this property from its shipped value. Each connector has the appropriate setting for its threading model. Specify this option only when starting a connector you created. |
-x connectorProps | Passes application-specific connector properties to the connector. Use the format prop_name=value for each value you enter. |
Connector agents running on an OS/400 are normally started and stopped in one of the following ways:
When adapters are started in this manner, then the jobs can be ended using normal OS/400 job control functions. These can be performed from the Windows PC by using the OS/400 Operations Navigator functions, or from an actual OS/400 terminal session. For example, from an OS/400 terminal session you can issue the WRKACTJOB SBS(QWEBBIICS) to view all the jobs currently active for the SMB server. You can locate the job corresponding to the service to be ended, and take option 4 (end job) to end the service. The following lists shows the job names that correspond to the various adapters and ODAs:
Email Adapter QWEBBIEMC JDBC adapter QWEBBIJDBC JMS adapter QWEBBIJMSC Jtext adapter QWEBBIJTC SAP adapter QWEBBISAPC Websphere MQ adapter QWEBBIWMQC Web Services adapter QWEBBIWSC XML adapter QWEBBIXMLC JDBC ODA QWEBBIJDBO XML ODA QWEBBIXMLO Web Services ODA QWEBBIWSO SAP ODA QWEBBISAPO
When connectors are started in this manner, the jobs are run interactively, and may be ended in a number of ways:
In a shell window, do one of following:
ProductDir/connectors/ConnectorName/start_ConnectorName.sh ConnectorName InterChangeServerName
ProductDir/bin/connector_manager -start ConnectorName
The InterChange Server name is hardcoded in this script.
The generic connector manager script calls the appropriate start_connector.sh script, which handles the actual connector management for the connector. The Business Integration Express for Item Sync product provides a start_connector.sh script for each connector it delivers. Shutting down a connector stops the connector's processes. Before shutting down a connector, pause or stop each collaboration object that uses the connector (the collaboration must be configured to pause; see the collaboration documentation for details on how to do this). If the"Pause when critical error occurs" property has been set for a collaboration in the Collaboration General Properties window, the collaboration pauses automatically when a critical error occurs. The latest unprocessed events of such collaborations are then moved to the event submission queue.
You can perform either a "permanent" or a "temporary" shutdown of the connector. You control the type of shutdown by enabling or disabling (the default) automatic restart:
For instructions on enabling or disabling automatic restart, see "Setting Automatic and remote restart for a connector".
To shut down a connector using Web-based System Monitor:
This action is used to restart the connector after you have used the Shut Down Connector action the Web-based System Monitor. This action is available only if you have enabled automatic and remote restart for the connector (see "Setting Automatic and remote restart for a connector").
To restart a connector:
You can enable a connector to attempt to restart automatically after it has shut down abnormally and to be capable of a remote restart from System Monitor.
To use WebSphere MQ to automatically restart a connector, perform these steps:
On a Windows platform:
The WebSphere MQ monitor has to be running as a daemon to monitor the incoming triggering event and then activate the corresponding adapter. You must start the standalone process, runmqtrm (or runmqtmc if you are running WebSphere MQ client), on the same machine on which the connector agent resides. (Alternatively, you can install the WebSphere MQ monitor as a Windows NT service, as described later in this section.)
The batch file is located in thedirectory of your product installation; for example:
C:\IBM\WebSphereItemSync\bin\mqtriggersetup.bat
The arguments for the file are:
For example:
mqtriggersetup.bat WebSphereICS.queue.manager iSoft C:\IBM\WebSphereItemSync\connectors\ISoft\Start_ISoft.bat WebSphereICS
On a Linux platform, run the mqtriggersetup file with required arguments. The shell script file is located in the directory of your product installation, for example: /home/smbadmin/IBM/WebSphereItemSync/bin/mqtriggersetup
The arguments for the file are:
For example:
mqtriggersetup WebSphereICS.queue.manager JDBC /home/smbadmin/IBM/WebSphereItemSync/connectors/JDBC/start_JDBC.sh JDBC WebSphereICS
On OS/400, to set up WebSphere MQ to automatically restart a connector, perform these steps:
STRMQMTRM INITQNAME(INITIATION.QUEUE) MQMNAME(QWEBBIICS.QUEUE.MANAGER)
For example:
mqtriggersetup.sh QWEBBIICS.QUEUE.MANAGER JDBC /qibm/userdata/webbiics/connectors/JDBC/start_JDBC.sh QWEBBIICS QWEBBIJDBC
To enable remote starting and automatic restart to be used by a connector for the first time, perform these steps:
Table 7. Configuring standard properties in Connector Configurator
Name | Possible Values | Description | Default Values |
---|---|---|---|
OADAutoRestartAgent | true or false | If set to true, the OAD will automatically attempt to restart the connector after an abnormal shutdown. It can also be used to start the connector agent remotely. This value is dynamic. | false |
OADAutoRestartAgent | true or false | If set to true, the OAD will automatically attempt to restart the connector after an abnormal shutdown. It can also be used to start the connector agent remotely. This value is dynamic. | false |
OADAutoRestartAgent | true or false | If set to true, the OAD will automatically attempt to restart the connector after an abnormal shutdown. It can also be used to start the connector agent remotely. This value is dynamic. | false |
The steps described above register one connector with the OAD. When you have performed these steps, OAD becomes active for that connector, and will automatically restart the connector until and unless you deactivate the OAD feature by changing the OADAutoRestartAgent value to False.
To toggle the automatic and remote restart feature on and off, change the value of the OADAutoRestartAgent property in the Connector Configurator window for the connector. The change is dynamic: When you set the value to False, automatic restart is disabled. When you set the value to True, automatic restart is enabled. You do not need to restart InterChange Server Express for the change to take effect.
If the connector shuts down abnormally and the OAD also terminates abnormally before it is able to restart the connector, the connector will not be automatically restarted when you restart OAD. If this occurs, you will need to restart the connector.
If you are configuring a connector for automatic restart or remote starting using OAD, do not install the connector to run as a Windows service. Instead, install WebSphere MQ Trigger Monitor to run as a Windows service. When the Windows system starts, OAD will automatically start as a Windows service; when InterChange Server Express restarts, it will start the connector through OAD.
To install WebSphere MQ Trigger Monitor as a Windows service:
After completing these steps, you can use the Services tool in Windows to start and stop the daemon.
Flow control is a configurable service that allows you to manage the flow of connector and collaboration object queues. The parameters for configuring flow control can be configured system-wide or on individual components, or both. If you configure both, the individual component configuration supersedes the system-wide configuration. For instructions on configuring flow control system-wide, seeConfiguring system-wide flow control. This section describes how to configure flow control for connectors.
To monitor how flow control is working in the system, you can use the default Flow Control monitor provided as part of the Web-based System Monitor, or you can create new Flow Control monitors for individual connectors or collaboration objects. For more information about monitoring flow control, see the description of the default Flow Control monitor inUsing default monitors, and the instructions on creating new monitors inCreating new monitors using the Monitor Definition Wizard. After you have all the flow control monitors created, refer to the following sections to begin monitoring flow control: Using the Web-based System Monitor and Logging on to the Web-based System Monitor.
To configure flow control for a connector, do the following: