Configuring the Time Zone with WebLogic Server

In order to properly handle the date and time data in your ADF applications, you probably need to configure the WebLogic Server time zone, for the reasons including but not limited to:

• Configure the default time zone for <af:convertDateTime> used by input and output components.
• Configure the time zone that affects how the Oracle JDBC driver handles the date and time data.

This post introduces how to configure the time zone with an integrated or a standalone WebLogic Server, or the ADF Model Tester.

Integrated WebLogic Server and ADF Model Tester

When you are running and testing your application using an Integrated WebLogic Server, or testing your model project with the ADF Model Tester you can configure the time zone by adding the following system property to the Java Options on the Launch Settings page in the Edit Run Configuration window:

-Duser.timezone=UTC

To do this:

1. Select the project in the Applications window.
2. From the main menu, choose Application > Project Properties
3. Select Run/Debug.
4. Choose to Edit the selected run configuration (a default run configuration is created for each new project).
5. Add the time zone system property to Java Options

The configuration will apply when the Java program is launched from JDeveloper, for example the Integrated WebLogic Server and the ADF Model Tester. To confirm it, you can look for the system property in the Log window after the program is launched:

Another way to configure the Integrated WebLogic Server time zone is to set it by modifying the properties of the integrated application server:

1. In the Application Servers window, right-click the integrated application server (the default instance is called IntegratedWebLogicServer), choose Properties.
2. Select Launch Settings tab.
3. Add the time zone system property to Java Options

Please note that the Launch Settings of the Application Server Properties are used only when the server starts with no application selected (effectively meaning no application is open in the Applications window).

Caution: when the server starts with no application selected, and then open the application and run it against the server, the Launch Settings defined in the Application Server Properties will be used; the Java Options defined in the run configuration of the project will be ignored.

Standalone WebLogic Server

To configure the time zone with a standalone WebLogic Server instance, if you use a WebLogic Server script to start servers, you can edit the JAVA_OPTIONS in the script to set the system property, see "Specifying Java Options for a WebLogic Server Instance"; if you use the Node Manager to start servers, you can set Java Options for each server instance in the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console, see "Set Java options for servers started by Node Manager".

Series on Time Zone

• Configuring the Time Zone with WebLogic Server
• Time Zone for af:convertDateTime
• Time Zone for Oracle JDBC Driver

Resources:

• Specifying Java Options for a WebLogic Server Instance
• Set Java options for servers started by Node Manager
• ADF RichClient API - <af:convertDateTime>

BEA-141297 - Could not get the server file lock

While starting the WebLogic Administration Server or a Managed Server, you might encounter the following error that prevents the server from starting up:

<Feb 9, 2015 1:40:34 PM CST> <Info> <Management> <BEA-141297> <Could not get the server file lock. Ensure that another server is not running in the same directory. Retrying for another 60 seconds.>

This is because the server lock file is left behind for some reason from the last run. To fix this error:

• Navigate to the server-specific tmp directory under your $DOMAIN_HOME directory, in my case, for example: ~/Oracle/config/domains/base_domain/servers/AdminServer/tmp for the Administration Server or ~/Oracle/config/domains/base_domain/servers/wls_server_1/tmp for one of the Managed Servers;
• Delete the lock file for the server instance, AdminServer.lok for the Administration Server or wls_server_1.lok for the mentioned Managed Server.
• Start the server instance again.

WebLogic - Native library for the Node Manager

After the WebLogic domain configuration is complete, while starting the Node Manager, you might encounter an error as reported below:

WARNING: NodeManager native library could not be loaded to write process id
java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no nodemanager in java.library.path
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1886)
    at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:849)
    at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1088)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.util.UnixProcessControl.<init>(UnixProcessControl.java:25)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.util.ProcessControlFactory.getProcessControl(ProcessControlFactory.java:23)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.writeProcessId(NMServer.java:253)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.writePidFile(NMServer.java:230)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.<init>(NMServer.java:121)
    at weblogic.nodemanager.server.NMServer.main(NMServer.java:505)
    at weblogic.NodeManager.main(NodeManager.java:31)

<Feb 9, 2015 10:19:50 AM CST> <SEVERE> <Fatal error in NodeManager server: Native version is enabled but NodeManager native library could not be loaded>

This is because by default, Oracle enables native libraries for the operating system to be used by the Node Manager, even when the native version is actually not provided for the specific operating system. Here's the statement from the Oracle documentation Administering Node Manager for Oracle WebLogic Server:

Oracle provides native Node Manager libraries for Windows, Solaris, Linux on Intel, Linux on Z-Series, and AIX operating systems.

To fix this error in an unsupported operating system (like Mac OS, in my case), you can simply disable the native version support by updating the configuration setting in the nodemanager.properties file. The file only gets created until the Node Manager has started up once. It's typically in the $DOMAIN_HOME/nodemanager directory. In the file, find the the following setting:

NativeVersionEnabled=true

Update it to be as follow:

NativeVersionEnabled=false

Now, you can start the Node Manager:

nohup ./startNodeManager.sh > nm.out&

Check out the log file, the warning about the NodeManager native library could not be loaded is still there, but the Node Manager should start up successfully after printing out the current configuration settings.

Resources:

• Node Manager Implementations
• Reviewing nodemanager.properties
• 3.2 Starting the Servers