On high-level, you need to do following in order to implement managed web server. Following abbreviations are used in this article.
IHS – IBM HTTP Server WAS – WebSphere Application Server ND – Network Deployment IM – Installation Manager
This assumes you have IHS and WAS installed on Linux environment. The following demonstration is based on WebSphere ND 8.5.5 and IBM HTTP Server 8.5.5. You may use IBM WAS with other web servers like Apache, Nginx or IIS as well. However, WebSphere is nicely integrated with IBM HTTP Server through Web Server Plug-in.
Download Web Server Plug-ins for WAS
In order to implement IHS in front of WebSphere, you need to have Web Server plugin installed. You can download the plugin from IBM website.
Visit the following link
Enter your information and confirm. You will be directed to a download page where you will have two tabs. Click on “Download using http” tab. Look for plug-ins and download both files
Once downloaded, you should have following two files. You can transfer this to IHS server.
Let’s extract both files
Install Web Server Plug-in using IM
It’s time to install the downloaded plugin through Installation Manager.
Launch IBM IM, usually it will be under /opt/IBM/InstallationManager/eclipse/IBMIM Click on File » Preferences Click on Add Repository Click on Browser and select the repository.config file, which you got after extraction Click ok and OK again
Click on Install on IM Wizard
Select the version and click Next
Accept the license and Next Select the directory where you wish to install the plugin. By default, it will install under /opt/IBM/WebSphere/Plugins. If you are ok with it, click Next
Select the 64-bit runtime environment for Java and Next Review the summary and click on Install to begin the installation
It may take some time and once done, you will get confirmation – The packages are installed. Click on Finish.
This concludes plug-in is installed successfully and time to configure them.
Add Web Server in WebSphere Console
Login into WebSphere Administrative Console Click on Servers»Server Types»Web servers
Click on New
Select node – leave it to default if IHS is running on the same server as WebSphere else select the node of web server Enter the Server name Select Type as “IBM HTTP Server” and click next Leave the default web server template, click next
Port – if HTTP Server is running on different port than 80 then change here Web server installation location – verify IHS is installed here else change the location Plug-in installation location – verify if plugin is installed here else change it Click next
Review the web server definition and click Finish
You will get a confirmation about new server created successfully and option to review the changes. Click on review
Select checkbox for “synchronize changes with Nodes” and click Save
It will take few seconds to synchronize the changes. Click OK
It will display the newly added web server in the list
It’s time to generate & propagate the plug-in now. Select the newly added web server and click on first Generate Plug-in And then click on Propagate Plug-in
It will take few seconds and give you plug-in path.
This is the plugin you need to use in HTTP Server. Let’s configure this in httpd.conf of IHS.
Add Plug-in in IHS (httpd.conf)
There are two things you need to do in httpd.conf file to make IHS talk to WebSphere using a plugin.
Go to the conf path of IHS. By default it will be under /opt/IBM/HTTPServer/conf Take a backup of httpd.conf file Add following two lines
Tip: if you are not sure the file location of mod_was_ap22_http.so then you can use find command.
Restart HTTP server
This concludes you have successfully integrated IBM HTTP Server with IBM WebSphere Application Server. Note: In order to have context root accessible through a web server, you must select Web Server as the target during deployment. Whenever you add new application or changes in context root, you must generate and propagate plug-in. So that was all for today. Hope you like this.
