Specific Issues

Table of Contents

2 Specific Issues

This chapter lists problems that you might encounter when using Eclipse GlassFish 8. The following topics are addressed:

Cannot Access Local Server (http://localhost:8080)

When this error occurs, check the following:

Did the Server Start?

Description

If the console window is still open, the expected message indicates that the default domain was started successfully.

If the console window is already closed, check for messages in the log file. This is the default location:

domain-dir/logs/server.log

If startup was successful, the expected message is similar to that on the console, and appears at the end of the log file.

For more information about starting a domain, see " Starting and Stopping a Domain" in Eclipse GlassFish Administration Guide. To easily determine if a domain is running, use the asadmin list-domains command.

Was the Server Started at the Expected Port?

Description

The server might be running at a different port number than expected, either because it was intentionally installed there, or because another server was already running on the default port when the server was installed.

To Determine Which Port Number the Server Is Using

Follow this procedure.

  1. Examine the server’s configuration file:

    domain-dir/config/domain.xml

  2. Find the network-listener element.

  3. Inspect the value of the port attribute.

    Be sure to enter the correct port number when invoking the server.

    The server’s default port number is 8080, however, there are a number of ways in which the expected value can change:

    • A different port number was specified during installation.

    • A previous installation exists.

Is a Personal Firewall Enabled?

Issues might result when personal firewalls are enabled. Disable your personal firewall and see if the server access problem still exists.

Cannot Access Remote Server

When attempting to open the start page of Eclipse GlassFish, the initial screen does not appear.

When this error occurs, check the following:

Is the Server Available Locally?

Description

If the server cannot be accessed from the web, but it is running locally, then the server is actually running.

Solution

Verify that the server is running locally.

To Verify That the Server Is Running Locally

Follow this procedure.

  1. Log on to the host where the server is running.

  2. Go to the local web page. For example, if 8080 is the default port, go to:

    http://localhost:8080/

    If the start page does appear, the web connection is encountering a problem that prevents accessing the server remotely. If the start page does not appear, see Did the Server Start?.

Is the Proxy Setting Causing a Problem?

Description

The server should be accessible directly from the host on which it is running (localhost); for example, using the default port 8080:

http://localhost:8080/
Solution

A server instance running on localhost might not be accessible if the server host machine is connected to the web through a proxy. To solve this problem, do one of the following:

  • Set the browser to bypass the proxy server when accessing localhost. Refer to the browser’s help system for information about how to do this.

  • Use the fully-qualified host name or IP address of your system; for example:

    http://myhost.mydomain.com:8080/

  • Create an entry in the system’s hosts file (for example, pointing 127.0.0.1 to localhost; 127.0.0.1 is not proxied).

To determine the host name for the localhost machine, type hostname at the command prompt.

Cannot Access the Administration Console

The Administration Console provides a graphical interface for administrative functions. If the Administration Console is not accessible, check the following:

For more information about the Administration Console, see "Administration Console" in Eclipse GlassFish Administration Guide.

Is the Application Server Running?

Description

The server must be running before the Administration Console can be accessed.

Solution

Review the information in Did the Server Start? to determine if the server is running.

Is the Administration Console Running on the Expected Port?

Description

The default port number for the Administration Console is 4848. However, it could be running on a different port number than expected, either because it was intentionally installed there, or because that port was in use when the server was started.

Solution

Refer to Was the Server Started at the Expected Port? for guidelines on verifying the port on which the Administration Console is running. Be sure to enter the correct port number and HTTP protocol when invoking the Administration Console.

Cannot Access a Server Application

If a particular application cannot be accessed through Eclipse GlassFish, check the following:

Is the Application Server Running?

Description

If Eclipse GlassFish is not running, applications are not accessible.

Solution

Review the information in Did the Server Start? to determine if the server is running. The server must be running before a server application can be accessed.

Was Application Deployment Successful?

Description

An application must be successfully deployed before it can be accessed.

Solution

Verify that the application was successfully deployed. There are several ways to do this:

  • Check the server’s log file for related entries:

    domain-dir/server.log

  • Use the asadmin list-applications command to determine which applications are deployed.

  • View the Applications page in the Administration Console, accessed by clicking the Applications node.

For more information about deploying applications, see "Deploying Applications" in Eclipse GlassFish Application Deployment Guide. Also see the Administration Console online help.

Administrator User Name or Password Not Known

If you have forgotten the administrator user name, you can find it by inspecting the domain-dir`/config/admin-keyfile` file, where domain-dir is the directory for the domain. In the default domain, domain1, the file to inspect is domain-dir`/config/admin-keyfile`. For a different domain, substitute its name in the path.

If you have forgotten the administrator password, one solution is to create a new domain with the admin username and password that you want, then copy the entry from the config/admin-keyfile file in that new domain to the other domain.

Description

You experience JDK-related issues in a variety of circumstances.

Solution

Eclipse GlassFish 7.1 requires JDK 17, so check your system for that dependency.

Ensure that the required JDK software is installed and that the JAVA_HOME environment variable points to the JDK installation directory, not the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) software.

Set JAVA_HOME and $JAVA_HOME/bin in the PATH to point to the supported JDK version.

Server Will Not Start on Windows (Port Conflict)

If a message similar to the following is displayed when starting Eclipse GlassFish on Microsoft Windows, a server port conflict has occurred:

Address already in use

This error occurs when another application is running on the Eclipse GlassFish port (default 8080), or because a previous instance of Eclipse GlassFish did not shut down cleanly.

You might also check the following:

Is Another Application Running on the Server’s Port?

If another application is using the server’s port, stop the other application, then restart Eclipse GlassFish.

Has an Ungraceful Shutdown Occurred on a Previously Running Server?

Use the asadmin stop-domain command to stop the server, or explicitly kill the Java process and then restart Eclipse GlassFish.

Eclipse GlassFish Fails to Start in an OpenSolaris Zone

Description

If Eclipse GlassFish is installed in an OpenSolaris zone, an attempt to start a domain might fail with the following error message:

Waiting for DAS to start ..Error starting domain: domain.
The server exited prematurely with exit code 6.
Before it died, it produced the following output:

UTF ERROR ["../../../src/solaris/instrument/EncodingSupport_md.c":66]:
Failed to complete iconv_open() setup

The failure occurs because, by default, an OpenSolaris zone is installed without language and encoding support, which Eclipse GlassFish requires.

Resolution: To Enable Eclipse GlassFish to Run in an OpenSolaris Zone

  1. Install the package that provides language and encoding support for your locale.

    $ pkg install package-name
    package-name

    The name of the package that provides language and encoding support for your locale. For example, the name of the package that provides language and encoding support for the US English locale is SUNWlang-enUS.

  2. Set the LANG environment variable to the code for your locale.

    For example, if your locale is US English, set the LANG environment variable to en_US.UTF-8.

Two Server Instances Bind to Same Port on Windows

Description

This problem occurs on Windows XP systems with Eclipse GlassFish software, and is due to a known Windows security flaw rather than a problem with Eclipse GlassFish itself.

The problem occurs when two or more instances of Eclipse GlassFish are created using the same port number for the instanceport option; for example:

asadmin create-domain -adminport 5001 options -instanceport 6001 domain
asadmin create-domain -adminport 5002 options -instanceport 6001 domain

When the two domains are started on a UNIX or Linux system, a port conflict error is thrown and the second instance fails to start. However, when the two domains are started on Windows XP, no error is thrown, both server instances start, but only the first instance is accessible at the specified port. When that first server instance is subsequently shut down, the second instance then becomes accessible. Moreover, when both instances are running, the Windows netstat command only reports the first instance.

Solution

Be sure to use unique port numbers for all server instances on Windows systems.

Cannot Produce a JVM Thread Dump After Server Crash

Description

If Eclipse GlassFish crashes, the server dumps a core file and, by default, restarts with the -Xrs flag, which prevents the dump of a JVM thread dump.

Solution

To Obtain a Server Thread Dump

Type the following command:

asadmin generate-jvm-report --type=thread

See Also

generate-jvm-report(1)

Cannot Undeploy or Redeploy Application With Open Streams to jar Files (Windows)

Description

On Windows systems, after running an application, subsequent attempts to undeploy it or redeploy it throw exceptions about the server being unable to delete a file or rename a directory.

On Windows systems, an application may use getClass().getResource or getResourceAsStream methods to locate a resource inside the application, particularly in jar files that are in the application or accessible to it. If the streams remain open, subsequent attempts to redeploy or undeploy the application can fail. In addition, the Java runtime by default caches streams to jar files for performance reasons.

Solution

Be sure to close streams opened by your applications. Also, if an application needs to be redeployed or undeployed repeatedly, and also needs to obtain a resource from a jar file using getResource or getResourceAsStream, consider using getClass().getResource, which returns a URL object, then invoke the url.setUseCaches method to turn off caching for that jar file, and use url.getInputStream() to obtain the stream.

Although turning off caching for access to the jar file can slow performance, this approach does allow the application to be undeployed or redeployed. Note also that if the getClass().getResourceAsStream method is used instead, then the jar file in which the resource is located is cached (this is the default Java runtime setting) and remains open until the server is stopped.

MaxPermGen Exception

Description

Application servers such as Eclipse GlassFish allow you to redeploy an application without restarting the server. Simply make the change in your source code, compile the source, and redeploy the application.

Each application is loaded using its own classloader. When you undeploy an application, its classloader is discarded with all the classes it loaded and is garbage collected sooner or later. However, if there’s a reference from outside an application to an object in the application loaded by the application’s classloader, that object can’t be garbage collected. The reference holds the object in memory.

The memory in the Virtual Machine is divided into a number of regions. One of these regions is PermGen. It’s an area of memory used to (among other things) load class files. The size of this memory region is fixed; it does not change when the VM is running. You can specify the size of this region with a command line switch: -XX:MaxPermSize. Setting the -Xmx parameter does not help: this parameter only specifies the total heap size and does not affect the size of the PermGen region.

If you keep loading new classes that can’t be garbage collected because of references to them from outside the application, the VM runs out of space in the PermGen region, even if there’s plenty of memory available. This is called a classloader leak. The resulting exception is java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space.

The java.lang.String.intern() method also allocates memory in the PermGen region. If your application uses this method with strings and holds references to these strings, thereby making garbage collection impossible, your application may cause the same PermGen space exception.

Solution

Classloader leaks are difficult to diagnose. Most profilers list leaked objects but don’t highlight the ones causing classloader leaks. Most profilers also stop tracing as soon as they reach a class object or classloader.

One diagnostic approach involves undeploying the application and triggering a memory dump using the JDK 17 jcmd tool. The simplest analysis is to list all instances of java.lang.Class and look for class objects that have many instances. This is a sign that the class has been loaded multiple times without being garbage collected.

See https://www.eclipse.org/openj9/docs/tool_jcmd/ for more information.

asadmin start-domain Command Fails

The command asadmin start-domain fails with the following error:

There is more than one domain...
Description

When issued with no arguments, the command asadmin start-domain fails.

This error occurs when there is more than one domain in the domains directory, none of them is named domain1, and no domain is specified with the start-domain command.

Solution

Specify the domain when issuing the start-domain command:

asadmin start-domain domain-name

For example:

asadmin start-domain mycustomdomain

Cannot Stop Domain Using asadmin stop-domain

Description

You cannot stop the domain using the asadmin stop-domain command.

Solution

Look for error messages that display in the console when you issue the command.

Search the server.log file for error messages related to your inability to stop the domain.

Eclipse GlassFish Components Not Removed During Uninstallation

Description

Not all Eclipse GlassFish directories are automatically removed by the uninstallation program. Some directories and files remain after uninstalling.

Solution

Examine the remaining directories and remove any files or directories that you do not want, including hidden directories prefixed with a dot. It is safe to remove uninstallation and installation log files after you have examined them.

For information related to uninstallation, see "Uninstalling GlassFish" in Eclipse GlassFish Installation Guide.

java.security.AccessControlException: Access Denied Error

Description

The following error occurs from an application client, or appears in the server.log file:

java.security.AccessControlException: access denied
(java.util.PropertyPermission name write...)

There is a permissions issue in the policy files. Either the client.policy file for the application client or the server.policy file for server side components does not have permission to set the property.

Solution

Add the permission in client.policy (for the application client), or in server.policy (for web modules) for the application that needs to set the property. By default, applications only have read permission for properties.

For example, to grant read/write permission for all files in the codebase directory, add or append the following to client.policy or server.policy:

grant codeBase "file:/.../build/sparc_SunOS/sec/-" {
   permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read,write";
 };

Mutual Authentication Not Working With the Application Client

Description

This failure can occur when the keystore and truststore properties are not set properly.

Solution

Set the following properties on the JVM:

javax.net.ssl.keyStore=
<keystore-file-path>;javax.net.ssl.trustStore=<truststore-file-path>

To use the application client, set the environment variable VMARGS to the following value:

-Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=${admin.domain.dir}/${admin.domain}/config/keystore.p12
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=${admin.domain.dir}/${admin.domain}/config/cacerts.p12