A. Synopsis

What this is about

We’ve created a IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core cartridge in order to demonstrate the power and flexibility of Red Hat’s Open Hybrid Cloud strategy. Liberty Core provides a lightweight alternative to the classic WebSphere Application Server ND (cartridge available here: https://github.com/juhoffma/openshift-origin-websphere-cartridge) mainly targeting web applications using JEE web profile.

The cartridge currently supports the following features:

Provisioning of new IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core instances in seconds (!)
Full build & Deploy life cycle (as with JBoss EAP cartridge)
Hot Deployment
Auto Scaling with web traffic
Jenkins Integration
Integration into JBoss Developer Studio

The source code can be found here: https://github.com/juhoffma/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge

Screenshots

B. Installation

1. Setup OSE Environment

You have the following deployment options for this cartridge:

OpenShift Origin developer image
OpenShift Enterprise developer image
Standalone installation of Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise.

2. Cartridge Installation

This cartridge does not actually ship the Liberty Profile binaries. These
have to be installed manually before this cartridge actually works. The Binaries can
be installed in 2 different ways:

OPTION 1 – Install the Liberty Core underneath the versions directory
OPTION 2 – Install Liberty Core outside of the cartridge context

The following sections describe the 2 different methods.

Prepare the installation

Download the required IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core Installer from the IBM developer site https://developer.ibm.com/wasdev/downloads/liberty-profile-using-non-eclipse-environments/:

node# cd /opt
node# wget https://public.dhe.ibm.com/ibmdl/export/pub/software/websphere/wasdev/downloads/wlp/8.5.5.4/wlp-developers-runtime-8.5.5.4.jar

Clone the cartridge repository:

node# git clone https://github.com/juhoffma/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge.git

Initialized empty Git repository in /opt/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 139, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (103/103), done.
Receiving objects: 100% (139/139), 898.18 KiB | 1.33 MiB/s, done.
remote: Total 139 (delta 46), reused 106 (delta 15), pack-reused 0
Resolving deltas: 100% (46/46), done.

OPTION 1 – Install the Liberty Core underneath the versions directory

node# java -jar /opt/wlp-developers-runtime-8.5.5.4.jar --acceptLicense /opt/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge/versions/8.5.5.4

Before you can use, extract, or install IBM WebSphere Application
Server for Developers V8.5.5, you must accept the terms of
International License Agreement for Non-Warranted Programs and
additional license information. Please read the following license
agreements carefully.


The --acceptLicense argument was found. This indicates that you have
accepted the terms of the license agreement.


Extracting files to /opt/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge/versions/8.5.5.4/wlp
Successfully extracted all product files.

OPTION 2 – Install Liberty Core outside of the cartridge context

Binary installation

You can also install IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core outside of the cartridge and
define the location using a node level variable like you can do with the full
WebSphere cartridge.

To make this work all you have to do is to create the file
/etc/openshift/env/OPENSHIFT_LIBERTY_INSTALL_DIR and put the installation location into
it. See the Official Documentation for an example on how to configure node level variables.

Customize SELinux Configuration

Since IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core is installed outside of the gear’s sandbox, you need to customize SELinux permission settings in a way that the installation directory “/opt/IBM/” can be accessed with according permissions.

As a workaround and/or for testing purposes you could also temporarily disable SELinux policy enforcement:

setenforce 0

Install and activate the cartridge

node# oo-admin-cartridge --action install -s /opt/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge --mco


1 / 1
vm.openshift.example.com
   output: install succeeded for /opt/openshift-origin-liberty-cartridge
Finished processing 1 / 1 hosts in 3174.10 ms

broker# oo-admin-ctl-cartridge -c import-node --activate --obsolete --force
Importing cartridges from node 'vm.openshift.example.com'.
Updating 26 cartridges ...
54f62e57e659c5cd31000001 # U mysql-5.5 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000002 # U mysql-5.1 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000003 # U jenkins-1 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000004 # U nodejs-0.10 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000005 # U haproxy-1.4 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000006 # U jbosseap-6 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000007 # U jbossews-2.0 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000008 # U jbossews-1.0 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000009 # U php-5.4 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100000a # U php-5.3 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100000b # U mongodb-2.4 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100000c # U postgresql-9.2 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100000d # U postgresql-8.4 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100000e # U python-3.3 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100000f # U python-2.7 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000010 # U python-2.6 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000011 # U perl-5.10 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000012 # U diy-0.1 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000013 # U jenkins-client-1 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000014 # U ruby-1.8 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000015 # U ruby-1.9 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000016 # U ruby-2.0 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000017 # U amq-6.1.1 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000018 # U cron-1.4 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd31000019 # U fuse-6.1.1 (active)
54f62e57e659c5cd3100001a # A hoffmann-liberty-8.5.5.4 (active)

Make sure you see the line reporting the cartridge 54f62e57e659c5cd3100001a # A hoffmann-liberty-8.5.5.4 (active)

broker# oo-admin-broker-cache --clear; oo-admin-console-cache --clear

C. Reference Information

WebSphere specific

OpenShift specific

IBM WebSphere Application Server ND Cartridge

By Sebastian Faulhaber

Sebastian has spent over 8 years at IBM working as a technical consultant focusing on Business Integration and Business Process Management (BPM).
In 2013 Sebastian joined Red Hat as a Solution Architect; In this role, he used his extensive field experience to support customers with their digital transformation using open source & cloud technology. In 2019 Sebastian took over the leadership for a team of IT architects dealing with middleware, container technology and cloud at Red Hat Germany.

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