Technical data

4 Configuring WebLogic Servers and Clusters
4-2 Administration Guide
n Through the Administration Console, BEA’s graphical user interface (GUI) for
managing and monitoring a domain configuration. This is intended as the main
way to modify or monitor the domain configuration.
n By writing a program to modify the configuration attributes, based on the
configuration application programmatic interface (API) provided with WebLogic
Server.
n By running the WebLogic Server command-line utility for accessing
configuration attributes of domain resources. This is provided for those who
want to create scripts to automate domain management.
Role of the Administration Server
Whichever method you choose, the Administration Server must be running when you
modify your domain configuration.
The Administration Server is the WebLogic Server on which the Administration
Service runs. The Administration Service provides the functionality for WebLogic
Server, and manages the configuration for an entire domain.
By default; an instance of WebLogic Server is treated as an Administration Server.
When the Administration Server starts, it loads the configuration files, which are
stored, by default, in a directory called
config under the WEBLOGIC_HOME directory.
The
config directory has a subdirectory for each domain that is available to the
Administration Server. The actual configuration file resides inside the domain-specific
directory and is called
config.xml. By default, when an Administration Server starts,
it looks for the configuration file (
config.xml) under the default domain directory
(which is specified during installation of WebLogic Server software).
Each time the Administration Server is successfully started, a backup configuration
file named
config.xml.booted is created in the domain specific directory.In the
unlikely event that the
config.xml file should become corrupted during the lifetime
of the server, it is possible to revert to this previously known, good configuration.
A domain could consist of only one WebLogic Server. But in that case, that WebLogic
Server would be an Administration Server because each domain must have at least
(and at most) one Administration Server.