Migrate root configurations to non-root

On Linux and UNIX operating systems, we can run WebSphere Application Server v9.0 as a non-root user when we previously used a root user ID in v7.0 or later.

Previous releases of WAS required root access to the system. The default migration paths to v9.0 carry forward that requirement unless we modify the standard migration process.

Tasks

1. Collect related information.
   • Collect user and group information on the non-root user profile (referred to here as nonroot_user) that will run v9.0.
   • Collect user and group information information on any files outside the WAS tree that are are referenced by your current configuration and applications.
     • Library files (.jar files)
     • Resource Adapter Files (.rar files)
     • Keyfiles (.jks and .p12files for example)
     • Other files (database driver files and application helper files or services for example)

   • Does the configuration use Run As User on the servers?

     If it does, include that in your plans. Ideally, they should use RunAsUser nonroot_user.

   • Do the applications or the application-server configurations use system services with user-restricted access?

2. Provide access to all necessary files, including files in the the WAS configuration directories and all files outside the WAS tree that you identified in the first step.

   1. Perform one of the following actions:

      • Change the ownership of the previous version's installation.

        chown -R nonroot_user WAS_HOME
        chown -R nonroot_user USER_HOME
        

      • Change the restrictions of the previous version's installation.

        chmod -R 0777 WAS_HOME
        chmod -R 0777 USER_HOME
        

   2. Change ownership or group access for all the files outside the WAS tree that you identified in the first step.

3. Install v9.0 using nonroot_user.

4. Create a migration backup directory accessible by nonroot_user.

5. Use the migration tools to migrate the previous configuration to v9.0.