WebLogic Server administration is the last area you need to study to pass the WebLogic Server 6.0 certification test. In this article, I'll cover some topics you may find on the test, such as deployment, security, and using the server console.

Deployment
WebLogic Server supports auto deployment, configured deployment, and hot deployment. Hot deployment enables an EJB application to be redeployed, modified, or undeployed on an active domain. WebLogic Server performs these actions without requiring the server to be reset. Hot deployment is performed using the weblogic.deploy utility.

Auto deployment is hot deployment that's done automatically by WebLogic Server. The server monitors the application directory of a domain for new or modified applications. Once a changed application is detected, the appropriate files are hot deployed. If files are removed, WebLogic will undeploy the existing applications.

Configured deployment explicitly registers the applications in WebLogic Server. The administration console provides the mechanism to install a Web application and logs entries into the config.xml file, which informs the server which applications are to be activated. Configured deployment should be used in a production environment to avoid unexpected application deployments.

Security
WebLogic Server supports a variety of security realms. A security realm is a logical grouping of security attributes. WebLogic provides the File realm, LDAP, NT, UNIX, and RDBMS security realms out of the box. Of these realms, the default security realm is the File realm, which uses security information from properties defined in the fileRealm.properties file.

You should know how to set up a Web application to use a security realm. Once the security realm is defined, users must log in to it to access the Web application. The security realm will define which resources the user may access.

To set up this mapping, the web.xml file must first be updated with the <login-config> tag to indicate how users must log in. Next, web.xml must be updated with the security roles that exist in the Web application; do this by modifying the <security-role> tag. Using the <security-role-assignment> tag, modify the weblogic.xml file to map the security roles defined in web.xml to one or more principals in the defined security realm. Finally, to restrict access to specific resources based on a URL pattern, use the <security-constraint> tag of the web.xml file to map a resource to a security role.

Server Console
Be aware of the server's behavior when booting it up. For starters, understand the concept of a domain. The config.xml file specifies the configuration attributes of a domain. This file should not be manually modified; use the administrative console to set the domain properties. As for the administrative console, be sure to familiarize yourself with the interface. There are a few questions on the test about specific parts of the administrative interface - logging, monitoring, and the impact of certain parameters. The best way to study for this is hands-on experience. At the very least, click through each of the screens in the console and read the Help file for each screen.

There are two ways to boot a WebLogic Server: administrative and managed. By default, the server will boot in administrative mode. In general, when you have multiple related WebLogic Servers running in a domain, only one should run in administrative mode. The other managed servers within the domain are administered by the sole administration server.

JMX
Before I wrap up, there's one more topic you should look at: JMX. There aren't many questions on this topic, but you should devote some study time to it. As a refresher, JMX is a system-management specification to help monitor a WebLogic Server. Be sure to know the types of JMX beans that WebLogic Server 6.0 supports (see Table 1).

Conclusion
Well, that's it! You're now ready to pass the BEA WebLogic Server 6.0 certification test. Before you take it, though, be sure to complete the last sample test I've provided.

Sample Test
1.   What is the default security realm?
a) LDAP realm
b) File realm
c) NT realm
d) UNIX realm

2.   Which configuration file holds the security roles for a Web application?
a) config.xml
b) weblogic.xml
c) web.xml
d) filerealm.properties

3.   When you boot up a WebLogic Server without designating whether the server should be an administrative or managed server, which does it start with?
a) Administrative
b) Managed
c) Neither, you must designate the mode before you start WebLogic server.
d) None of the above

4.   Which configuration file holds the configuration properties for a domain?
a) config.xml
b) weblogic.xml
c) web.xml
d) filerealm.properties

5.   JMX is a:
a) Performance specification
b) Messaging specification
c) Naming and directory specification
d) System management specification

6.   What information do Configuration MBeans provide?
a) Static server configuration
b) Runtime resource statistics
c) True server configuration, based on any overrides
d) All of the above

7.   What does the socket readers parameter in the administrative console do?
a) Returns the login timeout for socket readers
b) Determines whether or not native I/O should be used for the socket readers
c) Sets the percentage of threads to be available as socket readers
d) Determines whether tunneling will be enabled for this server

8.   Which method of the Pool interface allows you to shut down the pool and wait for connections to be returned before closing?
a) ShutdownSoft
b) Shrink
c) Reset
d) DisableDroppingUsers

9.   Which load-balancing algorithm has no real guarantee the load will be balanced?
a) Round-Robin
b) Random
c) Weighted Round-Robin
d) Parameter-based

10.   Which interface do you extend to create a message-driven EJB's home interface?
a) EJBRemote
b) EJBHome
c) BeanRemote
d) None of the above

11.   Which configuration file contains the JNDI name of WebLogic-deployed EJBs?
a) web.xml
b) config.xml
c) weblogic-ejb-jar.xml
d) ejb-jar.xml

12.   Which JSP tag includes a JSP page for pro cessing at compile time?
a) <%@ include file="somepage.jsp" %>
b) <jsp:include page="somepage.jsp">
c) <jsp:forward page="somepage.jsp">
d) None of the above

13.   Which Web application directory houses the deployment descriptor file web.xml?
a) The Web application root
b) META-INF
c) WEB-INF
d) There is no deployment descriptor file named weblogic.xml.

14.   Which interface would you most likely use to retrieve properties of an entity bean's EJB container?
a) EntityContext
b) SessionContext
c) EJBContext
d) EJBContainer

15.   Which of the following is not a valid JSP directive?
a) page
b) forward
c) include
d) taglib

1. b, 2. c, 3. a, 4. a, 5. d, 6. c, 7. c, 8. a, 9. b, 10. d, 11. c,
12. a, 13. c, 14. a, 15. B