This document describes domain introspection, when it occurs automatically, and how and when to initiate additional introspections of the domain configuration in the Oracle WebLogic Server in Kubernetes environment.
To manage the operation of WebLogic domains in Kubernetes, the Oracle WebLogic Kubernetes Operator analyzes the WebLogic
domain configuration using an “introspection” job. This Job will be named DOMAIN_UID-introspector, will be run in the same namespace as the Domain, and must successfully complete before the operator will begin to start WebLogic Server instances. Because each of the
domain home source types are different (for instance, Domain in PV uses a domain home on a PersistentVolume while Model in Image generates the domain home dynamically from a WDT model), the Pod created by this Job will be
as similar as possible to the Pod that will later be generated for the Administration Server. This guarantees that the operator is
analyzing the same WebLogic domain configuration that WebLogic Server instances will use.
Introspection ensures that:
Introspection automatically occurs when:
Sometimes, such as for the use cases described below, it is desirable to explicitly initiate introspection. To initiate introspection, change the value of your Domain introspectVersion field.
Set introspectVersion to a new value.
kind: Domain
metadata:
name: domain1
spec:
introspectVersion: "2"
...
As with restartVersion, the introspectVersion field has no required format; however, we recommend using a value likely to be unique such as a continually increasing number or a timestamp.
Beginning with operator 3.1.0, if a domain resource’s spec.introspectVersion is set, each of the domain’s WebLogic Server pods will have a label with the key weblogic.introspectVersion to indicate the introspectVersion at which the pod is running.
Name: domain1-admin-server
Namespace: domain1-ns
Labels: weblogic.createdByOperator=true
weblogic.domainName=domain1
weblogic.domainRestartVersion=abcdef
weblogic.domainUID=domain1
weblogic.introspectVersion=12345
weblogic.serverName=admin-server
When a domain’s spec.introspectVersion is changed, the weblogic.introspectVersion label of each WebLogic Server pod is updated to the new introspectVersion value, either when the operator restarts the pod or when the operator determines that the pod does not need to be restarted.
Sometimes the Kubernetes Job, named DOMAIN_UID-introspector, created for the introspection will fail.
When introspection fails, the operator will not start any WebLogic Server instances. If this is not the initial introspection and there are already WebLogic Server instances running, then a failed introspection will leave the existing WebLogic Server instances running without making any changes to the operational state of the domain.
The introspection will be periodically retried and then will eventually timeout with the Domain status indicating the processing failed. To recover from a failed state, correct the underlying problem and update the introspectVersion.
Please review the details for diagnosing introspection failures related to configuration overrides or Model in Image domain home generation.
The introspector log is mirrored to the Domain resource spec.logHome directory
when spec.logHome is configured and spec.logHomeEnabled is true.
The following sections describe typical use cases for rerunning the introspector.
When you have an existing WebLogic domain home on a persistent volume (Domain in PV) and you currently have WebLogic Server instances running, it is now possible to define new WebLogic clusters or Managed Servers in the domain configuration and start these new instances without affecting the life cycle of any WebLogic Server instances that are already running.
Prior to operator 3.0.0, this was not possible because there was no mechanism to initiate introspection other than a full domain shut down and restart and so the operator was unaware of the new clusters or Managed Servers. Now, after updating the domain configuration, you can initiate introspection by changing the introspectVersion.
For instance, if you had a domain configuration with a single cluster named “cluster-1” then your Domain YAML file may have content like this:
spec:
...
clusters:
- clusterName: cluster-1
replicas: 3
...
If you modified your WebLogic domain configuration (using the console or WLST) to add a new dynamic cluster named “cluster-2”, then you could immediately start cluster members of this new cluster by updating your Domain YAML file like this:
spec:
...
clusters:
- clusterName: cluster-1
replicas: 3
- clusterName: cluster-2
replicas: 2
introspectVersion: "2"
...
When this updated Domain YAML file is applied, the operator will initiate a new introspection of the domain configuration during which it will learn about the additional WebLogic cluster and then the operator will continue to start WebLogic Server instances that are members of this new cluster. In this case, the operator will start two Managed Servers that are members of the cluster named “cluster-2”.
The operator supports customer-provided configuration overrides. These configuration overrides, which are supported with Domain in PV or Domain in Image, allow you to override elements of the domain configuration, such as data source URL’s or credentials.
With operator 3.0.0, you can now change the configuration overrides and distribute these new configuration overrides to already running WebLogic Server instances. To do this, update the ConfigMap that contains the configuration overrides or update one or more of the Secrets referenced by those configuration overrides and then initiate introspection by changing the introspectVersion field.
We have introduced a new field, called overrideDistributionStrategy and located under configuration, that controls whether updated configuration overrides are distributed dynamically to already running WebLogic Server instances or if the new configuration overrides are only applied when servers are started or restarted.
The default value for overrideDistributionStrategy is DYNAMIC, which means that new configuration overrides are distributed dynamically to already running WebLogic Server instances.
Alternately, you can set overrideDistributionStrategy to ON_RESTART, which means that the new configuration overrides will not be distributed to already running WebLogic Server instances, but will instead be applied only to servers as they start or restart. Use of this value will not cause WebLogic Server instances to restart absent changes to other fields, such as restartVersion.
Changes to configuration overrides distributed to running WebLogic Server instances can only take effect if the corresponding WebLogic configuration MBean attribute is “dynamic”. For instance, the Data Source “passwordEncrypted” attribute is dynamic while the “Url” attribute is non-dynamic.
The operator supports rerunning the introspector to propagate model updates to a running Model in Image domain.