Boot identity not valid

One or more WebLogic Server instances in my domain will not start and I see errors in the server log like this:

***<Feb 6, 2020 12:05:35,550 AM GMT> <Critical> <Security> <BEA-090402> <Authentication denied: Boot identity not valid. The user name or password or both from the boot identity file (boot.properties) is not valid. The boot identity may have been changed since the boot identity file was created. Please edit and update the boot identity file with the proper values of username and password. The first time the updated boot identity file is used to start the server, these new values are encrypted.>***

When you see these kinds of errors, it typically means that the user name and password provided in the weblogicCredentialsSecret are incorrect. Prior to operator version 2.5.0, this error could have also indicated that the WebLogic domain directory’s security configuration files have changed in an incompatible way between when the operator scanned the domain directory, which occurs during the “introspection” phase, and when the server instance attempted to start. There is now a separate validation for that condition described in the Domain secret mismatch FAQ entry.

Check that the user name and password credentials stored in the Kubernetes Secret, referenced by weblogicCredentialsSecret, contain the expected values for an account with administrative privilege for the WebLogic domain. Then stop all WebLogic Server instances in the domain before restarting so that the operator will repeat its introspection and generate the corrected boot.properties files.

If the Boot identity not valid error is still not resolved, and the error is logged on a WebLogic Managed Server, then the server may be failing to contact the Administration Server. Check carefully for any errors or exceptions logged before the Boot identity not valid error in the Managed Server log file and look for indications of communication failure.

For example:

  • If you have enabled SSL for the Administration Server default channel or have configured an administration port on the Administration Server, and the SSL port is using the demo identity certificates, then a Managed Server may fail to establish an SSL connection to the Administration Server due to a hostname verification exception (such as the SSLKeyException: Hostname verification failed). For non-production environments, you can turn off the hostname verification by setting the -Dweblogic.security.SSL.ignoreHostnameVerification=true property in the Java options for starting the WebLogic Server.

    NOTE: Turning off hostname verification leaves WebLogic Server vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. Oracle recommends leaving hostname verification on in production environments.

  • For other SSL-related errors, make sure the keystores and passwords are specified correctly in the Java options for starting the WebLogic Server. See Configuring SSL for details on configuring SSL in the Oracle WebLogic Server environment.

  • If the domain has Istio enabled and Istio is setup incorrectly, then you may see Info, Alert, Warning, or Error messages such as <BEA-141298> <Could not register with the Administration Server: java.rmi.RemoteException: [Deployer:149150]An IOException occurred while reading the input.; nested exception is: java.io.EOFException: Response had end of stream after 0 bytes> or <BEA-141151> <The Administration Server could not be reached at http://my-domain-admin-server:7011.>. Make sure the domain is configured correctly for your Istio version. In particular, make sure spec.configuration.istio.localHostBindingsEnabled is set correctly. See Istio .

  • If the DNS hostname of the Administration Server can’t be resolved during Managed Server startup with errors such as java.net.UnknownHostException: domain1-admin-server, then check the DNS server pod logs for any errors and take corrective actions to resolve those errors.