Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) provides web services for an Oracle Database and allows for access to the database over the web. In a recent YouTube video I showed how to use ORDS in the new Oracle Developer DB Virtual Machine and briefly mentioned how to find the running ORDS process. Let’s go into that in more detail. In this article, we will discuss how to check if ORDS is running in a standalone ORDS deployments as well as deployments on Apache Tomcat and Oracle WebLogic Server.

1. Checking ORDS on Standalone Deployments
2. Checking ORDS on Apache Tomcat
3. Checking ORDS on Oracle WebLogic Server
4. What about Windows systems?
5. Conclusion

Checking ORDS on Standalone Deployments

On a unix based system, the simplest way to check if ORDS is running is to use the jps command. This command will list all Java process that are currently running on the system. It is important to note that in order for jps to work, the JDK must be installed and the PATH environment variable must be set correctly. The jps command accepts a number of options and the most useful in this case are

• -m to display the arguments passed to the main method
• -l to display the full path name to the ords.war location. Pass that through a grep for ords to find the ords specific java process.
• -v displays the arguments passed to the JVM.

jps -mlv | grep ords
8545 /home/oracle/ords/ords.war --config /home/oracle/ords_config serve --secure --port 443 -Doracle.dbtools.cmdline.home=/home/oracle/ords -Duser.language=en -Duser.region=US -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dnashorn.args=--no-deprecation-warning -Doracle.dbtools.cmdline.ShellCommand=ords -Duser.timezone=UTC

If ORDS is running in standalone mode, you should see a process with ords.war in the path. If this process is listed, then ORDS is running. Note that due to the -v option you also see the Java option oracle.dbtools.cmdline.home used. That should be the folder that the ords.war is found in and should also be the distribution directory. In the above example, the distribution directory is /home/oracle/ords/ and the ORDS command used to start ORDS was actually /home/oracle/ords/bin/ords --config /home/oracle/ords_config serve --secure --port 443

Another approach is to use the ps command. This command will list all processes currently running on the system. To check if ORDS is running, use the command ps -ef | grep ords.war. If you see a process with ords.war as the command, then ORDS is running.

[oracle@localhost ~]$ ps -ef | grep ords.war
oracle      8545    8516  2 21:13 pts/1    00:00:49 /home/oracle/java/jdk-11.0.17/bin/java -Doracle.dbtools.cmdline.home=/home/oracle/ords -Duser.language=en -Duser.region=US -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dnashorn.args=--no-deprecation-warning -Doracle.dbtools.cmdline.ShellCommand=ords -Duser.timezone=UTC -jar /home/oracle/ords/ords.war --config /home/oracle/ords_config serve --secure --port 443
oracle      9554    3521  0 21:42 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto ords.war

You’ll also see similar information as with the jps command but also the java executable used at start up too. Note that access to run ps is not always guaranteed and it main not be available for the user you are logged in as.

One note about the command line arguments one can see for the running Java processes. It can be seen by other users. This is one of the reasons that ORDS does not accept a password as a command line option. That password would be visible to anyone able to list the running processes. Either through jps or ps.

Checking ORDS on Apache Tomcat

If it’s enabled, use the Tomcat manager web application, or at the very least the catalina log files, to confirm that ORDS web application is deployed and started. If not, then jps on the command line is the next logical choice.

When ORDS is deployed on Apache Tomcat, you can use the jps command to check if the server is running and get further information about where the ords.war might be deployed. Run jps -mlv as before but this time grep for the catalina package.

jps -mlv | grep catalina
88 org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.io=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util.concurrent=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.rmi/sun.rmi.transport=ALL-UNNAMED -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/usr/local/tomcat/conf/logging.properties -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -Dconfig.url=/u01/oracle/properties/config -Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048 -Djava.protocol.handler.pkgs=org.apache.catalina.webresources -Dorg.apache.catalina.security.SecurityListener.UMASK=0027 -Dignore.endorsed.dirs= -Dcatalina.base=/usr/local/tomcat -Dcatalina.home=/usr/local/tomcat -Djava.io.tmpdir=/usr/local/tomcat/temp

The above indicates that catalina.base is /usr/local/tomcat and most people use the automatic web application deployment by placing the ords.war in the $CATALINA_BASE/webapps/ directory.

ls -la /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/
total 92384
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root       62 Apr 11 06:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root       77 Apr 11 06:40 ..
drwxr-x--- 5 root root       67 Apr 11 05:38 ords
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 94599760 Apr 10 19:45 ords.war
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root       45 Apr 11 05:38 ROOT

That directory listing shows the ords.war file and that it has been exploded by Tomcat into the ords directory. It’s not a guarantee that ORDS was deployed successfully, one would have to check the Tomcat logs, but it is a good indicator.

Checking ORDS on Oracle WebLogic Server

If it’s enabled, use the WebLogic console or WLST to confirm that ORDS web application is deployed and started.

Similar to Apache Tomcat, the Oracle WebLogic Server is a Java application so yet again, it is the jps utility that is the starting point to get information on the server(s) running and their configuration.

jps -mvl | grep weblogic
80 weblogic.Server -Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom -Dlaunch.use.env.classpath=true -Dweblogic.Name=AdminServer -Djava.security.policy=/u01/oracle/wlserver/server/lib/weblogic.policy -Dconfig.url=/u01/oracle/properties/config -Djava.system.class.loader=com.oracle.classloader.weblogic.LaunchClassLoader -javaagent:/u01/oracle/wlserver/server/lib/debugpatch-agent.jar -da -Dwls.home=/u01/oracle/wlserver/server -Dweblogic.home=/u01/oracle/wlserver/server

The output indicates that the weblogic.home is /u01/oracle/wlserver/server. Unlike with Tomcat, one is not going to find a straight forward web application deployment directory under the weblogic.home. There’s a little more digging required to check if a server is configured to deploy ORDS and we’ll use the weblogic.Name parameter ( AdminServer in this case) to when digging deeper. The weblogic.home just indicates where the server java application is being executed from. The server runtime configuration is being picked up separately. In the majority of installations that will be in a related user_projects/domains directory found two levels up. For the above WLS instance that would be /u01/oracle/user_projects/domains/.

That directory may have the configuration for multiple domains but quite often there is just one: base_domain. From there you can get a little more information on how the server identified by the above weblogic.Name. The domain configuration is persisted in /u01/oracle/user_projects/domains/base_domain/config/config.xml and you can see there is an app-deployment configuration targetting the AdminServer.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<domain xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security/wls http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security/wls/1.0/wls.xsd http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/domain http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/1.0/domain.xsd http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/1.0/security.xsd http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security/xacml http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security/xacml/1.0/xacml.xsd" xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/domain" xmlns:sec="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security" xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/security/wls" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <name>base_domain</name>
  <domain-version>14.1.1.0.0</domain-version>
...
  <server>
    <name>AdminServer</name>
    <ssl>
      <name>AdminServer</name>
      <enabled>true</enabled>
    </ssl>
    <listen-address/>
  </server>
...
  <app-deployment>
    <name>ords</name>
    <target>AdminServer</target>
    <source-path>/u01/oracle/ords/ords.war</source-path>
    <staging-mode>nostage</staging-mode>
  </app-deployment>
...
</domain>

If you see this app-deployment configuration in place it is not a complete guarantee that ORDS successfully deployed when the server started but it is a good indication.

What about Windows systems?

The syntax for path separates might be different but the same jps utility options apply and the relative file locations will also be the same for standalone, Tomcat and WebLogic.

Conclusion

In summary, the jps utility, also known as the Java Virtual Machine Process Status Tool, that comes with your Java SE distribution is your friend. Just from the command line, it can guide you in discovering more about the ORDS instance running on your machine irrespective of deployment mode.

UPDATE! As of ORDS 22.2.0 there is a command to generate web application for deployment to Apache Tomcat or Oracle WebLogic Server. See Deploying Oracle REST Data Services. The below article is informative and perhaps worth your time to get an understanding of web application deployment but there are supported, documented steps for achieving the same thing with the ORDS product. In fact, what is in the ORDS product is better because it also caters for jar content in the /lib/ext/ folder which this article does not cover.

ORDS 22.1.0 introduced a substantial set of changes: Java 11 as minimum, new command line interface and a new configuration directory structure. In fact it is a release that introduces a whole new deployment paradigm.

Deployment Options

What we knew as Standalone Mode in previous ORDS releases still exists and is now initiated through a serve command. The embedded Eclipse Jetty web server and servlet container engine is still at the heart of this convenient way to have ORDS listen HTTP/HTTPS traffic. The significant change is how the configuration directory is determined at startup. There is no longer a requirement to modify the distributed ords.war to set the configuration directory location.

Deployment on a supported servlet container, such as Oracle WebLogic Server or Apache Tomcat, is similarly impacted by this principle that the distributed ords.war should not be modified. A new mechanism for specifying the configuration directory when the application is deployed is required. The ORDS documentation covers the standard approach for a typical setup, use a Java System Property ( -Dconfig.url=/ords_config/ ), startup your server(s) and deploy the web application.

Single Server

For some developers that may not have a full production environment scaled out for high availability, or may be restricted in the Apache Tomcat or WebLogic Server deployment options, the approach to set different servers with their own ords.war and configuration is not always feasible. With previous ORDS releases they may have had the practice of deploying multiple ORDS web applications with different contexts and configurations. At first it would appear that the new direction in ORDS 22.1.0 makes that impossible but it is not. All that is required are a few extra steps.

Bake your own

For deploying to Apache Tomcat or WebLogic Server you can make your own, separate web application with the config.url baked in. Moreover, you can call it whatever makes sense in your context.

Heres a Python script to do that for you: create_deploy_war.py

This script produces a new web application archive file with the jars from the distributed ords.war and web.xml deployment descriptor has the configuration directory path set. That way, wherever it is deployed, it will refer to the specified configuration directory.

Usage: create_deploy_war <source ords.war> <destination war filename> <configuration directory>

For example, if I want to have two ORDS instances deployed called tom and jerry with two separate configuration directories and I have extracted the ORDS 22.1.0 to /opt/oracle/ords-22.1.0.105.1723/. The jerry web application will be configured with a default pool pointing to an Oracle 19c database. The tom web application will be configured with a default pool pointing to an Oracle 21c database. We will show both web applications have these configurations by using the REST Enabled SQL service in ORDS to return database version information. Before that, the web application files must first be created…

./create_deploy_war.py /opt/oracle/ords-22.1.0.105.1723/ords.war /scratch/ords_webapps/tom.jar /scratch/ords_configs/tom/

./create_deploy_war.py /opt/oracle/ords-22.1.0.105.1723/ords.war /scratch/ords_webapps/jerry.jar /scratch/ords_configs/jerry/

That will produce two web application war files in /scratch/ords_webapps/ and I can then deploy them…

Oracle WebLogic Server

curl -u hr:hr http://localhost:7001/jerry/hr/_/sql

{
   "database_major_version" : 19,
   "database_minor_version" : 0,
   "database_product_name" : "Oracle",
   "database_product_version" : "Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production\nVersion 19.3.0.0.0",
   "env" : {
      "defaultTimeZone" : "GMT",
      "ordsVersion" : "22.1.0.r1051723"
   }
}

curl -u hr:hr http://localhost:7001/tom/hr/_/sql

{
   "database_major_version" : 21,
   "database_minor_version" : 0,
   "database_product_name" : "Oracle",
   "database_product_version" : "Oracle Database 21c Enterprise Edition Release 21.0.0.0.0 - Production\nVersion 21.3.0.0.0",
   "env" : {
      "defaultTimeZone" : "GMT",
      "ordsVersion" : "22.1.0.r1051723"
   }
}

As you can see from the above, the different web applications have different context paths and are configured to use two different databases.

Apache Tomcat

curl -u hr:hr http://localhost:8080/jerry/hr/_/sql

{
   "database_major_version" : 19,
   "database_minor_version" : 0,
   "database_product_name" : "Oracle",
   "database_product_version" : "Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production\nVersion 19.3.0.0.0",
   "env" : {
      "defaultTimeZone" : "GMT",
      "ordsVersion" : "22.1.0.r1051723"
   }
}

curl -u hr:hr http://localhost:8080/tom/hr/_/sql

{
   "database_major_version" : 21,
   "database_minor_version" : 0,
   "database_product_name" : "Oracle",
   "database_product_version" : "Oracle Database 21c Enterprise Edition Release 21.0.0.0.0 - Production\nVersion 21.3.0.0.0",
   "env" : {
      "defaultTimeZone" : "GMT",
      "ordsVersion" : "22.1.0.r1051723"
   }
}

Similar behaviour with Apache Tomcat with two different web applications with their own, separate, configuration.

Summary

What I have demonstrated is a script which produces a new web application for deployment in Apache Tomcat or WebLogic Server. The script is written for Python 2 because that’s the version distributed with Oracle WebLogic Server. It creates a new web application based on the distributed ords.war but without the META-INF content. That content includes a signature digest of the web.xml which will be invalid when the new deployment descriptor is written to the new WAR file.

This is what makes it possible to have multiple ORDS instances deployed to the same server all with different configuration directories.