Utilities and Troubleshooting

Everybody has their favorite tools for fixing problems, so in this section, I'll discuss what can be used to solve various portal implementation based problems.I'm always finding new ones, so this is by no means an exhaustive list. I do hope it will provide some value in the context of what types of common problems you may see.

Scenario: Testing production before go-live

Actions: Using local hosts file for resolution in browser

Many times in applications development you have an application in production that is being replaced by new infrastructure along with the latest version of the application. The WebLogic proxy code requires the URL of production in its configuration. The complication is that the Production URL is in use and pointed to the older installation. How do you test the complete system before you flip the DNS entry to point at your new installation?

The answer is to have a client system resolve to the new IP address for the given URL before it goes to DNS. Several things need to be in place to make this happen. First, make sure your resolution order is set in nsswitch.conf. It should be set to files first for host resolution. In Windows, the host resolution is set in the registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ServiceProvider

The lower the number the higher the order. So, the lowest number goes first. If you are interested, here is a link that describes tweaking the registry.

http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1130 ...

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