APJ connector Failed to start while starting the CA Workload Automation iDash

Products

CA 7 Workload Automation Automic Automation Intelligence Unicenter Job Management Option iDash Workload Automation

Issue/Introduction

Post upgrading the CA Workload Automation iDash to 12.1.01 the server failed to start.

Tomcat log "catalina.out" shows the following exception -

06-Jan-2021 16:24:50.062 INFO [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.jasper.servlet.TldScanner.scanJars At least one JAR was scanned for TLDs yet contained no TLDs. Enable debug logging for this logger for a complete list of JARs that were scanned but no TLDs were found in them. Skipping unneeded JARs during scanning can improve startup time and JSP compilation time.
 
12.1.01.00-0334:idash.home=/opt/CA/idash
 
06-Jan-2021 16:24:52.720 INFO [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectory Deployment of web application directory [/opt/CA/idash/tomcat8/webapps/idash] has finished in [6,410] ms
06-Jan-2021 16:24:52.723 SEVERE [main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.startInternal Failed to start connector [Connector[AJP/1.3-8009]]
        org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Protocol handler start failed
                at org.apache.catalina.connector.Connector.startInternal(Connector.java:1102)
                at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:183)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.startInternal(StandardService.java:440)
                at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:183)
                at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.startInternal(StandardServer.java:766)
                at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:183)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:688)
                at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
                at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
                at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
                at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:342)
                at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:473)
        Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: The AJP Connector is configured with secretRequired="true" but the secret attribute is either null or "". This combination is not valid.
                at org.apache.coyote.ajp.AbstractAjpProtocol.start(AbstractAjpProtocol.java:274)
                at org.apache.catalina.connector.Connector.startInternal(Connector.java:1100)
                ... 12 more

Environment

Release : 12.1

Component : CA WORKLOAD AUTOMATION iDASH FOR CA 7

Cause

CA Workload Automation iDash 12.1.01 includes Apache Tomcat 8.5.57.
By default the AJP connector attribute "secretRequired" is set "true" in tomcat 8.5.51 onwards. This will not allow the connector to start while the attribute "secret" is not configured.

Resolution

Configure the AJP connector secret appropriately. Or set the secretRequired=false in the tomcat's server.xml file.

1) Stop the CA Workload Automation iDash server process if running.
2) Go to $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml
3) Take a backup of the file server.xml
4) Find the following line
<Connector compressableMimeType="text/html,text/xml,text/plain,text/css,application/javascript,application/json" compression="on" port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="443" server="iDash" />

And add secretRequired="false". The line would look like below -

5) Save the file and start idash-server.