Analytics not starting after changing Java vendor (Oracle to OpenJDK)

Products

• CA Automic Workload Automation - Automation Engine

Issue/Introduction

After pointing the analytics-backend.jar to the new OpenJDK, the analytics-backend.jar ("IA-Agent") doesn't startup anymore. When pointing back to the Oracle Java, it works again.

Environment

Release : 12.3.7 / 21.x.x

Component : Analytics, All Agents - Anything with a .ini file where there is a parameter for name = in the [GLOBAL] section.

BS2000
BS2000 Event Monitor
SQL
JMX
NSK
OS/400
PeopleSoft
RA Core
SAP
Siebel
UNIX
VMS
Windows 64-bit
z/OS
z/OS Event Monitor
z/OS External Job Monitor

Cause

In the configuration of Analytics and other agents on this same server, it was found that the "name" field in the ini files for Analytics and the other Agents were all left blank.

When the field is left blank, Automic uses "hostname" for the name. Oracle Java and OpenJDK make different calls to retrieve the hostname.

Oracle uses -- InetAddress.getLocalhost().getHostName();
OpenJDK uses -- getaddrinfo / getnameinfo

For OpenJDK this means that it is getting this from /etc/hosts or the hosts file in Windows.

Resolution

To work around this issue, always provide a unique "name" for Analytics and Agents. 

Updating /etc/hosts or the hosts file so the first entry for 127.0.0.1 is the fully qualified domain name of the system is also an option, but this could have an effect on other processes.