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Understanding PeopleSoft Architecture

This article is specially for new PeopleSoft database administrators and PeopleSoft administrators, who for the most of time try to figure out how to find the details regarding a PeopleSoft application. PeopleSoft application consists of database server, application server and PeopleSoft webserver. Batch server is also present for reporting purposes.

PeopleSoft is a web based application which means all a PeopleSof user needs is just the PeopleSoft URL. Let us follow the top down approach and assume that you have been given a URL and are asked to find all the peoplesoft application details from it. (We are assuming you have access to all the servers and your application has a simple configuration with one webserver,one application server and one database server.)

PeopleSoft Webserver details

Step1
URL: http://delta1:8101/psp/prod/?cmd=login

Information to gather:

• Server name hosting our webserver    : delta1

• Port no. on which PIA is running        : 8101

• Peoplesoft Website name                   : prod

Step2
Log into webserver(delta1 in our case) and enter the following command.
# ps -ef|grep 8101

psoft  385244       1   0   May 18      – 17:08 java -Xms256m -Xmx256m -Dcom.sun.xml.namespace.QName.useCompatibleSerialVersionUID=1.0 -Dweblogic.Chunksize=65536-Djava.util.logging.config.file=

/psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101/webserv/GHRMS/applications/peoplesoft/logging.properties -Dorg.apache.commons.logging.Log=org.apache.commons.logging.impl.Jdk14Logger -Dweblogic.Name=WebLogicAdmin -Dps_vault=/psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101/webserv/GHRMS/psvault -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=/psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101/webserv/GHRMS/keystore/pskey -Dweblogic.ProductionModeEnabled=true -Djava.security.policy=/psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101/weblogic/weblogic92/server/lib/weblogic.policy -Dssl.debug=false -Dps_home=/psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101 weblogic.Server

Information to gather from it:

• Owner/User of the process: psoft

User shown above has rights to start and shutdown the webserver. If you plan to stop/start the peoplesoft webserver you need to be logged in as this user, unless you plan to use root user to administer it.

• Location from where it is running: /psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101/webserv/GHRMS/applications/peoplesoft/

Above path tells you the place where your peoplesoft website is installed which is our peoplesoft webserver home.

PeopleSoft Application Server details
Step3
cd to webserver path noted in step2
cd /psoft/weblogic/web849/psoft8101/webserv/GHRMS/applications/peoplesoft/
and enter the following command.

# find ./ -name configuration.properties
./PORTAL/WEB-INF/psftdocs/prod/configuration.properties

Now get the peoplesoft website name which we noted down in the first step. In our case it’s ‘prod’. Now we need to open the configuration file related to it.

Step4
Enter the following command.
more [PATH OF THE CONFIGURATION FILE RELATED TO YOUR WEBSITE]

# more ./PORTAL/WEB-INF/psftdocs/prod/configuration.properties
Now that we have opened the configuration  file we’ll get the appserver details from it. Parameter psserver will provide you with the application server details. It would be similar to
psserver=appserver1:9010
(To keep things simple we are considering the case of one appserver connected to one webserver)

Information to gather:

• Application Server name     : appserver1

• JSL Port                             : 9010

Step5
Log into appserver and enter the following command.
# ps -ef|grep 9101
psoft  679954       1   0   May 31      –  0:29 JSL -C dom=PROD_56831 -g 95 -i 200 -u appserver1 -U /psoft/pt849/appserv/PROD/LOGS/TUXLOG -m 0 -A — -d /dev/null -n //appserver1:9101 -m 9 -M 12 -I 5 -j ANY -x 40 -S 10 -c 1000000 -w JSH

Information to gather:

• Owner name                    : psoft

User who has started the PeopleSoft application server

• Location of PS_HOME   : /psoft/pt849/appserv/PROD

Path mentioned above is the appserver directory of PS_HOME

• Domain name                  : PROD

PeopleSoft Application Server domain name

PeopleSoft Database server details
Step6
Navigate to PS_HOME/appserv directory using cd command
cd PS_HOME/appserv/DOMAIN_NAME/
# cd /psoft/pt849/appserv/PROD

Open application server configuration file “psappsrv.cfg”
more psappsrv.cfg
[Startup] ;===============================================================
; Database Signon settings
;===============================================================
DBName= psftdb
DBType= ORACLE

Information to gather:

• Database/Service name: psftdb

Enter the below command at the prompt
tnsping database/service name
tnsping psftdb

Used TNSNAMES adapter to resolve the alias
Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = dbserver)(PORT = 1521)) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = psftdb)))
OK (10 msec)

Information to gather:

• Database server host name       : dbserver

• Port no                                    : 1521

We have backtracked our path from webserver to database server and gathered major details about webserver, application server and database server which are the main components of peoplesoft architecture.