Webservices

RLJB

Hello all. I'm trying to crack this again, 3 years later and having grown from the Aware baby into an Aware teenager full of Aware experiences I'm sure it will be a cinch this time around!

We're getting the Axis error (There is no SOAP service at this location), and I just noticed we do not have the directory: WSDD

AwareIM/Tomcat/webapps/AwareIM/WSDD

Do we need to manually create this? Or is there something wrong with our install?

(we changed our AwareIM directory to be AwareIM/Tomcat/webapps/Start - maybe this has caused this problem?)

fyi - we have published and logged in

Thanks

RocketRod

I too am now trying to get web services going and have not used it before so bear with me.

I have followed the video and successfully discovered my service. Reading posts it appears you have to publish your BS and login which I did. However no WSDD folder is created and I too have renamed my web folder.

I have tried to check the logs but can't find anything related to this.

Am I missing a step?

rocketman

I got it working on my test machine with all ports open and the firewall disabled, and a bog standard installation of AwarwIM. but haven't been able to get it working on my production server. I haven't changed any folder names but the production server is heavily fire walled.

Tried my own post about 6 weeks ago but no reply from Support. Guess they must be busy getting 5.7 ready

Am keen to get a resolution also.

If memory serves, I DID find a wide folder but it just wouldn't connect anywhere.

rocketman

.... For wide, read wsdd .... Damned predictive text 🙁

RocketRod

OK people out there. RocketMan and I would love to get this working! The forum tells us that many of you use web services so give us those details that aren't in the video and manuals. For instance it seems that you have to publish your BS and log in? A directory WSDD should be created? What else needs to be done? We can both discover the service but that's as far as we get.

Does anyone have a step by step guide for the example in the video?

Rocketman and I need your experiences and wisdom!

aware_support

The info below is about SERVICES - when Aware IM EXPOSES services, not when Aware IM CONSUMES an existing web service from some other application.

It is important that you understand the difference. When you consume a web service all you need to do is discover it and then use the REQUEST SERVICE rule to use it.

When you expose a service, Aware IM automatically converts the exposed services into web services that can be consumed by other applications.
This happens when you log in for the first time after adding services or changing them. Deployed files are located in the AwareIM/Tomcat/webapps/AwareIM/WSDD directory.

If they are not, there was an error deploying web services. All the diagnostics should be in the Tomcat output (which starts when you log in).

You can force re-deployment of services if you delete everything in the WSDD folder and log in again.

Web services deployment should work in theory if you change the AwareIM directory, but maybe some bug crept in.

Please inspect Tomcat output and let us know if this is the case.

Web services are DEFINITELY working with the default directory.

RocketRod

Thanks support that helps a lot. So in the video example that is one that just consumes a service, right? Also if you are sending data as well as receiving data from an outside web service then that is still classed as consuming a service?

So exposing a service is when we create one ourselves within AwareIM to for example communicate with another AwareIm system? So the difference between consuming or exposing a service is not one of sending or receiving data but one of where the servcie originates from, either external or internal?

Sorry for this but I'm a neebie to this sort of stuff and it helps me to fully understand the difference.

Cheers Rod

aware_support

The difference is whether you want your app to use web services of other applications or whether you want other applications to use web services exposed by your app (or both).

rocketman

What isn't clear from the video is - I want to expose a service. The data I want to expose is in a BO that has 60 + attributes an umber of which are referenced attributes, but I only want to expose 4 or 5 pieces of data all of which are standard (ie non reference) attributes.

Is this possible - and if so how do I do it.

If I can at least get this bit working on my test server, I'll know the production server problem is my problem.

BobK

Hi Rocketman,

To expose only the selected attributes of your current BO, you need to create a new BO. This new BO would basically be a duplicate of your current BO, but with only the attributes you want to expose in your service. Then in the process that your service implements, get your current BO into the context (probably with a FIND) and CREATE the new BO and move the selected attributes from the current BO to the new BO. The Custom Reply for your service would be the new BO. Also, if this is the only place you would be using the new BO, it would not need to be persisted.

For the issue with your production server: after publishing your BS with the service, reboot AwareIM and after it restarts then login to create the service. That worked for us.

Hope this helps

rocketman

Hi Bob,

Many thanks for these tips. Will try them out later today.

RocketRod

I feel like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back. I am getting an access denied error message on a service I'm trying to consume. 10 minutes ago it was working ok, so I've done something that broke it. I guess what I need is a way to see what AwareIM actually sends when you do a REQUEST SERVICE.

I've checked the logs in the control panel but no help there. Is there any temporary file created somewhere or something I can look at to help debug WEB Services?

nlarson

RocketRod wrote
I've checked the logs in the control panel but no help there. Is there any temporary file created somewhere or something I can look at to help debug WEB Services?

You could try fiddler wed debug proxy, it will show you every request going in and out in great detail.

RocketRod

Thanks Larson. I tried that on the client and it shows nothing as I guess the request is called from within AwareIM and the process I have used. Not sure if it would help if I installed it on the AwareIM server?

Cheers Rod

nlarson

It should show everything going in or out, but perhaps installling it server side would help, but i have never needed to.

Did you look at the Raw tab? Also, if you use https you need to specify to decrypt the session to be able to see anything.

You might need to see if it is 'watching' the right ports since it might only watch 80 and 443 be default, i am not too sure on that (been a while since I configured it)

nlarson

These articles might help.

http://techkn0w.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/testing-services-with-fiddler/

http://fiddler2.com/blog/blog/2013/01/08/capturing-traffic-from-.net-services-with-fiddler

RocketRod

Thanks again Larson. I'll have another go.

However question for Support.

In all other areas of AwareIm that I have tackled there has always been an easy way to check/correct your application. In this area of services how do you see a developer tracking down things if they do not work? Looking at logs just shows a statement REQUEST SERVICE. Is there a system table or somewhere where a developer can see the strings/requests actually sent and received? If I am to build a robust application that uses web services I need to be able to quickly track things down when it stops working. You may say that it works, but there is always Murphy's law and when developing /testing in this area of AwareIm it's the first time that I have become frustrated with the lack of tools to assist me.

I will continue trying to resolve my issues with Larson's suggestions but really I don't think developers should need to have to introduce third party tools.

Cheers Rod

fjcortes

Regards,

I created a web service, following the instructions of the video, to revizar in tomcat log shows me the following error:

Generating service files for Guest access level.
Exception deploying Web Services Errors compiling TeletaxiPutCliente.java Note: sun.tools.javac.Main has been deprecated.
error: Invalid class file format in c:\AwareIM\JDK\lib\rt.jar(java/util/Calendar.class). The major.minor version '51.0' is too recent for this tool to understand.
..\Tomcat\temp\WSDL\TeletaxiPutCliente.java:2: Class java.util.Calendar not found in import.
import java.util.Calendar;
^
error: Invalid class file format in c:\AwareIM\JDK\lib\rt.jar(java/lang/Object.class). The major.minor version '51.0' is too recent for this tool to understand.
..\Tomcat\temp\WSDL\TeletaxiPutCliente.java:4: Superclass java.lang.Object of class com.bas.webapp.webservices.TeletaxiPutCliente not found.
public class TeletaxiPutCliente {
^
4 errors, 1 warning

aware_support

You have some sort of a setup problem. The system tries to compile web services using tools.jar This file must have a correct version and must be present in the AwareIM/Tomcat/lib directory.

fjcortes

Thank you for your support, problem solved