IBM API Connect and IBM DataPower Gateway - The Fun Continues

As per previous posts, I'm continuing to enjoy the voyage of discovery that is IBM API Connect (APIC) and IBM DataPower Gateway (IDG).

This time it's me trying to understand (a) why things aren't properly working and (b) how APIC drives IDG

Thus far, I've discovered that API connects to the XML Management Interface on the IDG, and creates a new Domain ( with a semi-random name prefixed by APIMgmt_e.g. APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34 ), and then creates a pair of Multiprotocol Gateways (MPG), named webapi-internal and webapi.

All seems fine but ….

I'm seeing this in the IDG logs: -

…

1,20171026T152710.907Z,APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34,network,error,xmlmgr,webapi-wcc,36511,,,0xb30009,,,"Host connection could not be established"
1,20171026T152710.907Z,default,network,error,,,1759,,,0x80e00173,,,"TCP connection attempt refused from 127.0.0.1 to 127.58.140.52 port 2444"
1,20171026T152710.907Z,APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34,network,error,xmlmgr,webapi-wcc,36511,,,0x80e00049,,,"Host connection failed to establish: 127.58.140.52 : tcp port 2444"
1,20171026T152710.907Z,APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34,network,error,,,36511,,,0x80e00627,,,"Error occurred (port error) when connecting to URL 'http://127.58.140.52:2444/ODCInfo/ODCInfo?c=analytics-lb'"
1,20171026T152710.907Z,APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34,wcc,warn,wcc-service,webapi-wcc,36511,,,0x80e0053c,,,"Request for WebSphere Cell information failed: Empty result set"
…

which is weird because my IDG has a static IP address of 192.168.1.200.

( How I got that address is a whole other blog post - ask me about VMware, Bridged networking and DHCP ! )

So I dug further into the configuration, via the IDG UI: -

and then searched for that particular IP address - 127.58.140.52 - which occurred in three places: -

So I dug into the configuration further: -

and found this: -

I changed the address to the correct address of the IDG ( yes, and I've NO idea why APIC / IDG things that we have a WebSphere Application Server (WAS) cell in the mix )….

I'm not yet fully there … but I'm learning as I go.

For the record, I did some other tinkering to IDG: -

Add hostname aliases for the APIC Management and Developer Portal boxes

config; dns; static-host management.uk.ibm.com 192.168.1.150; static-host portal.uk.ibm.com 192.168.1.151; static-host datapower.uk.ibm.com 192.168.1.200; exit; write mem; exit;

config; dns; show; exit; exit

Global configuration mode
Modify DNS Settings configuration

 admin-state enabled 
 name-server 8.8.8.8 53 53 3 
 static-host datapower.uk.ibm.com 192.168.1.200 "" 
 static-host localhost 127.0.0.1 "" 
 static-host management.uk.ibm.com 192.168.1.150 "" 
 static-host portal.uk.ibm.com 192.168.1.151 "" 
 force-ip-preference off 
 load-balance round-robin 
 retries 2 
 timeout 5 Seconds

test tcp-connection management.uk.ibm.com 443

TCP connection successful

test tcp-connection portal.uk.ibm.com 443

TCP connection successful

test tcp-connection datapower.uk.ibm.com 8443

TCP connection successful

Check the internal IDG load balancers

config; show domains

 Domain             Needs save File capture Debug log Probe enabled Diagnostics Command Quiesce state Interface state Failsafe mode 
 ------------------ ---------- ------------ --------- ------------- ----------- ------- ------------- --------------- ------------- 
 APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34 off        off          off       off           off                               ok              none          
 default            off        off          off       off           off                               ok              none          

switch domain APIMgmt_BF8B3A8C34

show loadbalancer-st

 Group        Host          Port Operational state Weight Administrative state 
 ------------ ------------- ---- ----------------- ------ -------------------- 
 analytics-lb 192.168.1.150 9443 up                20     enabled              
 mgmt-lb      192.168.1.150 0    up                20     enabled