Rather than opening your web browser and blacking out a server by typing entries into the address bar, you can write a script to achieve the same effect. This section documents a sample blackout script that can be run from the command line.

Create the following file and save it as blackout.pl.

  #!/usr/bin/perl

  use LWP 5.64;

  # USAGE: blackout.pl servicemanager:18080 admin password servername:3306 true

  # $ARGV[0] = management server hostname:port
  # $ARGV[1] = management server username
  # $ARGV[2] = management server password
  # $ARGV[3] = mysqld managed instance server name and port
  # $ARGV[4] = blackout state (true/false)


  my $browser = LWP::UserAgent->new;
  $browser->credentials(
    $ARGV[0],
    '',
    $ARGV[1],
    $ARGV[2]
  );

  my $url = URI->new('http://'.$ARGV[0].'/rest');

  $url->query_form( # And here the form data pairs:
    'command' => 'blackout',
    'server_name' => $ARGV[3],
    'blackout_state' => $ARGV[4]
  );

  my $response = $browser->post( $url );

  if (!$response->is_success) {
    die $response->status_line . "\n";
  }

On Unix systems use the chmod +x blackout.pl command to make the file executable.

At the command line enter blackout.pl servicemanager:18080 admin password servername:3306 true.

If you are unsure of the host name and port to use, check the configuration_report.txt file. Be sure to specify the correct port for the Tomcat server. Specify the server you wish to blackout using the name that appears in the Server Tree, being sure to include a colon and port number as shown in the preceding example. Make sure that the user you specify is a "manager". Specifying a user with "dba" rights only will not black out a server and no error will be displayed.

You can confirm that a server is blacked out by looking at the server name in the Dashboard; the name of a blacked out server is greyed. To end the blackout, run the same script, changing the final argument to false.