Provide feedback on the IBM HTTP Server forum on IBM developerWorks.
The IHS admin server is a separate Apache HTTP Server instance on an unmanaged node (no node agent) to stop and start IHS as well as propagate files like plugin-key.kdb, plugin-cfg.xml, and httpd.conf (only when the IHS configuration is edited in the WAS Admin Console).
This error can occur on 8.5.5 and earlier if the compiled-in ServerRoot
(/usr/IBMIHS or /opt/IBMIHS depending on the OS) exists but is not readable by the
user/group the admin server is configued to use. For esoteric reasons, the compiled-in
ServerRoot is used as a prefix for a compiled-in DocumentRoot when DocumentRoot is omitted from
the configuration. The admin.conf shipped in 8.5.5 and earlier does not specify a
DocumentRoot. When the DocumentRoot does not exist, or is readable, it will not actually be used for
access to /wasadmin, but mod_ibm_admin does not intercept this early filesystem lookup.
Solution: Define a DocumentRoot in conf/admin.conf just under where the ServerRoot is defined.
*=info:com.ws.management.webserver.*=all:com.ibm.ws.console.web.webserver.*=all
ls -l
and ls -ld
.