How to connect to an i5/OS WAS instance from within the IDE

You might sometimes need to test a web application on an i5/OS WAS instance. If you find it too much of a hassle to export your project as an EAR or WAR file, upload the file to the remote server, then install the application (and repeat the process again when you make a change!) – or if you just don’t want the overhead of running WAS locally – consider configuring your remote server within the IDE so you can use it just like a test environment.

Here’s how:

1. First, make sure that the remote server is started on the i5/OS.
2. In the Servers view, right-click and select New > Server:
   
3. Type in the name of the remote machine and select the server type:
   
   Click Next.
4. Enter the SOAP connector port *:* Note: If you don’t know the SOAP connector port, you can find it on the i5/OS HTTP admin console:
   
5. If you’ve enabled WAS security, enter the user id and password, then click Finish (I didn’t need to worry about any other settings).

After a few moments, the new server will appear in the Servers view:

Now you can use the server to run projects as though it was a test environment:

Voila!

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