Weblogic deployment plan will not override variables (Weblogic 10.3.5).

Question

I am having some trouble trying to adjust the deployment settings of our application in weblogic. I feel what I'm trying to do ought to be quite simple, but it's not working as expected.
I am just trying to override the context-root in weblogic.xml and the JNDI name for the data source, so these can both be configured at deployment time.
I have removed the application.xml from the ear file, so that shouldn't be affecting the overrides.
What I have so far:
weblogic.xml:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<weblogic-web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app/1.2/weblogic-web-app.xsd">
<context-root>mosaic</context-root>
<resource-description>
<res-ref-name>jdbc/LogicalDS</res-ref-name>
<jndi-name>LogicalDS</jndi-name>
</resource-description>
web.xml
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<resource-ref>
<description>A logical reference to the datasource - mapped in deployment plan</description>
<res-ref-name>jdbc/LogicalDS</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>
plan.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wls:deployment-plan xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/deployment-plan" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/deployment-plan http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/deployment-plan/1.0/deployment-plan.xsd http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/j2ee_1_4.xsd" global-variables="true">
<!--weblogic-version:10.3.5-->
<wls:application-name>mosaic.ear</wls:application-name>
<wls:variable-definition>
<wls:variable>
<wls:name>datasource_name</wls:name>
<wls:value xsi:nil="true"></wls:value>
<wls:description>The name of the datasource to map to the mosaic application</wls:description>
</wls:variable>
<wls:variable>
<wls:name>new_context_root</wls:name>
<wls:value xsi:nil="true"></wls:value>
<wls:description>URL to deploy Mosaic at</wls:description>
</wls:variable>
</wls:variable-definition>
<wls:module-override>
<wls:module-name>mosaic.war</wls:module-name>
<wls:module-type>war</wls:module-type>
<wls:module-descriptor>
<wls:root-element>weblogic-web-app</wls:root-element>
<wls:uri>WEB-INF/weblogic.xml</wls:uri>
<wls:variable-assignment>
<wls:name>new_context_root</wls:name>
<wls:xpath>/weblogic-web-app/context-root</wls:xpath>
<wls:operation>replace</wls:operation>
</wls:variable-assignment>
<wls:variable-assignment>
<wls:description>Data source for mosaic application</wls:description>
<wls:name>datasource_name</wls:name>
<wls:xpath>/weblogic-web-app/resource-env-description/resource-env-ref-name</wls:xpath>
<wls:operation>replace</wls:operation>
</wls:variable-assignment>
<wls:variable-assignment>
<wls:name>datasource_name</wls:name>
<wls:xpath>/weblogic-web-app/resource-description/[res-ref-name="jdbc/LogicalDS"]/jndi-name</wls:xpath>
<wls:operation>replace</wls:operation>
</wls:variable-assignment>
</wls:module-descriptor>
</wls:module-override>
</wls:deployment-plan>
Nothing happens when I use the deployment plan, and neither of the variables appear under the Deployment Plan configuration screens in the admin console. From what I understand, I should at least be asked for these variables, since I have specified that they are null in the deployment plan.
When I use WLST to browse the tree, I find that the runtime configuration just stays as the values in the deployment descriptors.
I have verified the deployment plan is being used in the general tab of the admin console.
Can anyone help me find out what I am doing wrong here? If I don't create a data source called LogicalDS, I get errors about this, suggesting it is not correctly overriding. I am puzzled to why I do not see any variables to specify though..

Answer 1

The documentation implies that this is not the case - see:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/web.1211/e24443/export.htm#autoId13
'Assigning Null Variables to Require Administrator Input'.
However, require administrator input where? My thoughts were that this option would appear in the admin console under 'deployment plan'. However, although I have specified resource dependencies in the deployment descriptors, and the plan, nothing appears under 'resource dependencies' for the application.
Is the only way to change the context-root deployment URL by actually manually editing an XML file?
To me that seems primitive and will cause us support issues when distributing our application - is there any other way I can enable the ability to specify the data source name and context-root through the web console prior to/during deployment?
Edited by: user12032953 on 11-Jun-2012 07:20