Viewing HTTP server information using SQL

I want to give credit to IBM's Db2 for i team for continually adding SQL views, table functions, etc. to information that was not easy to get using APIs or other tools. Another example of their excellent work, introduced with the latest Technology Refreshes, is the view HTTP_SERVER_INFO. Previously this information was only available using the Web Administration for i GUI.

This view, which is located in the library QSYS2, displays information about the Apache server in the HTTP server for IBM i, and will only display data about the enabled and active functions.

As usual with my examples of Db2 for i views and table functions I am not going to list all of the available columns, just the ones I found interesting:

1. SERVER_NAME:  Name of the HTTP server instance
2. JOB_NAME:  IBM i job name for the server
3. HTTP_FUNCTION:  HTTP server function. Data for the function is returned only if it is active
4. SERVER_RESTART_TIME:  Time the server was restarted. According to the documentation if the server had never been restarted then the result is null. In my experience I have found this value is the same as the one found in the column SERVER_START_TIME
5. REQUESTS:  Number of requests received
6. RESPONSES:  Number of responses sent
7. ERROR_RESPONSES:  Number of error responses

For a list and description of all the columns in this view you can use the link to IBM's documentation at the bottom of this post.

Let me see what Apache servers are active on the partition I am using:

01 SELECT SERVER_NAME, 02 JOB_NAME, 03 HTTP_FUNCTION, 04 SERVER_RESTART_TIME, 05 REQUESTS,RESPONSES, 06 ERROR_RESPONSES 07 FROM QSYS2.HTTP_SERVER_INFO

Four rows were returned in the results:

SERVER_NAME JOB_NAME HTTP_FUNCTION ----------- --------------------- -------------- ADMIN 266174/QTMHHTTP/ADMIN WEBSPHERE ADMIN 266175/QTMHHTTP/ADMIN SERVER HANDLED ADMIN 266175/QTMHHTTP/ADMIN CGI ADMIN 266175/QTMHHTTP/ADMIN SSL SERVER_RESTART_TIME REQUESTS RESPONSES ERROR_RESPONSES ------------------- -------- --------- --------------- 2020-08-02 09:22:37 1 1 0 2020-08-02 09:22:30 757 757 373 2020-08-02 09:22:30 106 106 0 2020-08-02 09:22:30 863 863 373

I am not sure how I would use this view, except for checking if a server was active.

01 SELECT SERVER_NAME, 02 HTTP_FUNCTION 03 FROM QSYS2.HTTP_SERVER_INFO 04 WHERE SERVER_NAME = 'ADMIN'

 

You can learn more about the HTTP_SERVER_INFO SQL View from the IBM website here.

 

This article was written for IBM i 7.4 TR2 and 7.3 TR8.