WebSphere Application Server JVM arguments not being read properly

Question

We are using WebSphere 7- Application server for deploying project and this application server is given simple JVM arguments like this,

–Dsecurityresource=/web/sharedLibraries/security_config.xml -DConfig=/web/properties/Config.ini

But when tried to start the application server, a native error (native_stderr.log) is thrown as this,

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<verbosegc version="GA24_Java6_SR15_20131016_1337_B170922_CMPRSS">

<initialized>
  <attribute name="gcPolicy" value="-Xgcpolicy:optthruput" />
  <attribute name="maxHeapSize" value="0x100000000" />
  <attribute name="initialHeapSize" value="0xc0000000" />
  <attribute name="compressedRefs" value="true" />
  <attribute name="compressedRefsDisplacement" value="0x0" />
  <attribute name="compressedRefsShift" value="0x3" />
  <attribute name="pageSize" value="0x10000" />
  <attribute name="requestedPageSize" value="0x10000" />
</initialized>

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Dsecurityresource=.web.sharedLibraries.security-config.xml
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Dsecurityresource=.web.sharedLibraries.FalconCluster.security-config.xml
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:434)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:677)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:358)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:643)
</verbosegc>
Could not find the main class: Dsecurityresource=/web/sharedLibraries/security-config.xml.  Program will exit.

The JVM arguments are given at the following location in WebSphere.

Servers > Server Types > WebSphere application servers > server_name >Java and process management > Process definition > Java virtual machine and in Generic JVM arguments

its strange as it is throwing NoClassDefFoundError.

or is there any other configuration in Websphere that might be causing this problem?

Note : files and path provided in the JVM arguments exists and has read and execute permissions

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Where are you setting these parameters?
You should set them via admin console:
Servers > Server Types > WebSphere application servers > server_name. Then, click Java and process management > Process definition > Java virtual machine

And either put them in the:

• Generic JVM arguments using -Dparameter=value
• or Custom Properties defining parameter as name and value as value

UPDATE
When I've pasted your variables, it contained following invisible chars instead of -D and got the same exception:

–Dsecurityresource

However when I went to :

C:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer85\profiles\AppSrv1\config\cells\cellName\nodes\nodeBame\servers\server1 

and manually fixed entry in the server.xml file, server started correctly.

 <jvmEntries xmi:id="JavaVirtualMachine_1183121908656" .... genericJvmArguments="-Xquickstart -Dsecurityresource=/web/sharedLibraries/security_config.xml -DConfig=/web/properties/Config.ini" ...>

So please open that file with text editor and fix the - char before first D.