An IBM IHS Admin Server is used to facilitate communication between WebSphere and an IHS web server. Typically, the Admin Server is used to start or stop an IHS Web Server, and to propagate the Web Server Plugin configuration file (plugin-cfg.xml) from the WebSphere deployment manager to the IHS web server.

This assumes you are able to start, stop, and restart your IBM IHS admin server using the adminctl command.

Use the ps command to ensure your system is using systemd.

ps -ef | head -2
UID         PID   PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root          1      0  0 Mar01 ?        00:06:58 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd

If your system is using systemd, create a service file. You can give the file any name you would like.

touch /etc/systemd/system/ibm-ihs-admin-server.service

Update the file to contain the following.

[Unit]
Description=IBM IHS admin server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/path/to/logs/admin.pid
ExecStart=/path/to/bin/adminctl -k start
ExecStop=/path/to/bin/adminctl -k stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload the daemons.

systemctl daemon-reload

The systemctl command should now detect the service and return the following.

systemctl status ibm-ihs-admin-server.service
. . .
 ibm-ihs-admin-server.service - IBM IHS admin server
  Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ibm-ihs-admin-server.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
  Active: inactive (dead)

Enable the service so that when the system is reboot, the admin server should be started.

systemctl enable ibm-ihs-admin-server.service
. . .
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ibm-ihs-admin-server.service to /etc/systemd/system/ibm-ihs-admin-server.service.

The systemctl command should now show that the service is enabled.

Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/ibm-ihs-admin-server.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)

You can now use the systemctl command to start, stop, and get the status of the IBM IHS admin server.

systemctl start  ibm-ihs-admin-server.service
systemctl stop   ibm-ihs-admin-server.service
systemctl status ibm-ihs-admin-server.service

Multiple admin servers

Let's say you have two (or more) admin.conf files, like this.

/opt/IBM/IHS/conf/admin1.conf
/opt/IBM/IHS/conf/admin2.conf

Update the name of the service file to contain the @ character.

/etc/systemd/system/ibm-ihs-admin-server@.service

Update the ExecStart and ExecStop lines in your service file to have the following.

ExecStart=/opt/IBM/IHS/bin/httpd -d /opt/IBM/IHS -f conf/admin%i.conf -k start
ExecStop=/opt/IBM/IHS/bin/httpd -d /opt/IBM/IHS -f conf/admin%i.conf -k stop

Reload the daemons.

systemctl daemon-reload

In this example, the "admin1.conf" server would be used.

systemctl start  ibm-ihs-admin-server@1.service
systemctl stop   ibm-ihs-admin-server@1.service
systemctl status ibm-ihs-admin-server@1.service
systemctl enable ibm-ihs-admin-server@1.service

In this example, the "admin2.conf" server would be used.

systemctl start  ibm-ihs-admin-server@2.service
systemctl stop   ibm-ihs-admin-server@2.service
systemctl status ibm-ihs-admin-server@2.service
systemctl enable ibm-ihs-admin-server@2.service