Note to self 001: how to edit a weblogic domain on offline mode

I changed some settings that seemed to render my security provider (DefaultAuthenticator) useless, which meant that I could not start the AdminServer anymore.

I was getting an error about the boot.properties identity not being correct, and this had not changed in a long time. So how do I change settings in my weblogic domain when I cannot use the console? Easy: You just edit your domain settings in offline mode using WLST. Here's an example of how I changed the provider configuration. I had played with some of the Group Hierarchy settings in the DefaultAuthenticationProvider, and these settings resulted in it being impossible to start the AdminServer.

Instead of connecting to a domain, you read the domain from disk:

wls:/offline>readDomain('/u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain')

wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain>cd('SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider')

wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain/SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider>ls()
-rw-   CompatibilityObjectName                       null
-rw-   ControlFlag                                   null
-rw-   EnableGroupMembershipLookupHierarchyCaching   false
-rw-   GroupHierarchyCacheTtl                        0
-rw-   GroupMembershipSearching                      null
-rw-   KeepAliveEnabled                              false
-rw-   MaxGroupHierarchiesInCache                    0
-rw-   MaxGroupMembershipSearchLevel                 0
-rw-   MinimumPasswordLength                         8
-rw-   Name                                          Provider
-rw-   PasswordDigestEnabled                         false
-rw-   PropagateCauseForLoginException               false
-rw-   UseRetrievedUserNameAsPrincipal               true
wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain/SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider>cmo.setEnableGroupMembershipLookupHierarchyCaching(true)
wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain/SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider>cmo.setMaxGroupHierarchiesInCache(100)
wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain/SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider>cmo.setGroupHierarchyCacheTTL(60)

After editing the values, we update and close the domain (a bit like activate() when working with WLST in online mode)

wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain/SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider>updateDomain()

wls:/offline/bifoundation_domain/SecurityConfiguration/bifoundation_domain/Realm/myrealm/AuthenticationProvider/Provider>closeDomain()

Next time I tried starting the AdminServer, it all went fine again!