Steps To Recover Corrupted/Missing SerializedSystemIni.Dat file in Weblogic Server

While starting WebLogic Server fails to initialize and the following exception used to get thrown

<Critical> <WebLogicServer> <BEA-000362> <Server failed. Reason: [Management:141266]Parsing Failure in config.xml: weblogic.descriptor.ResourceUnavailableException: Missing SerializedSystemIni.dat> service failed. The server will shut itself down>

We came to know that SerializedSystemIni.dat is used for encryption/decryption of plain-text/ciphertext within a WebLogic domain.

If missing or corrupted, then the decryption failure prevents WebLogic from initializing.

Please follow the below steps to recover SerializedSystemIni.dat file:

1. Go to $DOMAIN_HOME/config folder and open the config.xml file and remove any encrypted sections from the <credential-encrypted> attributes.
2. Replace its content with “”.(NULL) and save the file.
3. Go to $DOMAIN_HOME/servers/AdminServer/security and remove the boot.properties file(if exists).
4. Go to $DOMAIN_HOME/security and remove SerializedSystemInit.dat.
5. Go to $DOMAIN_HOME and rename the fileRealm.properties to fileRealm.properties.src.
6. Open fileRealm.properties.src and Change all the hashed passwords (encrypted passwords) to clear text passwords and save the file.
For example:

user.system=0xaasmme787xs5ff739b5536904c to user.system=password

Notes: Use the same password that was set to the domain.
7. Open a terminal and go to $DOMAIN_HOME/bin and execute setDomainEnv.sh (or .cmd).
8. Once the domain env is setup correctly, execute (in the same open terminal) the following command to regenarate SerializedSystemIni.dat and fileRealm.properties files :

java weblogic.security.acl.internal.FileRealm fileRealm.properties SerializedSystemIni.dat

9. Once the above two files regenrated, open startWeblogic.sh located at $DOMAIN_HOME/bin and add below mentioned argument in JAVA_OPTIONS and saev the startWeblogic.sh file:

-Dweblogic.system.StoreBootIdentity=true

Note: This will recreate the boot.properties file.
10. Start Weblogic with startWeblogic.sh or startWeblogic.cmd and enter the user and password.

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How To Recover SerializedSystemIni.Dat When It Gets Corrupted?

Please do the following steps in order to recover SerializedSystemIni.dat file:

1. Go to DOMAIN_HOME/config
2. Open the config.xml file and remove any encrypted sections from the <credential-encrypted> attributes.
3. Replace its content with “”
4. Save the file.
5. Go to DOMAIN_HOME/servers/AdminServer/security
6. Remove the boot.properties file if exists.
7. Go to DOMAIN_HOME/security
8. Remove SerializedSystemInit.dat
9. Go to DOMAIN_HOME/
10. Rename the fileRealm.properties to fileRealm.properties.src
11. Open fileRealm.properties.src
12. Change all the hashed passwords (encrypted passwords) to clear text passwords.

For example:

     user.system=0xa078cb45e6f6c4eefdd1f14495ff739b5536904c to user.system=password

13. Ensure to use the same password that was set to the domain.
14. Save the file.
15. Open a terminal and go to DOMAIN_HOME/bin
16. Execute setDomainEnv.sh
17. Then execute (in the same open terminal) the following script:

     java weblogic.security.acl.internal.FileRealm fileRealm.properties SerializedSystemIni.dat

• This will regenerate SerializedSystemIni.dat and fileRealm.properties files.

18. Now open startWeblogic.sh located at DOMAIN_HOME/bin and add this line in JAVA_OPTIONS=

     -Dweblogic.system.StoreBootIdentity=true

• This will create boot.properties file.

19. Save the script.
20. Start Weblogic with startWeblogic.sh or startWeblogic.cmd
21. Enter the user and password.