The WebLogic server stores its configuration in files in the DOMAIN_HOME/config directory. The main file being config.xml.

The way configuration changes are handled depend on if you are using the domain configuration locking feature. In Production Mode configuration locking is enabled by default and in Development Mode it is not. If you use configuration locking you have to acquire a lock in the Change Center before you can change anything.

Then you can go ahead and make changes. Every time you press a Save button the changes are temporary saved in the DOMAIN_HOME/pending directory.
When you have finished your changes you must press Activate Changes. This will copy all the files from the pending directory to the config directory.

If you are not using configuration locking every time you press a Save button the changes are activated and written directly to the files in the config directory.

You can of cause also make your changes via WLST or JMX.

It is a good idea to keep backups of the configuration files in case you need to rollback some changes or if a file gets corrupted.

config-booted.jar

When the Admin Server starts up it automatically makes a backup of all files in the config directory and stores it in DOMAIN_HOME/config-booted.jar.

The only extra information in the jar file is an empty manifest file.

[oracle@wintermute config-booted]$ jar tf config-booted.jar 
META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
deployments/
deployments/MDBExample.jar/
deployments/SessionViewer.war/
deployments/webapp01.war/
deployments/messaging.war/
deployments/JSFProducer.war/
deployments/readme.txt
startup/
startup/readme.txt
jdbc/
jdbc/readme.txt
config.xml
config.lok
nodemanager/
nodemanager/nm_password.properties
diagnostics/
diagnostics/readme.txt
configCache/
configCache/ver.ser
configCache/crc.ser
security/
security/readme.txt
jms/
jms/dizzyworldModule-jms.xml
jms/myjmsmodule-jms.xml
jms/readme.txt

A DOMAIN_HOME/config-original.jar is also created. It contains the same files as the config-booted.jar. I cannot find any documentation about the use of this file. Anybody know what it is used for?

Configuration File Archiving

You can configure WebLogic to automatic make a backup of the old configuration files every time changes are activated.

This is called Configuration File Archiving.

You can enable it and decide how many backups should be stored. When a change is activated a backup of all the old files in the config directory is stored in a jar file in the configArchive directory.

[oracle@wintermute configArchive]$ ll
total 48
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 6886 Aug 24 18:52 config-1.jar
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 6896 Aug 24 20:51 config-2.jar
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 6913 Aug 25 13:23 config-3.jar
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 6914 Aug 25 13:57 config-4.jar
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 6914 Aug 25 14:03 config-5.jar
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 7631 Aug 25 14:04 config-6.jar

When Archive Configuration Count limit is reached the oldest file is overwritten.

How the Archive Configuration Count limit should be set depend on how often changes are made to the system. The backup file size is around 8 – 10K so storage space should not be an issue.