* Host - Ubuntu 10.10
* Guest - Ubuntu 10.10 - running my wiki, subversion and other documentation type things.
* Guest - Windows XP - Work. This is a VM specific to my current client.
* Guest - Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 (Carthage) 64bit. This is my OBIEE 11g playground I'm trying to build out. I have installed the 11gR2 database. I have run the repository creation utility (rcu) that installs the metadata for WebLogic and finally I have installed and (mostly) configured OBIEE 11g.
I'm barely using 10 GB of my 24 available. I so happy.
Anyway, I've configured my database to automatically startup/shutdown when the VM is started/shutdown. I followed Dr. Hall's guide here. Now I'm in the process of getting WebLogic configured to do the same thing automagically. (I should never have shut it down once I got it running...)
Believe it or not, I'm reading the documentation. 11g is a drastic change from 10g, especially with the integration of WebLogic. It's a downright beast.
I still don't know the difference between the Administration Console and Enterprise Manager. But I'm hacking away, as usual.
Since I'm trying to automate this whole thing, I don't necessarily want to use either of those tools. I want to start up the server and have everything running. Here's where I'm at now:

How did I get there you ask?
I opened up a shell and then navigated to:
/obiee/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin
In that directory you will find startWebLogic.sh
[oracle@obiee ~]$./startWebLogic.shYou'll be prompted for a username and password; weblogic is the username and whatever you entered for the password upon installation.
From the Administration Console, I go to bifoundation_domain -> Environment -> Servers

Click on the Control tab, select bi_server1 and select Start:

Awesome. What's a freaking Node Manager?
Here's the text for easier reading:
* For server bi_server1, the Node Manager associated with machine localhost.localdomain is not reachable.
* All of the servers selected are currently in a state which is incompatible with this operation or are not associated with a running Node Manager or you are not authorized to perform the action requested. No action will be performed.
Great...I need to start something else?* All of the servers selected are currently in a state which is incompatible with this operation or are not associated with a running Node Manager or you are not authorized to perform the action requested. No action will be performed.
Back to the docs.
That took me down a rabbit hole ending up at the wlst (web logic scripting tool and all the examples are in windows).
I looked around the file system for config or log directories to see if I could spot something. Somehow I ended up in:
/obiee/wlserver_10.3/server/bin
Makes sense right?
In there, 2 files: setWLSEnv.sh and startNodeManager.sh
Run setWLSENv.sh first and you get this:
[oracle@obiee bin]$ ./setWLSEnv.shNow run startNodeManager.sh (too much output, you don't get to see it).
CLASSPATH=/obiee/patch_wls1033/profiles/default/sys_manifest_classpath/weblogic_patch.jar:
/obiee/jrockit_160_17_R28.0.0-679/lib/tools.jar:/obiee/wlserver_10.3/server/lib/weblogic_sp.jar:
/obiee/wlserver_10.3/server/lib/weblogic.jar:
/obiee/modules/features/weblogic.server.modules_10.3.3.0.jar:
/obiee/wlserver_10.3/server/lib/webservices.jar:
/obiee/modules/org.apache.ant_1.7.1/lib/ant-all.jar:
/obiee/modules/net.sf.antcontrib_1.1.0.0_1-0b2/lib/ant-contrib.jar:
PATH=/obiee/wlserver_10.3/server/bin:
/obiee/modules/org.apache.ant_1.7.1/bin:
/obiee/jrockit_160_17_R28.0.0-679/jre/bin:
/obiee/jrockit_160_17_R28.0.0-679/bin:
/usr/kerberos/bin:
/usr/local/bin:
/usr/bin:
/bin:
/usr/X11R6/bin:
/home/oracle/bin
Your environment has been set.
Finally, back to the Administration Console, select bi_server1 again and click on Start:

Much better message this time.
And now I wait...
A minute or 2 later:

Voila!
Or so I thought. I navigated to Answers and was greeted with the wonderful 500 - Internal Server Error

I'll worry about that one tomorrow. It's a start though.