Before considering the comments below, please be aware that GlassFish
does not currently support or document any failover scenarios for the
DAS. So by doing this, you are experimenting with an unsupported
configuration.
The das.properties file in the nodes/nodename/agent/config directory is
only used by an instance to find a DAS when either it is being created
for the first time, or when it is synchronizing during startup. The
asadmin list-instances command doesn't use das.properties at all. The
asadmin command can be executed from any remote client, whether it is
hosting nodes or not. So the --host and --port arguments to the asadmin
command specify the DAS on which to execute the command. When asadmin
is run on the same host as the where the DAS is running, then the
default values for those options (localhost and 4848) work, so the
connection to the DAS is successful.
I'm not aware of other references to the DAS within instances other than
the das.properties file. It would be a pleasant surprise if DAS
failover was actually that easy though.
Tom