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JBOSS Administration and Configuration Guide

This book is a guide to the administration and configuration of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0. It is written by a member of the JBoss Community. This material may only be distributed subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, V1.0.

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JBOSS Administration and Configuration Guide

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JBoss Enterprise

Application Platform 5.0

Administration And
Configuration Guide
for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0

JBoss Community
Administration And Configuration Guide

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0 Administration And

Configuration Guide
for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0
Edition 1

Author JBoss Community

Editor JBoss Community
Editor Isaac Rooskov
Copyright © 2009 Red Hat, Inc

Copyright © 2009 Red Hat, Inc. This material may only be distributed subject to the terms and
conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, V1.0, (the latest version is presently available at
http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).

Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, JBoss, MetaMatrix, Fedora, the Infinity
Logo, and RHCE are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.

Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

1801 Varsity Drive

Raleigh, NC 27606-2072 USA
Phone: +1 919 754 3700
Phone: 888 733 4281
Fax: +1 919 754 3701
PO Box 13588 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA

This book is a guide to the administration and configuration of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
5.0.
What this Book Covers xi
1. Introduction 1
1.1. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Use Cases .......................................................... 2

I. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Infrastructure 3

2. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 architecture 5
2.1. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Bootstrap .............................................. 6
2.2. Hot Deployment ................................................................................................... 6

II. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 Configuration 7

3. Deployment 9
3.1. Deployable Application Types ............................................................................... 9
3.2. Standard Server Profiles ..................................................................................... 10
4. Microcontainer 11
4.1. An overview of the Microcontainer modules ......................................................... 11
4.2. Configuration ...................................................................................................... 12
4.3. References ........................................................................................................ 14
5. Web Services 15
5.1. The need for web services .................................................................................. 15
5.2. What web services are not ................................................................................. 15
5.3. Document/Literal ................................................................................................ 15
5.4. Document/Literal (Bare) ...................................................................................... 16
5.5. Document/Literal (Wrapped) ................................................................................ 17
5.6. RPC/Literal ........................................................................................................ 18
5.7. RPC/Encoded .................................................................................................... 19
5.8. Web Service Endpoints ..................................................................................... 19
5.9. Plain old Java Object (POJO) ............................................................................. 19
5.10. The endpoint as a web application .................................................................... 20
5.11. Packaging the endpoint ..................................................................................... 20
5.12. Accessing the generated WSDL ........................................................................ 20
5.13. EJB3 Stateless Session Bean (SLSB) ................................................................ 21
5.14. Endpoint Provider ............................................................................................. 22
5.15. WebServiceContext .......................................................................................... 22
5.16. Web Service Clients ......................................................................................... 23
5.16.1. Service .................................................................................................. 23
5.16.2. Dynamic Proxy ...................................................................................... 25
5.16.3. WebServiceRef ...................................................................................... 26
5.16.4. Dispatch ................................................................................................ 28
5.16.5. Asynchronous Invocations ...................................................................... 28
5.16.6. Oneway Invocations ............................................................................... 29
5.17. Common API .................................................................................................... 29
5.17.1. Handler Framework ................................................................................ 30
5.17.2. Message Context ................................................................................... 31
5.17.3. Fault Handling ....................................................................................... 31
5.18. DataBinding ...................................................................................................... 32
5.18.1. Using JAXB with non annotated classes .................................................. 32
5.19. Attachments ..................................................................................................... 32
5.19.1. MTOM/XOP ........................................................................................... 32

iii
Administration And Configuration Guide

5.19.2. SwaRef ................................................................................................. 34

5.20. Tools ................................................................................................................ 36
5.20.1. Bottom-Up (Using wsprovide) ................................................................. 36
5.20.2. Top-Down (Using wsconsume) ................................................................ 39
5.20.3. Client Side ............................................................................................ 40
5.20.4. Command-line & Ant Task Reference ...................................................... 43
5.20.5. JAX-WS binding customization ............................................................... 44
5.21. Web Service Extensions ................................................................................... 44
5.21.1. WS-Addressing ...................................................................................... 44
5.21.2. WS-BPEL .............................................................................................. 47
5.21.3. WS-Security .......................................................................................... 47
5.21.4. XML Registries ...................................................................................... 51
5.22. JBossWS Extensions ........................................................................................ 56
5.22.1. Proprietary Annotations .......................................................................... 56
5.23. Web Services Appendix .................................................................................... 59
5.24. References ....................................................................................................... 59

6. JBoss AOP 61
6.1. Some key terms ................................................................................................. 61
6.2. Creating Aspects in JBoss AOP .......................................................................... 63
6.3. Applying Aspects in JBoss AOP .......................................................................... 63
6.4. Packaging AOP Applications ............................................................................... 64
6.5. The JBoss AspectManager Service ..................................................................... 66
6.6. Loadtime transformation in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Using Sun
JDK .......................................................................................................................... 67
6.7. JRockit ............................................................................................................... 67
6.8. Improving Loadtime Performance in tje JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
Environment .............................................................................................................. 68
6.9. Scoping the AOP to the classloader .................................................................... 68
6.9.1. Deploying as part of a scoped classloader ................................................ 68
6.9.2. Attaching to a scoped deployment ............................................................ 69

7. Transaction Management 71
7.1. Overview ............................................................................................................ 71
7.2. Configuration Essentials ..................................................................................... 71
7.3. Transactional Resources ..................................................................................... 73
7.4. Last Resource Commit Optimization (LRCO) ........................................................ 74
7.5. Transaction Timeout Handling ............................................................................. 74
7.6. Recovery Configuration ....................................................................................... 75
7.7. Troubleshooting .................................................................................................. 75
7.8. Installing JBossTS JTS ....................................................................................... 76
7.9. Installing JBossTS XTS ...................................................................................... 76
7.10. Transaction Management Console ..................................................................... 77
7.11. Experimental Components ................................................................................. 77
7.12. Source code and upgrading .............................................................................. 77

8. Remoting 79
8.1. Background ........................................................................................................ 79
8.2. JBoss Remoting Configuration ............................................................................ 79
8.2.1. MBeans ................................................................................................... 79
8.2.2. POJOs .................................................................................................... 80
8.3. Multihomed servers ............................................................................................ 82
8.4. Address translation ............................................................................................. 83

iv
8.5. Where are they now? ......................................................................................... 83
8.6. Further information. ............................................................................................ 83

9. JBoss Messaging 85
9.1. Configuring JBoss Messaging ............................................................................. 85
9.1.1. Configuring the SecurityStore ................................................................... 85
9.1.2. SecurityStore Attributes ............................................................................ 86
9.2. Configuring the ServerPeer ................................................................................. 86
9.3. Server Attributes ................................................................................................ 89
9.3.1. ServerPeerID ........................................................................................... 89
9.3.2. DefaultQueueJNDIContext ........................................................................ 89
9.3.3. DefaultTopicJNDIContext .......................................................................... 89
9.3.4. PostOffice ............................................................................................... 89
9.3.5. DefaultDLQ ............................................................................................. 89
9.3.6. DefaultMaxDeliveryAttempts ..................................................................... 89
9.3.7. DefaultExpiryQueue ................................................................................. 90
9.3.8. DefaultRedeliveryDelay ............................................................................ 90
9.3.9. MessageCounterSamplePeriod ................................................................. 90
9.3.10. FailoverStartTimeout .............................................................................. 90
9.3.11. FailoverCompleteTimeout ....................................................................... 90
9.3.12. DefaultMessageCounterHistoryDayLimit .................................................. 90
9.3.13. ClusterPullConnectionFactory ................................................................. 90
9.3.14. DefaultPreserveOrdering ........................................................................ 90
9.3.15. RecoverDeliveriesTimeout ...................................................................... 91
9.3.16. SuckerPassword .................................................................................... 91
9.3.17. StrictTCK ............................................................................................... 91
9.3.18. Destinations ........................................................................................... 91
9.3.19. MessageCounters .................................................................................. 91
9.3.20. MessageStatistics .................................................................................. 91
9.3.21. SupportsFailover .................................................................................... 91
9.3.22. PersistenceManager ............................................................................... 91
9.3.23. JMSUserManager .................................................................................. 91
9.3.24. SecurityStore ......................................................................................... 92
9.4. MBean operations of the ServerPeer MBean ........................................................ 92
9.4.1. DeployQueue .......................................................................................... 92
9.4.2. UndeployQueue ....................................................................................... 92
9.4.3. DestroyQueue ......................................................................................... 92
9.4.4. DeployTopic ............................................................................................. 92
9.4.5. UndeployTopic ......................................................................................... 93
9.4.6. DestroyTopic ............................................................................................ 93
9.4.7. ListMessageCountersAsHTML .................................................................. 93
9.4.8. ResetAllMesageCounters ......................................................................... 93
9.4.9. EnableMessageCounters .......................................................................... 93
9.4.10. DisableMessageCounters ....................................................................... 93
9.4.11. RetrievePreparedTransactions ................................................................ 93
9.4.12. ShowPreparedTransactionsAsHTML ....................................................... 93

10. Use Alternative Databases with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 95

10.1. How to Use Alternative Databases .................................................................... 95
10.2. Install JDBC Drivers ......................................................................................... 95
10.2.1. Special notes on Sybase ........................................................................ 96
10.2.2. Configuring JDBC DataSources .............................................................. 97

v
Administration And Configuration Guide

10.3. Creating a DataSource for the External Database ............................................. 106

10.4. Common configuration for DataSources and ConnectionFactorys ....................... 108
10.4.1. General ............................................................................................... 108
10.4.2. XA ....................................................................................................... 108
10.4.3. Security parameters ............................................................................. 108
10.5. Change Database for the JMS Services ........................................................... 109
10.6. Support Foreign Keys in CMP Services ............................................................ 110
10.7. Specify Database Dialect for Java Persistence API ........................................... 110
10.8. Change Other JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Services to Use the
External Database ................................................................................................... 110
10.8.1. The Easy Way ..................................................................................... 111
10.8.2. The More Flexible Way ........................................................................ 111
10.9. A Special Note About Oracle DataBases .......................................................... 112
10.10. DataSource configuration .............................................................................. 113
10.11. Parameters specific for java.sql.Driver usage .................................................. 113
10.12. Parameters specific for javax.sql.XADataSource usage ................................... 113
10.13. Common DataSource parameters .................................................................. 114
10.14. Generic Datasource Sample .......................................................................... 116
10.15. Datasource sample for Oracle RAC ............................................................... 118
10.16. XA Datasource sample for Oracle RAC .......................................................... 118
10.17. Configuring a DataSource for remote usage ................................................... 119
10.18. Configuring a DataSource to use login modules .............................................. 119
11. Pooling 121
11.1. Strategy .......................................................................................................... 121
11.2. Transaction stickness ...................................................................................... 121
11.3. Workaround for Oracle .................................................................................... 122
11.4. Pool Access ................................................................................................... 122
11.5. Pool Filling ..................................................................................................... 122
11.6. Idle Connections ............................................................................................. 122
11.7. Dead connections ........................................................................................... 123
11.7.1. Valid connection checking ..................................................................... 123
11.7.2. Errors during SQL queries .................................................................... 123
11.7.3. Changing/Closing/Flushing the pool ....................................................... 123
11.7.4. Other pooling ....................................................................................... 123
12. Frequently Asked Questions 125
12.1. I have problems with Oracle XA? .................................................................... 125

III. Clustering Guide 127

13. Introduction and Quick Start 129
13.1. Quick Start Guide ........................................................................................... 129
13.1.1. Initial Preparation ................................................................................. 130
13.1.2. Launching a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Cluster ..................... 131
13.1.3. Web Application Clustering Quick Start .................................................. 133
13.1.4. EJB Session Bean Clustering Quick Start .............................................. 134
13.1.5. Entity Clustering Quick Start ................................................................. 134
14. Clustering Concepts 137
14.1. Cluster Definition ............................................................................................ 137
14.2. Service Architectures ...................................................................................... 138
14.2.1. Client-side interceptor architecture ........................................................ 138

vi
14.2.2. External Load Balancer Architecture ...................................................... 139
14.3. Load-Balancing Policies .................................................................................. 140
14.3.1. Client-side interceptor architecture ........................................................ 140
14.3.2. External load balancer architecture ....................................................... 141
15. Clustering Building Blocks 143
15.1. Group Communication with JGroups ................................................................ 143
15.1.1. The Channel Factory Service ................................................................ 144
15.1.2. The JGroups Shared Transport ............................................................. 145
15.2. Distributed Caching with JBoss Cache ............................................................. 147
15.2.1. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform CacheManager Service .......... 147
15.3. The HAPartition Service .................................................................................. 150
15.3.1. DistributedReplicantManager Service .................................................... 153
15.3.2. DistributedState Service ....................................................................... 153
15.3.3. Custom Use of HAPartition ................................................................... 154
16. Clustered JNDI Services 155
16.1. How it works .................................................................................................. 155
16.2. Client configuration ......................................................................................... 157
16.2.1. For clients running inside the Enterprise Application Platform .................. 157
16.2.2. For clients running outside the Enterprise Application Platform ................ 159
16.3. JBoss configuration ......................................................................................... 161
16.3.1. Adding a Second HA-JNDI Service ....................................................... 164
17. Clustered Session EJBs 167
17.1. Stateless Session Bean in EJB 3.0 .................................................................. 167
17.2. Stateful Session Beans in EJB 3.0 ................................................................... 168
17.2.1. The EJB application configuration ......................................................... 168
17.2.2. Optimize state replication ..................................................................... 170
17.2.3. CacheManager service configuration ..................................................... 170
17.3. Stateless Session Bean in EJB 2.x .................................................................. 173
17.4. Stateful Session Bean in EJB 2.x .................................................................... 174
17.4.1. The EJB application configuration ......................................................... 174
17.4.2. Optimize state replication ..................................................................... 175
17.4.3. The HASessionStateService configuration ............................................. 175
17.4.4. Handling Cluster Restart ....................................................................... 176
17.4.5. JNDI Lookup Process ........................................................................... 177
17.4.6. SingleRetryInterceptor .......................................................................... 178
18. Clustered Entity EJBs 179
18.1. Entity Bean in EJB 3.0 .................................................................................... 179
18.1.1. Configure the distributed cache ............................................................. 179
18.1.2. Configure the entity beans for cache ..................................................... 182
18.1.3. Query result caching ............................................................................ 184
18.2. Entity Bean in EJB 2.x .................................................................................... 188
19. HTTP Services 191
19.1. Configuring load balancing using Apache and mod_jk ....................................... 191
19.1.1. Download the software ......................................................................... 191
19.1.2. Configure Apache to load mod_jk ......................................................... 192
19.1.3. Configure worker nodes in mod_jk ........................................................ 193
19.1.4. Configuring JBoss to work with mod_jk ................................................. 195
19.2. Configuring HTTP session state replication ...................................................... 195
19.2.1. Enabling session replication in your application ...................................... 196

vii
Administration And Configuration Guide

19.2.2. HttpSession Passivation and Activation ................................................. 199

19.2.3. Configuring the JBoss Cache instance used for session state replication
........................................................................................................................ 201
19.3. Using FIELD level replication ........................................................................... 202
19.4. Using Clustered Single Sign On ...................................................................... 204
19.4.1. Configuration ....................................................................................... 204
19.4.2. SSO Behavior ...................................................................................... 205
19.4.3. Limitations ........................................................................................... 205
19.4.4. Configuring the Cookie Domain ............................................................ 206

20. JBoss Messaging Clustering Notes 207

20.1. Unique server peer id ..................................................................................... 207
20.2. Clustered destinations ..................................................................................... 207
20.3. Clustered durable subs ................................................................................... 207
20.4. Clustered temporary destinations ..................................................................... 207
20.5. Non clustered servers ..................................................................................... 207
20.6. Message ordering in the cluster ....................................................................... 207
20.7. Idempotent operations ..................................................................................... 208
20.7.1. Clustered connection factories .............................................................. 208

21. Clustered Deployment Options 209

21.1. Clustered Singleton Services ........................................................................... 209
21.1.1. HASingleton Deployment Options ......................................................... 210
21.1.2. Determining the master node ................................................................ 213
21.2. Farming Deployment ....................................................................................... 214

22. JGroups Services 217

22.1. Configuring a JGroups Channel's Protocol Stack .............................................. 217
22.1.1. Common Configuration Properties ......................................................... 220
22.1.2. Transport Protocols .............................................................................. 220
22.1.3. Discovery Protocols .............................................................................. 225
22.1.4. Failure Detection Protocols ................................................................... 228
22.1.5. Reliable Delivery Protocols ................................................................... 231
22.1.6. Group Membership (GMS) .................................................................... 232
22.1.7. Flow Control (FC) ................................................................................ 233
22.2. Fragmentation (FRAG2) .................................................................................. 235
22.3. State Transfer ................................................................................................. 235
22.4. Distributed Garbage Collection (STABLE) ......................................................... 235
22.5. Merging (MERGE2) ........................................................................................ 236
22.6. Other Configuration Issues .............................................................................. 237
22.6.1. Binding JGroups Channels to a Particular Interface ................................ 237
22.6.2. Isolating JGroups Channels .................................................................. 238
22.6.3. JGroups Troubleshooting ...................................................................... 241

23. JBoss Cache Configuration and Deployment 243

23.1. Key JBoss Cache Configuration Options .......................................................... 243
23.1.1. Editing the CacheManager Configuration ............................................... 243
23.1.2. Cache Mode ........................................................................................ 248
23.1.3. Transaction Handling ............................................................................ 249
23.1.4. Concurrent Access ............................................................................... 250
23.1.5. JGroups Integration .............................................................................. 251
23.1.6. Eviction ............................................................................................... 252
23.1.7. Cache Loaders .................................................................................... 252

viii
23.1.8. Buddy Replication ................................................................................ 254
23.2. Deploying Your Own JBoss Cache Instance ..................................................... 255
23.2.1. Deployment Via the CacheManager Service .......................................... 255
23.2.2. Deployment Via a -service.xml File ................................................. 258
23.2.3. Deployment Via a -jboss-beans.xml File .......................................... 259

IV. Performance Tuning 263

24. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 Performance Tuning 265
24.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 265
24.2. Hardware tuning ............................................................................................. 265
24.2.1. CPU (Central Processing Unit) .............................................................. 265
24.2.2. RAM (Random Access Memory) ........................................................... 266
24.2.3. Hard Disk ............................................................................................ 266
24.3. Operating System Performance Tuning ............................................................ 266
24.3.1. Networking .......................................................................................... 267
24.4. Tuning the JVM .............................................................................................. 267
24.5. Tuning your applications ................................................................................. 267
24.5.1. Instrumentation .................................................................................... 268
24.6. Tuning JBoss Enterprise Application Platform ................................................... 268
24.6.1. Memory usage ..................................................................................... 268
24.6.2. Database Connection ........................................................................... 272
24.6.3. Clustering Tuning ................................................................................. 273
24.6.4. Other key configurations ....................................................................... 277

V. Index 279
Index 281

ix
x
What this Book Covers
The primary focus of this book is the presentation of the standard JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform 5.0 architecture components from both the perspective of their configuration and architecture.
As a user of a standard JBoss distribution you will be given an understanding of how to configure
the standard components. This book is not an introduction to JavaEE or how to use JavaEE
in applications. It focuses on the internal details of the JBoss server architecture and how our
implementation of a given JavaEE container can be configured and extended.

As a JBoss developer, you will be given a good understanding of the architecture and integration
of the standard components to enable you to extend or replace the standard components for your
infrastructure needs. We also show you how to obtain the JBoss source code, along with how to build
and debug the JBoss server.

xi
xii
Chapter 1.

Introduction
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 is built on top of the new JBoss Microcontainer. The JBoss
Microcontainer is a lightweight container that supports direct deployment, configuration and lifecycle of
plain old Java objects (POJOs).
The JBoss Microcontainer project is standalone and replaces the JBoss JMX Microkernel used in the
4.x JBoss Enterprise Application Platforms.

The JBoss Microcontainer integrates nicely with the JBoss Aspect Oriented Programming framework
(JBoss AOP). JBoss AOP is discussed in Chapter 6, JBoss AOP Support for JMX in JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform 5 remains strong and MBean services written against the old Microkernel are
expected to work.

A sample Java EE 5 application that can be run on top of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
5.0.0.GA and above which demonstrates many interesting technologies is the Seam Booking
Application available with this distribution. This example application makes use of the following
technologies running on JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5:

• EJB3

• Stateful Session Beans

• Stateless Session Beans

• JPA (w/ Hibernate validation)

• JSF

• Facelets

• Ajax4JSF

• Seam

Many key features of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 are provided by integrating standalone
JBoss projects which include:

• JBoss EJB3 included with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 provides the implementation
of the latest revision of the Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) specification. EJB 3.0 is a deep overhaul
and simplification of the EJB specification. EJB 3.0's goals are to simplify development, facilitate a
test driven approach, and focus more on writing plain old java objects (POJOs) rather than coding
against complex EJB APIs.

• JBoss Messaging is a high performance JMS provider in the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Stack
(JEMS), included with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 as the default messaging provider.
It is also the backbone of the JBoss ESB infrastructure. JBoss Messaging is a complete rewrite of
JBossMQ, which is the default JMS provider for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.2.

• JBoss Cache comes in two flavors: a traditional tree-structured node-based cache, and a
PojoCache, an in-memory, transactional, and replicated cache system that allows users to operate
on simple POJOs transparently without active user management of either replication or persistency
aspects.

• JBossWS 2 is the web services stack for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 providing Java EE
compatible web services, JAXWS-2.x.

1
Chapter 1. Introduction

• JBoss Transactions is the default transaction manager for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
5. JBoss Transactions is founded on industry proven technology and 18 year history as a leader in
distributed transactions, and is one of the most interoperable implementations available.

• JBoss Web is the Web container in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5, an implementation
based on Apache Tomcat that includes the Apache Portable Runtime (APR) and Tomcat native
technologies to achieve scalability and performance characteristics that match and exceed the
Apache Http server.

1.1. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Use Cases

• 99% of web applications involving a database

• Mission critical web applications likely to be clustered.

• Simple web applications with JSPs/Servlets upgrades to JBoss Enterprise Application Platform with
Tomcat Embedded.

• Intermediate web applications with JSPs/Servlets using a web framework such as Struts, Java
Server Faces, Cocoon, Tapestry, Spring, Expresso, Avalon, Turbine.

• Complex web applications with JSPs/Servlets, SEAM, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), Java
Messaging (JMS), caching etc.

• Cross application middleware (JMS, Corba, JMX etc).

2
Part I. JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform Infrastructure
Chapter 2.

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

5 architecture
The following diagram illustrates an overview of the JBoss Enterprise Application Server and its
components.

The directory structure of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 resembles that of the 4.x series with
some notable differences:

-jboss-as - the path to your JBoss Enterprise Application Server.

|-- bin - contains start scripts and run.jar
|-- client - client jars
|-- common/lib - static jars shared across server configuration
|-- docs - schemas/dtds, examples
|-- lib - core bootstrap jars
| lib/endorsed - added to the server JVM java.endorsed.dirs path
`-- server - server configuration/profile directories. See Section 3.2
for details of the server profiles included in this
release.

5
Chapter 2. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 architecture

-seam - the path to JBoss SEAM application framework

-resteasy - a Technology Preview of RESTEasy - a portable implementation of

JSR-311 JAX-RS Specification
|-- embedded-lib
|-- lib
|-- resteasy-jaxrs.war

2.1. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Bootstrap

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 bootstrap is similar to the JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform 4.x versions in that the org.jboss.Main entry point loads an org.jboss.system.server.Server
implementation. In JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.x this was a JMX based microkernel. In
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 this is a JBoss Microcontainer.

The default JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 org.jboss.system.server.Server

implementation is org.jboss.bootstrap.microcontainer.ServerImpl. This
implementation is an extension of the kernel basic bootstrap that boots the MC from the bootstrap
beans declared in {jboss.server.config.url}/bootstrap.xml descriptors using a
BasicXMLDeployer. In addition, the ServerImpl registers install callbacks for any beans
that implement the org.jboss.bootstrap.spi.Bootstrap interface. The bootstrap/
profile*.xml configurations include a ProfileServiceBootstrap bean that implements the
Bootstrap interface.

The org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.ProfileServiceBootstrap is
an implementation of the org.jboss.bootstrap.spi.Bootstrap interface that loads the
deployments associated with the current profile. The {profile-name} is the name of the profile being
loaded and corresponds to the server -c command line argument. The default {profile-name} is
default. The deployers, deploy

2.2. Hot Deployment

Hot deployment in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 is controlled by the Profile
implementations associated with the ProfileService. The HDScanner bean deployed via the
deploy/hdscanner-jboss-beans.xml MC deployment, queries the profile service for changes in
application directory contents and redeploys updated content, undeploys removed content, and adds
new deployment content to the current profile via the ProfileService.

Disabling hot deployment is achieved by removing the hdscanner-jboss-beans.xml file from

deployment.

6
Part II. JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform 5 Configuration
Chapter 3.

Deployment
Deploying applications on JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is achieved by copy the application
into the JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy directory. You can replace default with different
server profiles such as all or minimal. We will cover those later in this chapter. The JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform constantly scans the deploy directory to pick up new applications or any changes
to existing applications. This enables the hot deployment of applications on the fly, while JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform is still running.

3.1. Deployable Application Types

With JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.x, a deployer existed to handle a specified deployment
type and that was the only deployer that would process the deployment. In JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform 5, multiple deployers transform the metadata associated with a deployment until
its processed by a deployer that creates a runtime component from the metadata. Deployment has to
contain a descriptor that causes the component metadata to be added to the deployment. The types
of deployments for which deployers exists by default in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
include:

• The WAR application archive (e.g., myapp.war) packages a Java EE web application in a JAR file.
It contains servlet classes, view pages, libraries, and deployment descriptors in WEB-INF such as
web.xml, faces-config.xml, and jboss-web.xml etc..

• The EAR application archive (e.g., myapp.ear) packages a Java EE enterprise application in a JAR
file. It typically contains a WAR file for the web module, JAR files for EJB modules, as well as META-
INF deployment descriptors such as application.xml and jboss-app.xml etc.

• The JBoss Microcontainer (MC) beans archive (typical suffixes include, .beans, .deployer) packages
a POJO deployment in a JAR file with a META-INF/jboss-beans.xml descriptor. This format is
commonly used by the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform component deployers.

• The SAR application archive (e.g., myservice.sar) packages a JBoss service in a JAR file. It is
mostly used by JBoss Enterprise Application Platform internal services that have not been updated
to support MC beans style deployments.

• The *-ds.xml file defines connections to external databases. The data source can then be reused
by all applications and services in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform via the internal JNDI.

• You can deploy *-jboss-beans.xml files with MC beans definitions. If you have the approriate
JAR files available in the deploy or lib directories, the MC beans can be deployed using such a
standalone XML file.

• You can deploy *-service.xml files with MBean service definitions. If you have the appropriate
JAR files available in the deploy or lib directories, the MBeans specified in the XML files will be
started. This is the way you deploy many JBoss Enterprise Application Platform internal services
that have not been updated to support POJO style deployment, such as the JMS queues.

• You can also deploy JAR files containing EJBs or other service objects directly in JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform. The list of suffixes that are recognized as JAR files is specified in the conf/
bootstrap/deployers.xml JARStructure bean constructor set.

9
Chapter 3. Deployment

Exploded Deployment
The WAR, EAR, MC beans and SAR deployment packages are really just JAR files
with special XML deployment descriptors in directories like META-INF and WEB-INF.
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform allows you to deploy those archives as expanded
directories instead of JAR files. That allows you to make changes to web pages etc on the
fly without re-deploying the entire application. If you do need to re-deploy the exploded
directory without re-start the server, you can just touch the deployment descriptors (e.g.,
the WEB-INF/web.xml in a WAR and the META-INF/application.xml in an EAR) to
update their timestamps.

3.2. Standard Server Profiles

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform ships with six server profiles. You can choose which
configuration to start by passing the -c parameter to the server startup script. For instance, the
run.sh -c all command would start the server in the all profile. Each profile is contained in a
directory named JBOSS_HOME/server/[profile name]/. You can look into each server profile's
directory to see the services, applications, and libraries included in the profile.

Note
The exact contents of the server/[profile name] directory depends on the profile
service implementation and is subject to change as the management layer and embedded
server evolve.

• The minimal profile starts the core server container without any of the enterprise services. It is
a good starting point if you want to build a customized version of JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform that only contains the services you need.

• The default profile is the mostly common used profile for application developers. It supports the
standard Java EE 5.0 programming APIs (e.g., Annotations, JPA, and EJB3).

• The standard profile is the profile that has been tested for JavaEE compliance. The major
differences with the existing configurations is that call-by-value and deployment isolation are
enabled by default, along with support for rmiiiop and juddi (taken from the all config).

• The all profile is the default profile with clustering support and other enterprise extensions.

• The production profile is based on the all profile but optimized for production environments.

• The web profile is a new experimental lightweight configuration created around JBoss Web that
will follow the developments of the JavaEE 6 web profile. Except for the servlet/jsp container
it provides support for JTA/JCA and JPA. It also limits itself to allowing access to the server only
through the http port. Please note that this configuration is not JavaEE certified and will most likely
change in the following releases.

The detailed services and APIs supported in each of those profiles will be discussed throughout.

10
Chapter 4.

Microcontainer
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0 uses the Microcontainer to integrate enterprise services
together with a Servlet/JSP container, EJB container, deployers and management utilities in order to
provide a standard Java EE environment. If you need additional services then you can simply deploy
these on top of Java EE to provide the functionality you need. Likewise any services that you do not
need can be removed by changing the configuration. You can even use the Microcontainer to do this in
other environments such as Tomcat and GlassFish by plugging in different classloading models during
the service deployment phase.

Since JBoss Microcontainer is very lightweight and deals with POJOs, it can also be used to deploy
services into a Java ME runtime environment. This opens up new possibilities for mobile applications
that can now take advantage of enterprise services without requiring a full JEE application server. As
with other lightweight containers, JBoss Microcontainer uses dependency injection to wire individual
POJOs together to create services. Configuration is performed using either annotations or XML
depending on where the information is best located. Unit testing is made extremely simple thanks to
a helper class that extends JUnit to setup the test environment, allowing you to access POJOs and
services from your test methods using just a few lines of code.

4.1. An overview of the Microcontainer modules

This section introduces the various Microcontainer modules. The figure below gives an overview of the
modules.

11
Chapter 4. Microcontainer

• Tools represents a variety of tools to assist users with use and development with JBoss
Microcontainer.

• Integr. represents the aop-mc-int module, which handles integration between the JBoss AOP
and JBoss Microcontainer.

• OSGi represents several integration classes that adapt the OSGi module for the Microcontainer.

• Reliance represents two modules: Drools-int and jBPM-int. These modules define Drools
dependencies.

• Deployers load components from from various modules (such as POJOs, JMX, Spring, Java EE)
into the Microcontainer at runtime.

• CL represents the Classloader, a new peer classloader module that handles the OSGi bundle
module.

• VFS represents the Virtual File System. This is an abstract layer used to identify known file system
issues within a single module.

• Kernel defines the core kernel SPI, including bootstrap, configuration, POJO deployments,
dependency, events, bean metadata and bean registry. It contains the following modules:

• Dependency

• Kernel

• AOP-MC-int

• Spring-int

• Guice-int

• Managed represents two modules: managed and metatype. These modules define the base
objects that define the management view of a component.

• MDR is the generic Metadata Repository. It handles scoped metadata lookups.

• Reflect is the integration point for manipulating class information at runtime.

4.2. Configuration
To configure the Microcontainer bootstrap you can use the JBOSS_HOME/server/
<server_configuration>/conf/bootstrap.xml and JBOSS_HOME/server/
<server_configuration>/conf/bootstrap/*.xml files where <server_configuration>
represents the name of the server profile, for example, all, default, standard, web or minimal. The
bootstrap.xml simply references Microcontainer deployment descriptors that should be loaded in
the indicated order. The current default profile bootstrap.xml references are:

• logging.xml - logging manager and bridge config

• vfs.xml - JBoss VFS caching beans

• classloader.xml - the root class loading beans for the peer class loading model

• aop.xml - JBoss AOP integration and AspectManager beans

12
Configuration

• jmx.xml - JBoss JMX kernel initialization

• deployers.xml - Core deployers for -jboss-beans.xml and -service.xml

• profile.xml - full featured repository based profile service referenced by bootstrap.xml

The main beans are:

• ProfileService : This bean loads the deployments associated with the named server profile, default,
all or the name that is passed to the server using the -c option. It's an extension of always looking
to the filesystem server/name/conf/jboss-service.xml, server/name/deployers and
server/name/deploy to load deployments.

• AspectManager : the AOP aspects

• MainDeployer : An update of the JMX based MainDeployer from earlier versions to one based
on the Microcontainer and the Virtual File System. Deployer aspects are registered with the
MainDeployer as an ordered list via inject of the deployers property.

• ServiceClassLoaderDeployer : Manages the class loading aspect of deployment.

• JARDeployer : This bean is a structural deployment aspect which handles the legacy nested
deployment behavior of adding non-deployable jars to the current deployment classpath.

• FileStructure : this bean is a structural deployment aspect which recognizes well know deployment
file types specified by FileManager and suffix.

• AspectDeployer : handles AOP descriptor deployments.

• BeanDeployer : this bean translates *-jboss-beans.xml into KernelDeployment for the

descriptor beans.

• KernelDeploymentDeployer : Translates a KernelDeployment into the constituent

BeanMetaData instances for the kernel beans.

• BeanMetaDataDeployer : Creates the kernel beans from the deployment BeanMetaData.

• SARDeployer : this bean is a port of the legacy JMX SARDeployer. It handles the legacy *-
service.xml style of mbean deployment descriptors and maps this into a ServiceDeployment
POJO.

• ServiceDeploymentDeployer : Translates the ServiceDeployment POJO into the constituent

ServiceMetaData that represent the various mbeans.

• ServiceDeployer : creates the mbean services from deployment ServiceMetaData instances.

• JMXKernel : Manages the instantiation of a JMX kernel and MBeanServer in the jboss domain. It is
used by the SARDeployer. It will be used by other management deployment aspects in the future
to expose kernel beans via JMX.

• HDScanner : A bean that queries the profile service for changes in deploy directory contents and
redeploys updated content, undeploys removed content, and add new deployment content to the
profile service.

13
Chapter 4. Microcontainer

4.3. References
More information on the JBoss Microcontainer project can be obtained from http://www.jboss.org/
1
jbossmc/" .

1
http://www.jboss.org/jbossmc/

14
Chapter 5.

Web Services
Web services are a key contributing factor in the way Web commerce is conducted today. Web
services enable applications to communicate by sending small and large chunks of data to each other.

A web service is essentially a software application that supports interaction of applications over a
computer network or the world wide web. Web services usually interact through XML documents
that map to an object, computer program, business process or database. To communicate, an
application sends a message in XML document format to a web service which sends this message
to the respective programs. Responses may be received based on requirements, the web service
receives and then sends them in XML document format to the required program or applications. Web
services can be used in many ways, examples include supply chain information management and
business integration.

JBossWS is a web service framework included as part of the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.
It implements the JAX-WS specification that defines a programming model and run-time architecture
for implementing web services in Java, targeted at the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE 5).
Even though JAX-RPC is still supported (the web service specification for J2EE 1.4), JBossWS does
put a clear focus on JAX-WS.

5.1. The need for web services

Enterprise systems communication may benefit from a wise adoption of web service technologies.
Focusing attention on well designed contracts allows developers to establish an abstract view of
their service capabilities. Considering the standardized way contracts are written, this definitely helps
communication with third-party systems and eventually supports business-to-business integration;
everything is clear and standardized in the contract the provider and consumer agree on. This also
reduces the dependencies between implementations allowing other consumers to easily use the
provided service without major changes.

Other benefits exist for enterprise systems that incorporate web service technologies for internal
heterogenous subsystems communication as web service interoperability boosts service reuse and
composition. Web services eliminates the need to rewrite whole functionalities because they were
developed by another enterprise department using a different software language.

5.2. What web services are not

Web services are not the solution for every software system communication.

Nowadays they are meant to be used for loosely-coupled coarse-grained communication, message
(document) exchange. Recent times has seen many specifications (WS-*) discussed and finally
approved to establish standardized ws-related advanced aspects, including reliable messaging,
message-level security and cross-service transactions. Web service specifications also include the
notion of registries to collect service contract references, to easily discover service implementations.

This all means that the web services technology platform suits complex enterprise communication and
is not simply the latest way of doing remote procedure calls.

5.3. Document/Literal
With document style web services two business partners agree on the exchange of complex
business documents that are well defined in XML schema. For example, one party sends a document

15
Chapter 5. Web Services

describing a purchase order, the other responds (immediately or later) with a document that describes
the status of the purchase order. The payload of the SOAP message is an XML document that can be
validated against XML schema. The document is defined by the style attribute on the SOAP binding.

<binding name='EndpointInterfaceBinding' type='tns:EndpointInterface'>

<soap:binding style='document' transport='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/
soap/http'/>
<operation name='concat'>
<soap:operation soapAction=''/>
<input>
<soap:body use='literal'/>
</input>
<output>
<soap:body use='literal'/>
</output>
</operation>
</binding>

With document style web services the payload of every message is defined by a complex type in XML
schema.

Therefore, message parts must refer to an element from the schema.

The following message definition is invalid.

5.4. Document/Literal (Bare)

Bare is an implementation detail from the Java domain. Neither in the abstract contract (for instance,
wsdl+schema) nor at the SOAP message level is a bare endpoint recognizable. A bare endpoint or
client uses a Java bean that represents the entire document payload.

@WebService
@SOAPBinding(parameterStyle = SOAPBinding.ParameterStyle.BARE)
public class DocBareServiceImpl

16
Document/Literal (Wrapped)

{
@WebMethod
public SubmitBareResponse submitPO(SubmitBareRequest poRequest)
{
...
}
}

The trick is that the Java beans representing the payload contain JAXB annotations that define how
the payload is represented on the wire.

@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(name = "SubmitBareRequest", namespace="http://
soapbinding.samples.jaxws.ws.test.jboss.org/", propOrder = { "product" })
@XmlRootElement(namespace="http://
soapbinding.samples.jaxws.ws.test.jboss.org/", name = "SubmitPO")
public class SubmitBareRequest
{
@XmlElement(namespace="http://
soapbinding.samples.jaxws.ws.test.jboss.org/", required = true)
private String product;

...
}

5.5. Document/Literal (Wrapped)

Wrapped is an implementation detail from the Java domain. Neither in the abstract contract (for
instance, wsdl+schema) nor at the SOAP message level is a wrapped endpoint recognizable. A
wrapped endpoint or client uses the individual document payload properties. Wrapped is the default
and does not have to be declared explicitly.

@WebService
public class DocWrappedServiceImpl
{
@WebMethod
@RequestWrapper (className="org.somepackage.SubmitPO")
@ResponseWrapper (className="org.somepackage.SubmitPOResponse")
public String submitPO(String product, int quantity)
{
...
}
}

Note
With JBossWS the request and response wrapper annotations are not required, they will
be generated on demand using sensible defaults.

17
Chapter 5. Web Services

5.6. RPC/Literal
With RPC there is a wrapper element that names the endpoint operation. Child elements of the RPC
parent are the individual parameters. The SOAP body is constructed based on some simple rules:
• The port type operation name defines the endpoint method name

• Message parts are endpoint method parameters

RPC is defined by the style attribute on the SOAP binding.

<binding name='EndpointInterfaceBinding' type='tns:EndpointInterface'>

<soap:binding style='rpc' transport='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/
http'/>
<operation name='echo'>
<soap:operation soapAction=''/>
<input>
<soap:body namespace='http://org.jboss.ws/samples/jsr181pojo'
use='literal'/>
</input>
<output>
<soap:body namespace='http://org.jboss.ws/samples/jsr181pojo'
use='literal'/>
</output>
</operation>
</binding>

With RPC style web services the portType names the operation (i.e. the java method on the endpoint)

Operation parameters are defined by individual message parts.

18
RPC/Encoded

Note
There is no complex type in XML schema that could validate the entire SOAP message
payload.

@WebService
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.RPC)
public class JSEBean01
{
@WebMethod
@WebResult(name="result")
public String echo(@WebParam(name="String_1") String input)
{
...
}
}

The element names of RPC parameters/return values may be defined using the JAX-WS
Annotations#javax.jws.WebParam and JAX-WS Annotations#javax.jws.WebResult respectively.

5.7. RPC/Encoded
1 2
SOAP encodeding style is defined by the infamous chapter 5 of the SOAP-1.1 specification. It has
3
inherent interoperability issues that cannot be fixed. The Basic Profile-1.0 prohibits this encoding
4
style in 4.1.7 SOAP encodingStyle Attribute . JBossWS has basic support for RPC/Encoded that is
provided as is for simple interop scenarios with SOAP stacks that do not support literal encoding.
Specifically, JBossWS does not support:-
• element references

• soap arrays as bean properties

5.8. Web Service Endpoints

JAX-WS simplifies the development model for a web service endpoint a great deal. In short, an
endpoint implementation bean is annotated with JAX-WS annotations and deployed to the server. The
server automatically generates and publishes the abstract contract (for instance, wsdl+schema) for
client consumption. All marshalling/unmarshalling is delegated to JAXB.

5.9. Plain old Java Object (POJO)

Let us take a look at simple POJO endpoint implementation. All endpoint associated metadata are
provided via JSR-181 annotations

@WebService

1
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508/#_Toc478383512
2
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508/
3
http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/BasicProfile-1.0-2004-04-16.html
4
http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/BasicProfile-1.0-2004-04-16.html#refinement16448072

19
Chapter 5. Web Services

@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.RPC)
public class JSEBean01
{
@WebMethod
public String echo(String input)
{
...
}
}

5.10. The endpoint as a web application

A JAX-WS java service endpoint (JSE) is deployed as a web application.

<web-app ...>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>TestService</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jboss.test.ws.jaxws.samples.jsr181pojo.JSEBean01</
servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>TestService</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

5.11. Packaging the endpoint

A JSR-181 java service endpoint (JSE) is packaged as a web application in a *.war file.

Note
Only the endpoint implementation bean and web.xml file are required.

5.12. Accessing the generated WSDL

A successfully deployed service endpoint will show up in the service endpoint manager. This is also
where you find the links to the generated WSDL.

20
EJB3 Stateless Session Bean (SLSB)

http://yourhost:8080/jbossws/services

It is also possible to generate the abstract contract off line using jboss tools. For details of that see
5
#Top Down (Using wsconsume)

5.13. EJB3 Stateless Session Bean (SLSB)

The JAX-WS programming model support the same set of annotations on EJB3 stateless session
6
beans as on # Plain old Java Object (POJO) endpoints. EJB-2.1 endpoints are supported using the
JAX-RPC progamming model.

@Stateless
@Remote(EJB3RemoteInterface.class)
@RemoteBinding(jndiBinding = "/ejb3/EJB3EndpointInterface")

@WebService
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.RPC)
public class EJB3Bean01 implements EJB3RemoteInterface
{
@WebMethod
public String echo(String input)
{
...
}
}

Above you see an EJB-3.0 stateless session bean that exposes one method both on the remote
interface and as an endpoint operation.

Packaging the endpoint

A JSR-181 EJB service endpoint is packaged as an ordinary ejb deployment.

Accessing the generated WSDL

A successfully deployed service endpoint will show up in the service endpoint manager. This is also
where you will find the links to the generated WSDL.
5
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSTools#TopDown_Using_wsconsume
6
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-UserGuide#Plain_old_Java_Object_POJO

21
Chapter 5. Web Services

http://yourhost:8080/jbossws/services

It is also possible to generate the abstract contract offline using JbossWS tools. For details of that
7
please see #Top Down (Using wsconsume)

5.14. Endpoint Provider

JAX-WS services typically implement a native Java service endpoint interface (SEI), perhaps mapped
from a WSDL port type, either directly or via the use of annotations.

Java SEIs provide a high level Java-centric abstraction that hides the details of converting between
Java objects and their XML representations for use in XML-based messages. However, in some
cases it is desirable for services to be able to operate at the XML message level. The Provider
interface offers an alternative to SEIs and may be implemented by services wishing to work at the
XML message level.

A Provider based service instance’s invoke method is called for each message received for the
service.

@WebServiceProvider
@ServiceMode(value = Service.Mode.PAYLOAD)
public class ProviderBeanPayload implements Provider<Source>
{
public Source invoke(Source req)
{
// Access the entire request PAYLOAD and return the response PAYLOAD
}
}

Service.Mode.PAYLOAD is the default and does not have to be declared explicitly. You can also use
Service.Mode.MESSAGE to access the entire SOAP message (for example, with MESSAGE the
Provider can also see SOAP Headers)

5.15. WebServiceContext
The WebServiceContext is treated as an injectable resource that can be set at the time an endpoint
is initialized. The WebServiceContext object will then use thread-local information to return the
correct information regardless of how many threads are concurrently being used to serve requests
addressed to the same endpoint object.

@WebService
public class EndpointJSE
{
@Resource
WebServiceContext wsCtx;

7
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSTools#TopDown_Using_wsconsume

22
Web Service Clients

@WebMethod
public String testGetMessageContext()
{
SOAPMessageContext jaxwsContext =
(SOAPMessageContext)wsCtx.getMessageContext();
return jaxwsContext != null ? "pass" : "fail";
}
...
@WebMethod
public String testGetUserPrincipal()
{
Principal principal = wsCtx.getUserPrincipal();
return principal.getName();
}

@WebMethod
public boolean testIsUserInRole(String role)
{
return wsCtx.isUserInRole(role);
}
}

5.16. Web Service Clients

5.16.1. Service
Service is an abstraction that represents a WSDL service. A WSDL service is a collection of related
ports, each of which consists of a port type bound to a particular protocol and available at a particular
endpoint address.

For most clients, you will start with a set of stubs generated from the WSDL. One of these will be the
service, and you will create objects of that class in order to work with the service (see "static case"
below).

5.16.1.1. Service Usage

Static case
Most clients will start with a WSDL file, and generate some stubs using jbossws tools like
wsconsume. This usually gives a mass of files, one of which is the top of the tree. This is the service
implementation class.

The generated implementation class can be recognised as it will have two public constructors, one
with no arguments and one with two arguments, representing the wsdl location (a java.net.URL) and
the service name (a javax.xml.namespace.QName) respectively.

Usually you will use the no-argument constructor. In this case the WSDL location and service name
are those found in the WSDL. These are set implicitly from the WebServiceClient annotation that
decorates the generated class.

The following code snippet shows the generated constructors from the generated class:

23
Chapter 5. Web Services

// Generated Service Class

@WebServiceClient(name="StockQuoteService", targetNamespace="http://
example.com/stocks", wsdlLocation="http://example.com/stocks.wsdl")
public class StockQuoteService extends javax.xml.ws.Service
{

public StockQuoteService()
{
super(new URL("http://example.com/stocks.wsdl"), new QName("http://
example.com/stocks", "StockQuoteService"));
}

public StockQuoteService(String wsdlLocation, QName serviceName)

{
super(wsdlLocation, serviceName);
}

...
}

8
Section #Dynamic Proxy explains how to obtain a port from the service and how to invoke
an operation on the port. If you need to work with the XML payload directly or with the XML
9
representation of the entire SOAP message, have a look at #Dispatch .

Dynamic case
In the dynamic case, when nothing is generated, a web service client uses Service.create to
create Service instances, the following code illustrates this process.

URL wsdlLocation = new URL("http://example.org/my.wsdl");

QName serviceName = new QName("http://example.org/sample", "MyService");
Service service = Service.create(wsdlLocation, serviceName);

This is not the recommended way to use JBossWS.

5.16.1.2. Handler Resolver

JAX-WS provides a flexible plug-in framework for message processing modules, known as
handlers, that may be used to extend the capabilities of a JAX-WS runtime system. Handler
10
Framework describes the handler framework in detail. A Service instance provides access to a
HandlerResolver via a pair of getHandlerResolver and setHandlerResolver methods that
may be used to configure a set of handlers on a per-service, per-port or per-protocol binding basis.

When a Service instance is used to create a proxy or a Dispatch instance then the handler
resolver currently registered with the service is used to create the required handler chain. Subsequent
8
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-UserGuide#Dynamic_Proxy
9
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-UserGuide#Dispatch
10
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-UserGuide#Handler_Framework

24
Dynamic Proxy

changes to the handler resolver configured for a Service instance do not affect the handlers on
previously created proxies, or Dispatch instances.

5.16.1.3. Executor
Service instances can be configured with a java.util.concurrent.Executor. The
executor will then be used to invoke any asynchronous callbacks requested by the application. The
setExecutor and getExecutor methods of Service can be used to modify and retrieve the
executor configured for a service.

5.16.2. Dynamic Proxy

11
You can create an instance of a client proxy using one of getPort methods on the Service .

/**
* The getPort method returns a proxy. A service client
* uses this proxy to invoke operations on the target
* service endpoint. The <code>serviceEndpointInterface</code>
* specifies the service endpoint interface that is supported by
* the created dynamic proxy instance.
*/
public <T> T getPort(QName portName, Class<T> serviceEndpointInterface)
{
...
}

/**
* The getPort method returns a proxy. The parameter
* <code>serviceEndpointInterface</code> specifies the service
* endpoint interface that is supported by the returned proxy.
* In the implementation of this method, the JAX-WS
* runtime system takes the responsibility of selecting a protocol
* binding (and a port) and configuring the proxy accordingly.
* The returned proxy should not be reconfigured by the client.
*
*/
public <T> T getPort(Class<T> serviceEndpointInterface)
{
...
}

The Service Endpoint Interface (SEI) is usually generated using tools. For details see Top Down
12
(Using wsconsume) .
13
A generated static Service usually also offers typed methods to get ports. These methods also
return dynamic proxies that implement the SEI.

11
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12
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSTools#TopDown_Using_wsconsume
13
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Chapter 5. Web Services

@WebServiceClient(name = "TestEndpointService", targetNamespace = "http://

org.jboss.ws/wsref",
wsdlLocation = "http://localhost.localdomain:8080/jaxws-samples-
webserviceref?wsdl")
public class TestEndpointService extends Service
{
...

public TestEndpointService(URL wsdlLocation, QName serviceName) {

super(wsdlLocation, serviceName);
}

@WebEndpoint(name = "TestEndpointPort")
public TestEndpoint getTestEndpointPort()
{
return (TestEndpoint)super.getPort(TESTENDPOINTPORT,
TestEndpoint.class);
}
}

5.16.3. WebServiceRef
The WebServiceRef annotation is used to declare a reference to a Web service. It follows the
resource pattern exemplified by the javax.annotation.Resource annotation in JSR-250 [5]

There are two uses to the WebServiceRef annotation:

1. To define a reference whose type is a generated service class. In this case, the type and value
element will both refer to the generated service class type. Moreover, if the reference type can be
inferred by the field or method declaration then the annotation is applied to the type, and value
elements may have the default value (Object.class, that is). If the type cannot be inferred, then
at least the type element must be present with a non-default value.

2. To define a reference whose type is a SEI. In this case, the type element may be present with
its default value if the type of the reference can be inferred from the annotated field and method
declaration, but the value element must always be present and refer to a generated service class
type (a subtype of javax.xml.ws.Service). The wsdlLocation element, if present, overrides
theWSDL location information specified in the WebService annotation of the referenced
generated service class.

public class EJB3Client implements EJB3Remote

{
@WebServiceRef
public TestEndpointService service4;

@WebServiceRef
public TestEndpoint port3;
}

26
WebServiceRef

WebServiceRef Customization
In JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0 we offer a number of overrides and extensions to the
WebServiceRef annotation. These include:

• define the port that should be used to resolve a container-managed port

• define default Stub property settings for Stub objects

• define the URL of a final WSDL document to be used

Example:

<service-ref>
<service-ref-name>OrganizationService</service-ref-name>
<wsdl-override>file:/wsdlRepository/organization-service.wsdl</wsdl-
override>
</service-ref>
..
<service-ref>
<service-ref-name>OrganizationService</service-ref-name>
<config-name>Secure Client Config</config-name>
<config-file>META-INF/jbossws-client-config.xml</config-file>
<handler-chain>META-INF/jbossws-client-handlers.xml</handler-chain>
</service-ref>

<service-ref>
<service-ref-name>SecureService</service-ref-name>
<service-class-
name>org.jboss.tests.ws.jaxws.webserviceref.SecureEndpointService</service-
class-name>
<service-qname>{http://org.jboss.ws/wsref}SecureEndpointService</
service-qname>
<port-info>
<service-endpoint-
interface>org.jboss.tests.ws.jaxws.webserviceref.SecureEndpoint</service-
endpoint-interface>
<port-qname>{http://org.jboss.ws/wsref}SecureEndpointPort</port-
qname>
<stub-property>
<name>javax.xml.ws.security.auth.username</name>
<value>kermit</value>
</stub-property>
<stub-property>
<name>javax.xml.ws.security.auth.password</name>
<value>thefrog</value>
</stub-property>
</port-info>
</service-ref>

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Chapter 5. Web Services

5.16.4. Dispatch
XML Web Services use XML messages for communication between services and service clients.
The higher level JAX-WS APIs are designed to hide the details of converting between Java method
invocations and the corresponding XML messages, but in some cases operating at the XML message
level is desirable. The Dispatch interface provides support for this mode of interaction.

Dispatch supports two usage modes, identified by the constants

javax.xml.ws.Service.Mode.MESSAGE and javax.xml.ws.Service.Mode.PAYLOAD respectively:

Message
In this mode, client applications work directly with protocol-specific message structures. For example,
when used with a SOAP protocol binding, a client application would work directly with a SOAP
message.

Message Payload
In this mode, client applications work with the payload of messages rather than the messages
themselves. For example, when used with a SOAP protocol binding, a client application would work
with the contents of the SOAP Body rather than the SOAP message as a whole.

Dispatch is a low level API that requires clients to construct messages or message payloads as
XML and requires an intimate knowledge of the desired message or payload structure. Dispatch is a
generic class that supports input and output of messages or message payloads of any type.

Service service = Service.create(wsdlURL, serviceName);

Dispatch dispatch = service.createDispatch(portName, StreamSource.class,
Mode.PAYLOAD);

String payload = "<ns1:ping xmlns:ns1='http://

oneway.samples.jaxws.ws.test.jboss.org/'/>";
dispatch.invokeOneWay(new StreamSource(new StringReader(payload)));

payload = "<ns1:feedback xmlns:ns1='http://

oneway.samples.jaxws.ws.test.jboss.org/'/>";
Source retObj = (Source)dispatch.invoke(new StreamSource(new
StringReader(payload)));

5.16.5. Asynchronous Invocations

The BindingProvider interface represents a component that provides a protocol binding for use by
clients, it is implemented by proxies and is extended by the Dispatch interface.

BindingProvider instances may provide asynchronous operation capabilities. When used,

asynchronous operation invocations are decoupled from the BindingProvider instance at
invocation time such that the response context is not updated when the operation completes. Instead
a separate response context is made available using the Response interface.

28
Oneway Invocations

public void testInvokeAsync() throws Exception

{
URL wsdlURL = new URL("http://" + getServerHost() + ":8080/jaxws-
samples-asynchronous?wsdl");
QName serviceName = new QName(targetNS, "TestEndpointService");
Service service = Service.create(wsdlURL, serviceName);
TestEndpoint port = service.getPort(TestEndpoint.class);

Response response = port.echoAsync("Async");

// access future
String retStr = (String) response.get();
assertEquals("Async", retStr);
}

5.16.6. Oneway Invocations

@Oneway indicates that the given web method has only an input message and no output. Typically,
a one-way method returns the thread of control to the calling application prior to executing the actual
business method.

@WebService (name="PingEndpoint")
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.RPC)
public class PingEndpointImpl
{
private static String feedback;
...
@WebMethod
@Oneway
public void ping()
{
log.info("ping");
feedback = "ok";
}
...
@WebMethod
public String feedback()
{
log.info("feedback");
return feedback;
}
}

5.17. Common API

14
This sections describes concepts that apply equally to #Web Service Endpoints and #Web Service
15
Clients

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Chapter 5. Web Services

5.17.1. Handler Framework

The handler framework is implemented by a JAX-WS protocol binding in both client and server side
runtimes. Proxies, and Dispatch instances, known collectively as binding providers, each use protocol
bindings to bind their abstract functionality to specific protocols.

Client and server-side handlers are organized into an ordered list known as a handler chain. The
handlers within a handler chain are invoked each time a message is sent or received. Inbound
messages are processed by handlers prior to binding provider processing. Outbound messages are
processed by handlers after any binding provider processing.

Handlers are invoked with a message context that provides methods to access and modify inbound
and outbound messages and to manage a set of properties. Message context properties may be used
to facilitate communication between individual handlers and between handlers and client and service
implementations. Different types of handlers are invoked with different types of message context.

5.17.1.1. Logical Handler

Handlers that only operate on message context properties and message payloads. Logical handlers
are protocol agnostic and are unable to affect protocol specific parts of a message. Logical handlers
are handlers that implement javax.xml.ws.handler.LogicalHandler.

5.17.1.2. Protocol Handler

Handlers that operate on message context properties and protocol specific messages. Protocol
handlers are specific to a particular protocol and may access and change protocol specific
aspects of a message. Protocol handlers are handlers that implement any interface derived from
javax.xml.ws.handler.Handler except javax.xml.ws.handler.LogicalHandler.

5.17.1.3. Service endpoint handlers

On the service endpoint, handlers are defined using the @HandlerChain annotation.

@WebService
@HandlerChain(file = "jaxws-server-source-handlers.xml")
public class SOAPEndpointSourceImpl
{
...
}

The location of the handler chain file supports 2 formats

1. An absolute java.net.URL in externalForm. (ex: http://myhandlers.foo.com/handlerfile1.xml)

2. A relative path from the source file or class file. (ex: bar/handlerfile1.xml)

5.17.1.4. Service client handlers

On the client side, handler can be configured using the @HandlerChain annotation on the SEI or
dynamically using the API.
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30
Message Context

Service service = Service.create(wsdlURL, serviceName);

Endpoint port = (Endpoint)service.getPort(Endpoint.class);

BindingProvider bindingProvider = (BindingProvider)port;

List<Handler> handlerChain = new ArrayList<Handler>();
handlerChain.add(new LogHandler());
handlerChain.add(new AuthorizationHandler());
handlerChain.add(new RoutingHandler());
bindingProvider.getBinding().setHandlerChain(handlerChain); // important!

5.17.2. Message Context

MessageContext is the super interface for all JAX-WS message contexts. It extends
Map<String,Object> with additional methods and constants to manage a set of properties that enable
handlers in a handler chain to share processing related state. For example, a handler may use the
put method to insert a property in the message context that one or more other handlers in the handler
chain may subsequently obtain via the get method.

Properties are scoped as either APPLICATION or HANDLER. All properties are available to all
handlers associated with particular endpoint. E.g., if a logical handler puts a property in the message
context, that property will also be available to any protocol handlers in the chain during the execution.
APPLICATION scoped properties are also made available to client applications and service endpoint
implementations. The default scope for a property is HANDLER.

5.17.2.1. Accessing the message context

Users can access the message context in handlers or in endpoints via @WebServiceContext
annotation.

5.17.2.2. Logical Message Context

LogicalMessageContext is passed to Logical Handlers at invocation time.
LogicalMessageContext extends MessageContext with methods to obtain and modify the message
payload, it does not provide access to the protocol specific aspects of a message. A protocol binding
defines what component of a message are available via a logical message context. The SOAP binding
defines that a logical handler deployed in a SOAP binding can access the contents of the SOAP body
but not the SOAP headers whereas the XML/HTTP binding defines that a logical handler can access
the entire XML payload of a message.

5.17.2.3. SOAP Message Context

SOAPMessageContext is passed to SOAP handlers at invocation time. SOAPMessageContext
extends MessageContext with methods to obtain and modify the SOAP message payload.

5.17.3. Fault Handling

An implementation may throw a SOAPFaultException

public void throwSoapFaultException()

{

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Chapter 5. Web Services

SOAPFactory factory = SOAPFactory.newInstance();

SOAPFault fault = factory.createFault("this is a fault string!", new
QName("http://foo", "FooCode"));
fault.setFaultActor("mr.actor");
fault.addDetail().addChildElement("test");
throw new SOAPFaultException(fault);
}

or an application specific user exception

public void throwApplicationException() throws UserException

{
throw new UserException("validation", 123, "Some validation error");
}

Note
In case of the latter JBossWS generates the required fault wrapper beans at runtime if
they are not part of the deployment

5.18. DataBinding

5.18.1. Using JAXB with non annotated classes

JAXB is heavily driven by Java Annotations on the Java Bindings. It currently doesn't support an
external binding configuration.

In order to support this, we built on a JAXB RI feature whereby it allows you to specify a
RuntimeInlineAnnotationReader implementation during JAXBContext creation (see JAXBRIContext).

We call this feature "JAXB Annotation Introduction" and we've made it available for general
consumption i.e. it can be checked out, built and used from SVN:

• http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/jbossws/projects/jaxbintros/

Complete documentation can be found here:

16
• JAXB Introductions

5.19. Attachments
JBoss-WS4EE relied on a deprecated attachments technology called SwA (SOAP with Attachments).
SwA required soap/encoding which is disallowed by the WS-I Basic Profile. JBossWS provides
support for WS-I AP 1.0, and MTOM instead.

5.19.1. MTOM/XOP
This section describes Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) and XML-binary
Optimized Packaging (XOP), a means of more efficiently serializing XML Infosets that have certain
types of content. The related specifications are

32
MTOM/XOP

17
• SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM)
18
• XML-binary Optimized Packaging (XOP)

5.19.1.1. Supported MTOM parameter types

image/jpeg java.awt.Image
text/xml javax.xml.transform.Source
application/xml javax.xml.transform.Source
application/octet-stream javax.activation.DataHandler

The above table shows a list of supported endpoint parameter types. The recommended approach
19
is to use the javax.activation.DataHandler classes to represent binary data as service endpoint
parameters.

Note
Microsoft endpoints tend to send any data as application/octet-stream. The only Java type
that can easily cope with this ambiguity is javax.activation.DataHandler

5.19.1.2. Enabling MTOM per endpoint

On the server side MTOM processing is enabled through the @BindingType annotation. JBossWS
does handle SOAP1.1 and SOAP1.2. Both come with or without MTOM flavours:

MTOM enabled service implementations

package org.jboss.test.ws.jaxws.samples.xop.doclit;

import javax.ejb.Remote;
import javax.jws.WebService;
import javax.jws.soap.SOAPBinding;
import javax.xml.ws.BindingType;

@Remote
@WebService(targetNamespace = "http://org.jboss.ws/xop/doclit")
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.DOCUMENT, parameterStyle =
SOAPBinding.ParameterStyle.BARE)
@BindingType(value="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/http?mtom=true")
(1)
public interface MTOMEndpoint
{
...
}

1. The MTOM enabled SOAP 1.1 binding ID

MTOM enabled clients

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Chapter 5. Web Services

Web service clients can use the same approach described above or
rely on the Binding API to enable MTOM (Excerpt taken from the
org.jboss.test.ws.jaxws.samples.xop.doclit.XOPTestCase):

...
Service service = Service.create(wsdlURL, serviceName);
port = service.getPort(MTOMEndpoint.class);

// enable MTOM
binding = (SOAPBinding)((BindingProvider)port).getBinding();
binding.setMTOMEnabled(true);

Note
You might as well use the JBossWS configuration templates to setup deployment defaults.

5.19.2. SwaRef
20
WS-I Attachment Profile 1.0 defines mechanism to reference MIME attachment parts using
21
swaRef . In this mechanism the content of XML element of type wsi:swaRef is sent as MIME
attachment and the element inside SOAP Body holds the reference to this attachment in the CID URI
22
scheme as defined by RFC 2111 .

5.19.2.1. Using SwaRef with JAX-WS endpoints

JAX-WS endpoints delegate all marshalling/unmarshalling to the JAXB API. The most simple
way to enable SwaRef encoding for DataHandler types is to annotate a payload bean with the
@XmlAttachmentRef annotation as shown below:

/**
* Payload bean that will use SwaRef encoding
*/
@XmlRootElement
public class DocumentPayload
{
private DataHandler data;

public DocumentPayload()
{
}

public DocumentPayload(DataHandler data)

{
this.data = data;

20
http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/AttachmentsProfile-1.0-2004-08-24.html
21
http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/AttachmentsProfile-1.0-2004-08-24.html#Referencing_Attachments_from_the_SOAP_Envelope
22
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34
SwaRef

@XmlElement
@XmlAttachmentRef
public DataHandler getData()
{
return data;
}

public void setData(DataHandler data)

{
this.data = data;
}
}

With document wrapped endpoints you may even specify the @XmlAttachmentRef annotation on
the service endpoint interface:

@WebService
public interface DocWrappedEndpoint
{
@WebMethod
DocumentPayload beanAnnotation(DocumentPayload dhw, String test);

@WebMethod
@XmlAttachmentRef
DataHandler parameterAnnotation(@XmlAttachmentRef DataHandler data,
String test);

The message would then refer to the attachment part by CID:

<env:Envelope xmlns:env='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>
<env:Header/>
<env:Body>
<ns2:parameterAnnotation xmlns:ns2='http://
swaref.samples.jaxws.ws.test.jboss.org/'>
<arg0>cid:[email protected]</arg0>
<arg1>Wrapped test</arg1>
</ns2:parameterAnnotation>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

5.19.2.2. Starting from WSDL

If you chose the contract first approach then you need to ensure that any element declaration that
should use SwaRef encoding simply refers to wsi:swaRef schema type:

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Chapter 5. Web Services

<element name="data" type="wsi:swaRef"

xmlns:wsi="http://ws-i.org/profiles/basic/1.1/xsd"/>

Any wsi:swaRef schema type would then be mapped to DataHandler.

5.20. Tools
The JAX-WS tools provided by JBossWS can be used in a variety of ways. First we will look at
server-side development strategies, and then proceed to the client. When developing a Web Service
Endpoint (the server-side) you have the option of starting from Java (bottom-up development), or
from the abstact contract (WSDL) that defines your service (top-down development). If this is a new
service (no existing contract), the bottom-up approach is the fastest route; you only need to add a few
annotations to your classes to get a service up and running. However, if you are developing a service
with an already defined contract, it is far simpler to use the top-down approach, since the provided tool
will generate the annotated code for you.

Bottom-up use cases:

• Exposing an already existing EJB3 bean as a Web Service

• Providing a new service, and you want the contract to be generated for you

Top-down use cases:

• Replacing the implementation of an existing Web Service without breaking compatibility with older
clients

• Exposing a service that conforms to a contract specified by a third party (e.g. a vender that calls you
back using an already defined protocol).

• Creating a service that adheres to the XML Schema and WSDL you developed by hand up front

The following JAX-WS command line tools are included in JBossWS:

Command Description
23
wsprovide Generates JAX-WS portable artifacts, and
provides the abstract contract. Used for bottom-
up development.
24
wsconsume Consumes the abstract contract (WSDL and
Schema files), and produces artifacts for both a
server and client. Used for top-down and client
development
25
wsrunclient Executes a Java client (that has a main method)
using the JBossWS classpath.

5.20.1. Bottom-Up (Using wsprovide)

The bottom-up strategy involves developing the Java code for your service, and then annotating
it using JAX-WS annotations. These annotations can be used to customize the contract that is
generated for your service. For example, you can change the operation name to map to anything you

36
Bottom-Up (Using wsprovide)

like. However, all of the annotations have sensible defaults, so only the @WebService annotation is
required.

This can be as simple as creating a single class:

package echo;

@javax.jws.WebService
public class Echo
{
public String echo(String input)
{
return input;
}
}

A JSE or EJB3 deployment can be built using this class, and it is the only Java code needed to deploy
on JBossWS. The WSDL, and all other Java artifacts called "wrapper classes" will be generated
for you at deploy time. This actually goes beyond the JAX-WS specification, which requires that
wrapper classes be generated using an offline tool. The reason for this requirement is purely a vender
implementation problem, and since we do not believe in burdening a developer with a bunch of
additional steps, we generate these as well. However, if you want your deployment to be portable
to other application servers, you will need to use a tool and add the generated classes to your
deployment.
26
This is the primary purpose of the wsprovide tool, to generate portable JAX-WS artifacts.
Additionally, it can be used to "provide" the abstract contract (WSDL file) for your service. This can be
27
obtained by invoking wsprovide using the "-w" option:

$ javac -d . -classpath jboss-jaxws.jar Echo.java

$ wsprovide -w echo.Echo
Generating WSDL:
EchoService.wsdl
Writing Classes:
echo/jaxws/Echo.class
echo/jaxws/EchoResponse.class

Inspecting the WSDL reveals a service called EchoService:

As expected, this service defines one operation, "echo":

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Note
Remember that when deploying on JBossWS you do not need to run this tool. You
only need it for generating portable artifacts and/or the abstract contract for your service.

Let us create a POJO endpoint for deployment on JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. A simple
web.xml needs to be created:

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/
xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd"
version="2.4">

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Echo</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/Echo</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

The web.xml and the single class can now be used to create a WAR:

$ mkdir -p WEB-INF/classes
$ cp -rp echo WEB-INF/classes/
$ cp web.xml WEB-INF
$ jar cvf echo.war WEB-INF
added manifest
adding: WEB-INF/(in = 0) (out= 0)(stored 0%)
adding: WEB-INF/classes/(in = 0) (out= 0)(stored 0%)
adding: WEB-INF/classes/echo/(in = 0) (out= 0)(stored 0%)
adding: WEB-INF/classes/echo/Echo.class(in = 340) (out= 247)(deflated 27%)
adding: WEB-INF/web.xml(in = 576) (out= 271)(deflated 52%)

The war can then be deployed:

38
Top-Down (Using wsconsume)

cp echo.war $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy

28
At deploy time JBossWS will internally invoke wsprovide , which will generate the WSDL. If
deployment was successful, and you are using the default settings, it should be available here: http://
localhost:8080/echo/Echo?wsdl

For a portable JAX-WS deployment, the wrapper classes generated earlier could be added to the
deployment.

5.20.2. Top-Down (Using wsconsume)

The top-down development strategy begins with the abstract contract for the service, which includes
29
the WSDL file and zero or more schema files. The wsconsume tool is then used to consume this
contract, and produce annotated Java classes (and optionally sources) that define it.

Note
wsconsume seems to have a problem with symlinks on unix systems

Using the WSDL file from the bottom-up example, a new Java implementation that adheres to this
30
service can be generated. The "-k" option is passed to wsconsume to preserve the Java source files
that are generated, instead of providing just classes:

$ wsconsume -k EchoService.wsdl
echo/Echo.java
echo/EchoResponse.java
echo/EchoService.java
echo/Echo_Type.java
echo/ObjectFactory.java
echo/package-info.java
echo/Echo.java
echo/EchoResponse.java
echo/EchoService.java
echo/Echo_Type.java
echo/ObjectFactory.java
echo/package-info.java

The following table shows the purpose of each generated file:

File Purpose
Echo.java Service Endpoint Interface
Echo_Type.java Wrapper bean for request message

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Chapter 5. Web Services

EchoResponse.java Wrapper bean for response message

ObjectFactory.java JAXB XML Registry
package-info.java Holder for JAXB package annotations
EchoService.java Used only by JAX-WS clients

Examining the Service Endpoint Interface reveals annotations that are more explicit than in the class
written by hand in the bottom-up example, however, these evaluate to the same contract:

@WebService(name = "Echo", targetNamespace = "http://echo/")

public interface Echo
{
@WebMethod
@WebResult(targetNamespace = "")
@RequestWrapper(localName = "echo", targetNamespace = "http://echo/",
className = "echo.Echo_Type")
@ResponseWrapper(localName = "echoResponse", targetNamespace = "http://
echo/", className = "echo.EchoResponse")
public String echo(@WebParam(name = "arg0", targetNamespace = "") String
arg0);
}

The only missing piece (besides the packaging) is the implementation class, which can now be written
using the above interface.

package echo;

@javax.jws.WebService(endpointInterface="echo.Echo")
public class EchoImpl implements Echo
{
public String echo(String arg0)
{
return arg0;
}
}

5.20.3. Client Side

Before going into detail on the client-side it is important to understand the decoupling concept that
is central to Web Services. Web Services are not the best fit for internal RPC, even though they can
be used in this way; there are much better technologies for achieving this (CORBA, and RMI for
example). Web Services were designed specifically for interoperable coarse-grained correspondence.
There is no expectation or guarantee that any party participating in a Web Service interaction will
be at any particular location, running on any particular operating system, or written in any particular
programming language. So because of this, it is important to clearly separate client and server
implementations. The only thing they should have in common is the abstract contract definition. If, for
whatever reason, your software does not adhere to this principal, then you should not be using Web
Services. For the above reasons, the recommended methodology for developing a client is to
follow the top-down approach , even if the client is running on the same server.

40
Client Side

Let's repeat the process of the top-down section, although using the deployed WSDL, instead of
31
the one generated offline by wsprovide . The reason why we do this is just to get the right value
for soap:address. This value must be computed at deploy time, since it is based on container
configuration specifics. You could of course edit the WSDL file yourself, although you need to ensure
that the path is correct.

Offline version:

Online version:

32
Using the online deployed version with wsconsume :

$ wsconsume -k http://localhost:8080/echo/Echo?wsdl
echo/Echo.java
echo/EchoResponse.java
echo/EchoService.java
echo/Echo_Type.java
echo/ObjectFactory.java
echo/package-info.java
echo/Echo.java
echo/EchoResponse.java
echo/EchoService.java
echo/Echo_Type.java
echo/ObjectFactory.java
echo/package-info.java

The one class that was not examined in the top-down section, was EchoService.java. Notice how
it stores the location the WSDL was obtained from.

@WebServiceClient(name = "EchoService", targetNamespace = "http://echo/",

wsdlLocation = "http://localhost:8080/echo/Echo?wsdl")

31
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-wsprovide
32
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-wsconsume

41
Chapter 5. Web Services

public class EchoService extends Service

{
private final static URL ECHOSERVICE_WSDL_LOCATION;

static
{
URL url = null;
try
{
url = new URL("http://localhost:8080/echo/Echo?wsdl");
}
catch (MalformedURLException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
ECHOSERVICE_WSDL_LOCATION = url;
}

public EchoService(URL wsdlLocation, QName serviceName)

{
super(wsdlLocation, serviceName);
}

public EchoService()
{
super(ECHOSERVICE_WSDL_LOCATION, new QName("http://echo/",
"EchoService"));
}

@WebEndpoint(name = "EchoPort")
public Echo getEchoPort()
{
return (Echo)super.getPort(new QName("http://echo/", "EchoPort"),
Echo.class);
}
}

As you can see, this generated class extends the main client entry point in JAX-WS,
javax.xml.ws.Service. While you can use Service directly, this is far simpler since it provides
the configuration info for you. The only method we really care about is the getEchoPort() method,
which returns an instance of our Service Endpoint Interface. Any Web Services operation can
then be called by just invoking a method on the returned interface.

Note
It is not recommended to refer to a remote WSDL URL in a production application. This
causes network I/O every time you instantiate the Service Object. Instead, use the tool
on a saved local copy, or use the URL version of the constructor to provide a new WSDL
location.

All that is left to do, is write and compile the client:

42
Command-line & Ant Task Reference

import echo.*;
..
public class EchoClient
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
if (args.length != 1)
{
System.err.println("usage: EchoClient <message>");
System.exit(1);
}

EchoService service = new EchoService();

Echo echo = service.getEchoPort();
System.out.println("Server said: " + echo.echo(args[0]));
}
}

33
It can then be easily executed using the wsrunclient tool. This is just a convenience tool that invokes
java with the needed classpath:

$ wsrunclient EchoClient 'Hello World!'

Server said: Hello World!

It is easy to change the endpoint address of your operation at runtime, setting

ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY as shown below:

...
EchoService service = new EchoService();
Echo echo = service.getEchoPort();

/* Set NEW Endpoint Location */

String endpointURL = "http://NEW_ENDPOINT_URL";
BindingProvider bp = (BindingProvider)echo;
bp.getRequestContext().put(BindingProvider.ENDPOINT_ADDRESS_PROPERTY,
endpointURL);

System.out.println("Server said: " + echo.echo(args[0]));

...

5.20.4. Command-line & Ant Task Reference

34
• wsconsume reference page
35
• wsprovide reference page
33
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-wsrunclient

43
Chapter 5. Web Services

36
• wsrunclient reference page

5.20.5. JAX-WS binding customization

An introduction to binding customizations:

• http://java.sun.com/webservices/docs/2.0/jaxws/customizations.html

The schema for the binding customization files can be found here:
37
• binding customization

5.21. Web Service Extensions

5.21.1. WS-Addressing
38
This section describes how WS-Addressing can be used to provide a staful service endpoint.

5.21.1.1. Specifications
WS-Addressing is defined by a combination of the following specifications from the W3C
Recommendation. The WS-Addressing API is standardized by JSR-224 - Java API for XML-Based
39
Web Services (JAX-WS)
40
• Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Core
41
• Web Services Addressing 1.0 - SOAP Binding

5.21.1.2. Addressing Endpoint

The following endpoint implementation has a set of operation for a typical stateful shopping chart
application.

@WebService(name = "StatefulEndpoint", targetNamespace = "http://

org.jboss.ws/samples/wsaddressing", serviceName = "TestService")
@Addressing(enabled=true, required=true)
@SOAPBinding(style = SOAPBinding.Style.RPC)
public class StatefulEndpointImpl implements StatefulEndpoint,
ServiceLifecycle
{
@WebMethod
public void addItem(String item)
{ ... }

@WebMethod
public void checkout()
{ ... }

@WebMethod

38
http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-addr-core
39
http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=224

44
WS-Addressing

public String getItems()

{ ... }
}

It uses the JAX-WS 2.1 defined javax.xml.ws.soap.Addressing annotation to enable the server
side addressing handler.

5.21.1.3. Addressing Client

The client code uses javax.xml.ws.soap.AddressingFeature feature from JAX-WS 2.1 API to
enable the WS-Addressing.

Service service = Service.create(wsdlURL, serviceName);

port1 = (StatefulEndpoint)service.getPort(StatefulEndpoint.class, new
AddressingFeature());

A client connecting to the stateful endpoint

public class AddressingStatefulTestCase extends JBossWSTest

{
...
public void testAddItem() throws Exception
{
port1.addItem("Ice Cream");
port1.addItem("Ferrari");

port2.addItem("Mars Bar");
port2.addItem("Porsche");
}

public void testGetItems() throws Exception

{
String items1 = port1.getItems();
assertEquals("[Ice Cream, Ferrari]", items1);

String items2 = port2.getItems();

assertEquals("[Mars Bar, Porsche]", items2);
}
}

SOAP message exchange

Below you see the SOAP messages that are beeing exchanged.

<env:Envelope xmlns:env='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>
<env:Header xmlns:wsa='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing'>
<wsa:To>uri:jbossws-samples-wsaddr/TestService</wsa:To>
<wsa:Action>http://org.jboss.ws/addressing/stateful/action</wsa:Action>

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Chapter 5. Web Services

<wsa:ReferenceParameters>
<ns1:clientid xmlns:ns1='http://somens'>clientid-1</ns1:clientid>
</wsa:ReferenceParameters>
</env:Header>
<env:Body>
<ns1:addItem xmlns:ns1='http://org.jboss.ws/samples/wsaddr'>
<String_1>Ice Cream</String_1>
</ns1:addItem>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

<env:Envelope xmlns:env='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>
<env:Header xmlns:wsa='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing'>
<wsa:To>http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing/anonymous</wsa:To>
<wsa:Action>http://org.jboss.ws/addressing/stateful/actionReply</
wsa:Action>
<ns1:clientid xmlns:ns1='http://somens'>clientid-1</ns1:clientid>
</env:Header>
<env:Body>
<ns1:addItemResponse xmlns:ns1='http://org.jboss.ws/samples/wsaddr'/>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

...

<env:Envelope xmlns:env='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>
<env:Header xmlns:wsa='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing'>
<wsa:To>http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing/anonymous</wsa:To>
<wsa:Action>http://org.jboss.ws/addressing/stateful/actionReply</
wsa:Action>
<ns1:clientid xmlns:ns1='http://somens'>clientid-1</ns1:clientid>
</env:Header>
<env:Body>
<ns1:getItemsResponse xmlns:ns1='http://org.jboss.ws/samples/wsaddr'>
<result>[Ice Cream, Ferrari]</result>
</ns1:getItemsResponse>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

46
WS-BPEL

5.21.2. WS-BPEL
42
WS-BPEL is not supported with JAX-WS, please refer to JAX-RPC User Guide#WS-BPEL .

5.21.3. WS-Security
WS-Security addresses message level security. It standardizes authorization, encryption, and digital
signature processing of web services. Unlike transport security models, such as SSL, WS-Security
applies security directly to the elements of the web service message. This increases the flexibility of
your web services, by allowing any message model to be used (point to point, multi-hop relay, etc).

This chapter describes how to use WS-Security to sign and encrypt a simple SOAP message.

Specifications

WS-Security is defined by the combination of the following specifications:

43
• SOAP Message Security 1.0
44
• Username Token Profile 1.0
45
• X.509 Token Profile 1.0
46
• W3C XML Encryption
47
• W3C XML Signature
48
• Basic Security Profile 1.0 (Still in Draft)

5.21.3.1. Endpoint configuration

JBossWS uses handlers to identify ws-security encoded requests and invoke the security components
to sign and encrypt messages. In order to enable security processing, the client and server side need
to include a corressponding handler configuration. The preferred way is to reference a predefined
49 50
JAX-WS Endpoint Configuration or JAX-WS Client Configuration respectively.

Note
You need to setup both the endpoint configuration and the WSSE declarations i. e. two
separate steps.

5.21.3.2. Server side WSSE declaration (jboss-wsse-server.xml)

In this example we configure both the client and the server to sign the message body. Both also
require this from each other. So, if you remove either the client or the server security deployment
descriptor, you will notice that the other party will throw a fault explaining that the message did not
conform to the proper security requirements.

42
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-RPCUserGuide#WSBPEL
49
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSEndpointConfiguration
50
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSClientConfiguration

47
Chapter 5. Web Services

<jboss-ws-security xmlns="http://www.jboss.com/ws-security/config"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.jboss.com/ws-security/config
http://www.jboss.com/ws-security/schema/jboss-ws-security_1_0.xsd">
(1) <key-store-file>WEB-INF/wsse.keystore</key-store-file>
(2) <key-store-password>jbossws</key-store-password>
(3) <trust-store-file>WEB-INF/wsse.truststore</trust-store-file>
(4) <trust-store-password>jbossws</trust-store-password>
(5) <config>
(6) <sign type="x509v3" alias="wsse"/>
(7) <requires>
(8) <signature/>
</requires>
</config>
</jboss-ws-security>

1. This specifies that the key store we wish to use is WEB-INF/wsse.keystore, which is located in
our war file.

2. This specifies that the store password is "jbossws". Password can be encypted using the {EXT}
and {CLASS} commands. Please see samples for their usage.

3. This specifies that the trust store we wish to use is WEB-INF/wsse.truststore, which is
located in our war file.

4. This specifies that the trust store password is also "jbossws". Password can be encrypted using
the {EXT} and {CLASS} commands. Please see samples for their usage.

5. Here we start our root config block. The root config block is the default configuration for all
services in this war file.

6. This means that the server must sign the message body of all responses. Type means that we are
using X.509v3 certificate (a standard certificate). The alias option says that the certificate and key
pair to use for signing is in the key store under the "wsse" alias

7. Here we start our optional requires block. This block specifies all security requirements that must
be met when the server receives a message.

8. This means that all web services in this war file require the message body to be signed.

By default an endpoint does not use the WS-Security configuration. Users can use proprietary
51
@EndpointConfig annotation to set the config name. See JAX-WS_Endpoint_Configuration for the
list of available config names.

@WebService
@EndpointConfig(configName = "Standard WSSecurity Endpoint")
public class HelloJavaBean
{
...
}

51
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSEndpointConfiguration

48
WS-Security

5.21.3.3. Client side WSSE declaration (jboss-wsse-client.xml)

1. Here we start our root config block. The root config block is the default configuration for all web
service clients (Call, Proxy objects).

2. This means that the client must sign the message body of all requests it sends. Type means
that we are to use a X.509v3 certificate (a standard certificate). The alias option says that the
certificate/key pair to use for signing is in the key store under the "wsse" alias

3. Here we start our optional requires block. This block specifies all security requirements that must
be met when the client receives a response.

4. This means that all web service clients must receive signed response messages.

5.21.3.3.1. Client side key store configuration

We did not specify a key store or trust store, because client apps instead use the wsse System
properties instead. If this was a web or ejb client (meaning a webservice client in a war or ejb jar file),
then we would have specified them in the client descriptor.

Here is an excerpt from the JBossWS samples:

SOAP message exchange

Below you see the incomming SOAP message with the details of the security headers ommited. The
idea is, that the SOAP body is still plain text, but it is signed in the security header and therefore can
not be manipulated in transit.

49
Chapter 5. Web Services

Incomming SOAPMessage

<env:Envelope xmlns:env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<env:Header>
<wsse:Security env:mustUnderstand="1" ...>
<wsu:Timestamp wsu:Id="timestamp">...</wsu:Timestamp>
<wsse:BinarySecurityToken ...>
...
</wsse:BinarySecurityToken>
<ds:Signature xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
...
</ds:Signature>
</wsse:Security>
</env:Header>
<env:Body wsu:Id="element-1-1140197309843-12388840" ...>
<ns1:echoUserType xmlns:ns1="http://org.jboss.ws/samples/wssecurity">
<UserType_1 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<msg>Kermit</msg>
</UserType_1>
</ns1:echoUserType>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>

5.21.3.4. Installing the BouncyCastle JCE provider

52
The information below has originaly been provided by The Legion of the Bouncy Castle .

The provider can be configured as part of your environment via static registration by adding an entry to
the java.security properties file (found in $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/security/java.security,
where $JAVA_HOME is the location of your JDK and JRE distribution). You will find detailed instructions
in the file but basically it comes down to adding a line:

security.provider.<n>=org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider

Where <n> is the preference you want the provider at.

Note
Issues may arise if the Sun provided providers are not first.

Where users will put the provider jar is mostly up to them, although with jdk5 the best (and in some
cases only) place to have it is in $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext. Under Windows there will normally be
a JRE and a JDK install of Java. If user think he have installed it correctly and it still doesn't work then
with high probability the provider installation is not used.

52
http://www.bouncycastle.org/specifications.html#install

50
XML Registries

5.21.4. XML Registries

J2EE 5.0 mandates support for Java API for XML Registries (JAXR). Inclusion of a XML Registry
with the J2EE 5.0 certified Application Server is optional. JBoss EAP5 ships a UDDI v2.0 compliant
registry, the Apache jUDDI registry. We also provide support for JAXR Capability Level 0 (UDDI
Registries) via integration of Apache Scout.

This chapter describes how to configure the jUDDI registry in JBoss and some sample code outlines
for using JAXR API to publish and query the jUDDI registry.

5.21.4.1. Apache jUDDI Configuration

Configuration of the jUDDI registry happens via an MBean Service that is deployed in the juddi-
service.sar archive in the "all" configuration. The configuration of this service can be done in the
jboss-service.xml of the META-INF directory in the juddi-service.sar

Let us look at the individual configuration items that can be changed.

DataSources configuration

<attribute name="DataSourceUrl">java:/DefaultDS</attribute>

Database Tables (Should they be created on start, Should they be dropped on stop, Should they be
dropped on start etc)

<attribute name="CreateOnStart">false</attribute>

<attribute name="DropOnStop">true</attribute>

<attribute name="DropOnStart">false</attribute>

JAXR Connection Factory to be bound in JNDI. (Should it be bound? and under what name?)

<!-- Context to which JaxrConnectionFactory to bind to. If you have remote

clients, please bind it to the global namespace(default behavior).
To just cater to clients running on the same VM as JBoss, change to java:/
JAXR -->
<attribute name="BindJaxr">JAXR</attribute>

Other common configuration:

Add authorized users to access the jUDDI registry. (Add a sql insert statement in a single line)

Look at the script META-INF/ddl/juddi_data.ddl for more details. Example

for a user 'jboss'

51
Chapter 5. Web Services

INSERT INTO PUBLISHER (PUBLISHER_ID,PUBLISHER_NAME,

EMAIL_ADDRESS,IS_ENABLED,IS_ADMIN)
VALUES ('jboss','JBoss User','jboss@xxx','true','true');

5.21.4.2. JBoss JAXR Configuration

In this section, we will discuss the configuration needed to run the JAXR API. The JAXR configuration
relies on System properties passed to the JVM. The System properties that are needed are:

javax.xml.registry.ConnectionFactoryClass=org.apache.ws.scout.registry.
ConnectionFactoryImpl
jaxr.query.url=http://localhost:8080/juddi/inquiry
jaxr.publish.url=http://localhost:8080/juddi/publish
scout.proxy.transportClass=org.jboss.jaxr.scout.transport.SaajTransport

Please remember to change the hostname from "localhost" to the hostname of the UDDI service/
JBoss Server.

You can pass the System Properties to the JVM in the following ways:

• When the client code is running inside JBoss (maybe a servlet or an EJB). Then you will need to
pass the System properties in the run.sh or run.bat scripts to the java process via the "-D"
option.

• When the client code is running in an external JVM. Then you can pass the properties either as "-D"
options to the java process or explicitly set them in the client code(not recommended).

System.setProperty(propertyname, propertyvalue);

5.21.4.3. JAXR Sample Code

There are two categories of API: JAXR Publish API and JAXR Inquiry API. The important JAXR
interfaces that any JAXR client code will use are the following.
53
• javax.xml.registry.RegistryService From J2EE 5.0 JavaDoc: "This is the principal interface
implemented by a JAXR provider. A registry client can get this interface from a Connection to a
registry. It provides the methods that are used by the client to discover various capability specific
interfaces implemented by the JAXR provider."
54
• javax.xml.registry.BusinessLifeCycleManager From J2EE 5.0 JavaDoc: "The
BusinessLifeCycleManager interface, which is exposed by the Registry Service, implements
the life cycle management functionality of the Registry as part of a business level API. There is no
authentication information provided, because the Connection interface keeps that state and context
on behalf of the client."
55
• javax.xml.registry.BusinessQueryManager From J2EE 5.0 JavaDoc: "The
BusinessQueryManager interface, which is exposed by the Registry Service, implements the
business style query interface. It is also referred to as the focused query interface."

52
XML Registries

Let us now look at some of the common programming tasks performed while using the JAXR API:

Getting a JAXR Connection to the registry.

String queryurl = System.getProperty("jaxr.query.url", "http://

localhost:8080/juddi/inquiry");
String puburl = System.getProperty("jaxr.publish.url", "http://
localhost:8080/juddi/publish");
..
Properties props = new Properties();
props.setProperty("javax.xml.registry.queryManagerURL", queryurl);
props.setProperty("javax.xml.registry.lifeCycleManagerURL", puburl);

String transportClass = System.getProperty("scout.proxy.transportClass",

"org.jboss.jaxr.scout.transport.SaajTransport");
System.setProperty("scout.proxy.transportClass", transportClass);

// Create the connection, passing it the configuration properties

factory = ConnectionFactory.newInstance();
factory.setProperties(props);
connection = factory.createConnection();

Authentication with the registry.

/**
* Does authentication with the uddi registry
*/
protected void login() throws JAXRException
{
PasswordAuthentication passwdAuth = new PasswordAuthentication(userid,
passwd.toCharArray());
Set creds = new HashSet();
creds.add(passwdAuth);

connection.setCredentials(creds);
}

Save a Business

/**
* Creates a Jaxr Organization with 1 or more services
*/
protected Organization createOrganization(String orgname) throws
JAXRException
{
Organization org = blm.createOrganization(getIString(orgname));
org.setDescription(getIString("JBoss Inc"));
Service service = blm.createService(getIString("JBOSS JAXR Service"));

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Chapter 5. Web Services

service.setDescription(getIString("Services of XML Registry"));

//Create serviceBinding
ServiceBinding serviceBinding = blm.createServiceBinding();
serviceBinding.setDescription(blm.createInternationalString("Test
Service Binding"));

//Turn validation of URI off

serviceBinding.setValidateURI(false);
serviceBinding.setAccessURI("http://testjboss.org");
...
// Add the serviceBinding to the service
service.addServiceBinding(serviceBinding);

User user = blm.createUser();

org.setPrimaryContact(user);
PersonName personName = blm.createPersonName("Anil S");
TelephoneNumber telephoneNumber = blm.createTelephoneNumber();
telephoneNumber.setNumber("111-111-7777");
telephoneNumber.setType(null);
PostalAddress address = blm.createPostalAddress("111", "My Drive",
"BuckHead", "GA", "USA", "1111-111", "");
Collection postalAddresses = new ArrayList();
postalAddresses.add(address);
Collection emailAddresses = new ArrayList();
EmailAddress emailAddress = blm.createEmailAddress("[email protected]");
emailAddresses.add(emailAddress);

Collection numbers = new ArrayList();

numbers.add(telephoneNumber);
user.setPersonName(personName);
user.setPostalAddresses(postalAddresses);
user.setEmailAddresses(emailAddresses);
user.setTelephoneNumbers(numbers);

ClassificationScheme cScheme = getClassificationScheme("ntis-gov:naics",

"");
Key cKey = blm.createKey("uuid:C0B9FE13-324F-413D-5A5B-2004DB8E5CC2");
cScheme.setKey(cKey);
Classification classification = blm.createClassification(cScheme,
"Computer Systems Design and Related Services", "5415");
org.addClassification(classification);
ClassificationScheme cScheme1 = getClassificationScheme("D-U-N-S", "");
Key cKey1 = blm.createKey("uuid:3367C81E-FF1F-4D5A-B202-3EB13AD02423");
cScheme1.setKey(cKey1);
ExternalIdentifier ei = blm.createExternalIdentifier(cScheme1, "D-U-N-S
number", "08-146-6849");
org.addExternalIdentifier(ei);
org.addService(service);

return org;
}

54
XML Registries

Query a Business

/**
* Locale aware Search a business in the registry
*/
public void searchBusiness(String bizname) throws JAXRException
{
try
{
// Get registry service and business query manager
this.getJAXREssentials();

// Define find qualifiers and name patterns

Collection findQualifiers = new ArrayList();
findQualifiers.add(FindQualifier.SORT_BY_NAME_ASC);
Collection namePatterns = new ArrayList();
String pattern = "%" + bizname + "%";
LocalizedString ls = blm.createLocalizedString(Locale.getDefault(),
pattern);
namePatterns.add(ls);

// Find based upon qualifier type and values

BulkResponse response = bqm.findOrganizations(findQualifiers,
namePatterns, null, null, null, null);

// check how many organisation we have matched

Collection orgs = response.getCollection();
if (orgs == null)
{
log.debug(" -- Matched 0 orgs");
}
else
{
log.debug(" -- Matched " + orgs.size() + " organizations -- ");

// then step through them

for (Iterator orgIter = orgs.iterator(); orgIter.hasNext();)
{
Organization org = (Organization)orgIter.next();
log.debug("Org name: " + getName(org));
log.debug("Org description: " + getDescription(org));
log.debug("Org key id: " + getKey(org));
checkUser(org);
checkServices(org);
}
}
}
finally
{
connection.close();

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Chapter 5. Web Services

}
}

For more examples of code using the JAXR API, please refer to the resources in the Resources
Section.

5.21.4.4. Troubleshooting
• I cannot connect to the registry from JAXR. Please check the inquiry and publish url passed to
the JAXR ConnectionFactory.

• I cannot connect to the jUDDI registry. Please check the jUDDI configuration and see if there are
any errors in the server.log. And also remember that the jUDDI registry is available only in the "all"
configuration.

• I cannot authenticate to the jUDDI registry. Have you added an authorized user to the jUDDI
database, as described earlier in the chapter?

• I would like to view the SOAP messages in transit between the client and the UDDI Registry.
56
Please use the tcpmon tool to view the messages in transit. TCPMon

5.21.4.5. Resources
57
• JAXR Tutorial and Code Camps
58
• J2EE 1.4 Tutorial
59
• J2EE Web Services by Richard Monson-Haefel

5.22. JBossWS Extensions

This section describes propriatary JBoss extensions to JAX-WS.

5.22.1. Proprietary Annotations

60
For the set of standard annotations, please have a look at JAX-WS Annotations

5.22.1.1. EndpointConfig

/**
* Defines an endpoint or client configuration.
* This annotation is valid on an endpoint implementaion bean or a SEI.
*/
@Retention(value = RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(value = { ElementType.TYPE })
public @interface EndpointConfig
{
...
/**

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http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSAnnotations

56
Proprietary Annotations

* The optional config-name element gives the configuration name that

must be present in
* the configuration given by element config-file.
*
* Server side default: Standard Endpoint
* Client side default: Standard Client
*/
String configName() default "";
...
/**
* The optional config-file element is a URL or resource name for the
configuration.
*
* Server side default: standard-jaxws-endpoint-config.xml
* Client side default: standard-jaxws-client-config.xml
*/
String configFile() default "";
}

5.22.1.2. WebContext

/**
* Provides web context specific meta data to EJB based web service
endpoints.
*
* @author [email protected]
* @since 26-Apr-2005
*/
@Retention(value = RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(value = { ElementType.TYPE })
public @interface WebContext
{
...
/**
* The contextRoot element specifies the context root that the web
service endpoint is deployed to.
* If it is not specified it will be derived from the deployment short
name.
*
* Applies to server side port components only.
*/
String contextRoot() default "";
...
/**
* The virtual hosts that the web service endpoint is deployed to.
*
* Applies to server side port components only.
*/
String[] virtualHosts() default {};

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Chapter 5. Web Services

/**
* Relative path that is appended to the contextRoot to form fully
qualified
* endpoint address for the web service endpoint.
*
* Applies to server side port components only.
*/
String urlPattern() default "";

/**
* The authMethod is used to configure the authentication mechanism for
the web service.
* As a prerequisite to gaining access to any web service which are
protected by an authorization
* constraint, a user must have authenticated using the configured
mechanism.
*
* Legal values for this element are "BASIC", or "CLIENT-CERT".
*/
String authMethod() default "";

/**
* The transportGuarantee specifies that the communication
* between client and server should be NONE, INTEGRAL, or
* CONFIDENTIAL. NONE means that the application does not require any
* transport guarantees. A value of INTEGRAL means that the application
* requires that the data sent between the client and server be sent in
* such a way that it can't be changed in transit. CONFIDENTIAL means
* that the application requires that the data be transmitted in a
* fashion that prevents other entities from observing the contents of
* the transmission. In most cases, the presence of the INTEGRAL or
* CONFIDENTIAL flag will indicate that the use of SSL is required.
*/
String transportGuarantee() default "";

/**
* A secure endpoint does not by default publish it's wsdl on an
unsecure transport.
* You can override this behaviour by explicitly setting the
secureWSDLAccess flag to false.
*
* Protect access to WSDL. See http://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/
JBWS-723
*/
boolean secureWSDLAccess() default true;
}

5.22.1.3. SecurityDomain

/**

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Web Services Appendix

* Annotation for specifying the JBoss security domain for an EJB

*/
@Target(ElementType.TYPE) @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface SecurityDomain
{
/**
* The required name for the security domain.
*
* Do not use the JNDI name
*
* Good: "MyDomain"
* Bad: "java:/jaas/MyDomain"
*/
String value();

/**
* The name for the unauthenticated pricipal
*/
String unauthenticatedPrincipal() default "";
}

5.23. Web Services Appendix

61
JAX-WS Endpoint Configuration
62
JAX-WS Client Configuration
63
JAX-WS Annotations

5.24. References
64
1. JSR-224 - Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) 2.0
65
2. JSR 222 - Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) 2.0
66
3. JSR-250 - Common Annotations for the Java Platform
67
4. JSR 181 - Web Services Metadata for the Java Platform

61
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSEndpointConfiguration
62
http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossWS-JAX-WSClientConfiguration
63
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59
60
Chapter 6.

JBoss AOP
JBoss AOP is a 100% Pure Java Aspected Oriented Framework usable in any programming
environment or tightly integrated with our application server. Aspects allow you to more easily
modularize your code base when regular object oriented programming just doesn't fit the bill. It can
provide a cleaner separation from application logic and system code. It provides a great way to expose
integration points into your software. Combined with JDK 1.5 Annotations, it also is a great way to
expand the Java language in a clean pluggable way rather than using annotations solely for code
generation.

JBoss AOP is not only a framework, but also a prepackaged set of aspects that are applied via
annotations, pointcut expressions, or dynamically at runtime. Some of these include caching,
asynchronous communication, transactions, security, remoting, and many many more.

An aspect is a common feature that's typically scattered across methods, classes, object hierarchies,
or even entire object models. It is behavior that looks and smells like it should have structure, but you
can't find a way to express this structure in code with traditional object-oriented techniques.

For example, metrics is one common aspect. To generate useful logs from your application, you have
to (often liberally) sprinkle informative messages throughout your code. However, metrics is something
that your class or object model really shouldn't be concerned about. After all, metrics is irrelevant to
your actual application: it doesn't represent a customer or an account, and it doesn't realize a business
rule. It's simply orthogonal.

6.1. Some key terms

Joinpoint
A joinpoint is any point in your java program. The call of a method. The execution of a constructor the
access of a field. All these are joinpoints. You could also think of a joinpoint as a particular Java event.
Where an event is a method call, constructor call, field access etc...

Invocation
An Invocation is a JBoss AOP class that encapsulates what a joinpiont is at runtime. It could contain
information like which method is being called, the arguments of the method, etc...

Advice
An advice is a method that is called when a particular joinpoint is executed, i.e., the behavior that is
triggered when a method is called. It could also be thought of as the code that does the interception.
Another analogy is that an advice is an "event handler".

Pointcut
Pointcuts are AOP's expression language. Just as a regular expression matches strings, a pointcut
expression matches a particular joinpoint.

Introductions
An introduction modifies the type and structure of a Java class. It can be used to force an existing
class to implement an interface or to add an annotation to anything.

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Chapter 6. JBoss AOP

Aspect
An Aspect is a plain Java class that encapsulates any number of advices, pointcut definitions, mixins,
or any other JBoss AOP construct.

Interceptor
An interceptor is an Aspect with only one advice named "invoke". It is a specific interface that you can
implement if you want your code to be checked by forcing your class to implement an interface. It also
will be portable and can be reused in other JBoss environments like EJBs and JMX MBeans.

In AOP, a feature like metrics is called a crosscutting concern, as it's a behavior that "cuts" across
multiple points in your object models, yet is distinctly different. As a development methodology, AOP
recommends that you abstract and encapsulate crosscutting concerns.

For example, let's say you wanted to add code to an application to measure the amount of time
it would take to invoke a particular method. In plain Java, the code would look something like the
following.

public class BankAccountDAO

{
public void withdraw(double amount)
{
long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
try
{
// Actual method body...
}
finally
{
long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;
System.out.println("withdraw took: " + endTime);
}
}
}

While this code works, there are a few problems with this approach:
1. It's extremely difficult to turn metrics on and off, as you have to manually add the code in the try>/
finally block to each and every method or constructor you want to benchmark.

2. The profiling code really doesn't belong sprinkled throughout your application code. It makes your
code bloated and harder to read, as you have to enclose the timings within a try/finally block.

3. If you wanted to expand this functionality to include a method or failure count, or even to register
these statistics to a more sophisticated reporting mechanism, you'd have to modify a lot of
different files (again).

This approach to metrics is very difficult to maintain, expand, and extend, because it's dispersed
throughout your entire code base. And this is just a tiny example! In many cases, OOP may not always
be the best way to add metrics to a class.

Aspect-oriented programming gives you a way to encapsulate this type of behavior functionality. It
allows you to add behavior such as metrics "around" your code. For example, AOP provides you

62
Creating Aspects in JBoss AOP

with programmatic control to specify that you want calls to BankAccountDAO to go through a metrics
aspect before executing the actual body of that code.

6.2. Creating Aspects in JBoss AOP

In short, all AOP frameworks define two things: a way to implement crosscutting concerns, and a
programmatic construct -- a programming language or a set of tags -- to specify how you want to apply
those snippets of code. Let's take a look at how JBoss AOP, its cross-cutting concerns, and how you
can implement a metrics aspect in JBoss.

The first step in creating a metrics aspect in JBoss AOP is to encapsulate the metrics feature in its
own Java class. Listing Two extracts the try/finally block in Listing One's BankAccountDAO.withdraw()
method into Metrics, an implementation of a JBoss AOP Interceptor class.

The following listing demonstrates Implementing metrics in a JBoss AOP Interceptor

01. public class Metrics implements org.jboss.aop.advice.Interceptor

02. {
03. public Object invoke(Invocation invocation) throws Throwable
04. {
05. long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
06. try
07. {
08. return invocation.invokeNext();
09. }
10. finally
11. {
12. long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;
13. java.lang.reflect.Method m =
((MethodInvocation)invocation).method;
14. System.out.println("method " + m.toString() + " time: " + endTime
+ "ms");
15. }
16. }
17. }

Under JBoss AOP, the Metrics class wraps withdraw(): when calling code invokes withdraw(), the AOP
framework breaks the method call into its parts and encapsulates those parts into an Invocation object.
The framework then calls any aspects that sit between the calling code and the actual method body.

When the AOP framework is done dissecting the method call, it calls Metric's invoke method at line 3.
Line 8 wraps and delegates to the actual method and uses an enclosing try/finally block to perform the
timings. Line 13 obtains contextual information about the method call from the Invocation object, while
line 14 displays the method name and the calculated metrics.

Having the metrics code within its own object allows us to easily expand and capture additional
measurements later on. Now that metrics are encapsulated into an aspect, let's see how to apply it.

6.3. Applying Aspects in JBoss AOP

To apply an aspect, you define when to execute the aspect code. Those points in execution are called
pointcuts. An analogy to a pointcut is a regular expression. Where a regular expression matches

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Chapter 6. JBoss AOP

strings, a pointcut expression matches events/points within your application. For example, a valid
pointcut definition would be "for all calls to the JDBC method executeQuery(), call the aspect that
verifies SQL syntax."

An entry point could be a field access, or a method or constructor call. An event could be an exception
being thrown. Some AOP implementations use languages akin to queries to specify pointcuts. Others
use tags. JBoss AOP uses both. Listing Three shows how to define a pointcut for the metrics example.

The following listing demonstrates defining a pointcut in JBoss AOP

1. <bind pointcut="public void com.mc.BankAccountDAO->withdraw(double

amount)">
2. <interceptor class="com.mc.Metrics"/>
3. </bind >

4. <bind pointcut="* com.mc.billing.->(..)">

5. <interceptor class="com.mc.Metrics"/>
6. </bind >]]></programlisting>

Lines 1-3 define a pointcut that applies the metrics aspect to the specific method
BankAccountDAO.withdraw(). Lines 4-6 define a general pointcut that applies the metrics aspect to all
methods in all classes in the com.mc.billing package. There is also an optional annotation mapping if
you do not like XML. See our Reference Guide for more information.

JBoss AOP has a rich set of pointcut expressions that you can use to define various points/events in
your Java application so that you can apply your aspects. You can attach your aspects to a specific
Java class in your application or you can use more complex compositional pointcuts to specify a wide
range of classes within one expression.

With AOP, as this example shows, you're able to pull together crosscutting behavior into one object
and apply it easily and simply, without polluting and bloating your code with features that ultimately
don't belong mingled with business logic. Instead, common crosscutting concerns can be maintained
and extended in one place.

Notice too that the code within the BankAccountDAO class has no idea that it's being profiled. This
is what aspect-oriented programmers deem orthogonal concerns. Profiling is an orthogonal concern.
In the OOP code snippet in Listing One, profiling was part of the application code. With AOP, you
can remove that code. A modern promise of middleware is transparency, and AOP (pardon the pun)
clearly delivers.

Just as important, orthogonal behavior could be bolted on after development. In Listing One,
monitoring and profiling must be added at development time. With AOP, a developer or an
administrator can (easily) add monitoring and metrics as needed without touching the code. This is
a very subtle but significant part of AOP, as this separation (obliviousness, some may say) allows
aspects to be layered on top of or below the code that they cut across. A layered design allows
features to be added or removed at will. For instance, perhaps you snap on metrics only when you're
doing some benchmarks, but remove it for production. With AOP, this can be done without editing,
recompiling, or repackaging the code.

6.4. Packaging AOP Applications

To deploy an AOP application in JBoss you need to package it. AOP is packaged similarly to
SARs(MBeans). You can either deploy an XML file directly in the deploy/ directory with the signature

64
Packaging AOP Applications

*-aop.xml along with your package (this is how the base-aop.xml, included in the jboss-
aop.deployer file works) or you can include it in the jar file containing your classes. If you include
your xml file in your jar, it must have the file extension .aop and a jboss-aop.xml file must be contained
in a META-INF directory, for instanace: META-INF/jboss-aop.xml.

In the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5, you must specify the schema used, otherwise your
information will not be parsed correctly. You do this by adding the xmlns="urn:jboss:aop-
beans:1:0 attribute to the root aop element, as shown here:

</aop>

If you want to create anything more than a non-trivial example, using the .aop jar files, you can make
any top-level deployment contain a .aop file containing the xml binding configuration. For instance you
can have a .aop file in an .ear file, or a .aop file in a war file. The bindings specified in the META-INF/
jboss-aop.xml file contained in the .aop file will affect all the classes in the whole war file

To pick up a .aop file in an .ear file, it must be listed in the .ear/META-INF/application.xml as a

java module; for example:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<!DOCTYPE application PUBLIC '-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD J2EE
Application 1.2//EN''http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/application_1_2.dtd'>

<application>
<display-name>AOP in JBoss example</display-name>
<module>
<java>example.aop</java>
</module>
<module>
<ejb>aopexampleejb.jar</ejb>
</module>
<module>
<web>
<web-uri>aopexample.war</web-uri>
<context-root>/aopexample</context-root>
</web>
</module>
</application>

Important
In the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5, the contents of the .ear file are deployed
in the order they are listed in the application.xml. When using loadtime weaving
the bindings listed in the example.aop file must be deployed before the classes being
advised are deployed, so that the bindings exist in the system before (for example) the ejb
and servlet classes are loaded. This is acheived by listing the .aop file at the start of the

65
Chapter 6. JBoss AOP

application.xml. Other types of archives are deployed before anything else and so do
not require special consideration, such as .sar and .war files.

6.5. The JBoss AspectManager Service

The AspectManager Service can be managed at runtime using the JMX console which is
found at http://localhost:8080/jmx-console. It is registered under the ObjectName
jboss.aop:service=AspectManager. If you want to configure it on startup you need to edit some
configuration files.

In JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 the AspectManager Service is configured using a JBoss
Microcontainer bean. The configuration file is jboss-5.x.x.GA/server/xxx/conf/aop.xml. The
AspectManager Service is deployed with the following xml:

<property name="jbossIntegration"><inject bean="AOPJBossIntegration"/></

property>

<property name="enableLoadtimeWeaving">false</property>

<property name="include">org.jboss.test., org.jboss.injbossaop.</property>

<property name="exclude">org.jboss.</property>
<!-- This avoids instrumentation of hibernate cglib enhanced proxies

<property name="ignore">$$EnhancerByCGLIB$$</property> -->

<property name="verbose">false</property>

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Loadtime transformation in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Using Sun JDK

<!-- By default the deployment of the aspects contained in

../deployers/jboss-aop-jboss5.deployer/base-aspects.xml
are not deployed. To turn on deployment uncomment this property
<property name="useBaseXml">true</property>-->
</bean>

Later we will talk about changing the class of the AspectManager Service. T,o do this replace the
contents of the class attribute of the bean element.

6.6. Loadtime transformation in the JBoss Enterprise

Application Platform Using Sun JDK
The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform has special integration with JDK to do loadtime
transformations. This section explains how to use it.

If you want to do load-time transformations with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 and Sun JDK,
these are the steps you must take.

• Set the enableLoadtimeWeaving attribute/property to true. By default, JBoss application

server will not do load-time bytecode manipulation of AOP files unless this is set. If
suppressTransformationErrors is true failed bytecode transformation will only give an error
warning. This flag is needed because sometimes a JBoss deployment will not have all the classes a
class references.

• Copy the pluggable-instrumentor.jar from the lib/ directory of your JBoss AOP
distribution to the bin/ directory of your JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

• Next edit run.sh or run.bat (depending on what OS you're on) and add the following to the
JAVA_OPTS environment variable:

set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Dprogram.name=%PROGNAME% -javaagent:pluggable-

instrumentor.jar

Important
The class of the AspectManager Service must be
org.jboss.aop.deployers.AspectManagerJDK5 or
org.jboss.aop.deployment.AspectManagerServiceJDK5 as these are what work
with the -javaagent option.

6.7. JRockit
JRockit also supports the -javaagent switch mentioned in Section 6.6, “Loadtime transformation
in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Using Sun JDK”. If you wish to use that, then the steps
in Section 6.6, “Loadtime transformation in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Using Sun
JDK” are sufficient. However, JRockit also comes with its own framework for intercepting when
classes are loaded, which might be faster than the -javaagent switch. If you want to do load-time
transformations using the special JRockit hooks, these are the steps you must take.

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Chapter 6. JBoss AOP

• Set the enableLoadtimeWeaving attribute/property to true. By default, JBoss application

• Copy the jrockit-pluggable-instrumentor.jar from the lib/ directory of your JBoss AOP
distribution to the bin/ directory of your the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform installation.

• Next edit run.sh or run.bat (depending on what OS you're on) and add the following to the
JAVA_OPTS and JBOSS_CLASSPATH environment variables:

# Setup JBoss sepecific properties

JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dprogram.name=$PROGNAME \

-Xmanagement:class=org.jboss.aop.hook.JRockitPluggableClassPreProcessor"

JBOSS_CLASSPATH="$JBOSS_CLASSPATH:jrockit-pluggable-instrumentor.jar"

• Set the class of the AspectManager Service to be

org.jboss.aop.deployers.AspectManagerJRockit on JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform 5, or org.jboss.aop.deployment.AspectManagerService as these are what work
with special hooks in JRockit.

6.8. Improving Loadtime Performance in tje JBoss

Enterprise Application Platform Environment
The same rules apply to the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform for tuning loadtime weaving
performance as standalone Java. Switches such as pruning, optimized, include and exclude are
configured through the jboss-aop.deployer/META-INF/jboss-service.xml file talked about
earlier in this chapter.

6.9. Scoping the AOP to the classloader

By default all deployments in JBoss are global to the whole application server. That means that any
EAR, SAR, JAR (for example), that is put in the deploy directory can see the classes from any other
deployed archive. Similarly, aop bindings are global to the whole virtual machine. This global visibility
can be turned off per top-level deployment.

6.9.1. Deploying as part of a scoped classloader

How the following works may be changed in future versions of jboss-aop. If you deploy a AOP
file as part of a scoped archive or the bindings (for instance), applied within the .aop/META-INF/
jboss-aop.xml file will only apply to the classes within the scoped archive and not to anything else
in the application server. Another alternative is to deploy -aop.xml files as part of a service archive
(SAR). Again if the SAR is scoped, the bindings contained in the -aop.xml files will only apply to the
contents of the SAR file. It is not currently possible to deploy a standalone -aop.xml file and have
that attach to a scoped deployment. Standalone -aop.xml files will apply to classes in the whole
application server.

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Attaching to a scoped deployment

6.9.2. Attaching to a scoped deployment

If you have an application using classloader isolation, as long as you have prepared your classes
you can later attach a AOP file to that deployment. If we have an EAR file scoped using a jboss-
app.xml file, with the scoped loader repository jboss.test:service=scoped:

<boss-app>
<loader-repository>
jboss.test:service=scoped
</loader-repository>
</jboss-app>

We can later deploy a AOP file containing aspects and configuration to attach that deployment to the
scoped EAR. This is done using the loader-repository tag in the AOP files META-INF/jboss-
aop.xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<aop>
<loader-repository>jboss.test:service=scoped</loader-repository>

</aop>

This has the same effect as deploying the AOP file as part of the EAR as we saw previously, but
allows you to hot deploy aspects into your scoped application.

69
70
Chapter 7.

Transaction Management
7.1. Overview
Transaction support in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is provided by JBossTS, a mature,
modular, standards based, highly configurable transaction manager. By default the server runs with
the local-only JTA module of JBossTS installed. This module provides an implementation of the
standard JTA API for use by other internal components, such as the EJB container, as well as direct
use by application code. It is suitable for coordinating ACID transactions that involve one or more XA
Resource managers, such as databases or message queues.

Two additional, optional, JBossTS transaction modules are also shipped with JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform and may be deployed to provide additional functionality if required. These are:

• JBossTS JTS, a transaction manager capable of distributing transaction context on remote IIOP
method calls, thus creating a single distributed transaction spanning multiple JVMs. This is useful for
e.g. large scale applications that span multiple servers, or for standards based interoperability with
transactional business logic running in CORBA based systems. The functionality of this module can
be accessed through the standard JTA API, making it a drop-in replacement that does not require
changes to transactional business logic. It is necessary only to change the server configuration.
Details of this process are given below.

• JBossTS XTS, an XML based transaction service implementing the WS-AtomicTransaction (WS-
AT) and WS-BusinessActivity (WS-BA) version 1.2 specifications. This additional module utilizes
core transaction support provided by the JTA or JTS, as well as web services functionality provided
by JBossWS Native. It is deployed into the server as an application, a process detailed below.
Applications may use WS-AT to provide standards based, distributed ACID transactions in a manner
broadly similar to JTS but using a web services transport rather than a CORBA one. The WS-BA
implementation compliments this by providing an alternative, compensation based transaction
model, well suited to coordinating long running, loosely coupled business processes. XTS also
implements a WS-Coordination service which, usually, is only accessed internally by the local WS-
AT and WS-BA implementations. However, this WS-C service can also be used to provide remote
coordination for WS-AT and WS-BA transactions created in other JBoss server instances or non-
JBoss containers.

7.2. Configuration Essentials

Configuration of the default JBossTS JTA is managed though a combination of the transaction
manager's own properties file and the application server's deployment configuration. The configuration
file resides at server/[name]/conf/jbossts-properties.xml It contains defaults for the most commonly
used properties. Many more are detailed in the accompanying JBossTS documentation and can be
added to the configuration file as needed. All also have hard-coded defaults, but the system may
not function exactly as expected in the absence of a properties file. The configuration given in this
file is supplemented by the microcontainer beans configuration found in the server/[name]/deploy/
transaction-jboss-beans.xml file. This ties the transaction manager into the wider server configuration,
overriding the transaction config file settings with application server specific values where appropriate.
In particular, it uses the service binding manager to set port binding information and overrides selected
other properties. Configuration properties are read by JBossTS at server initialization and changes
made thereafter, either to the properties file, beans file, or programatically, will not have an effect until
server (JVM) restart.

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Chapter 7. Transaction Management

The most critical bean properties are:

• transactionTimeout – the default time, in seconds, after which a transaction will be considered to be
stuck and may be rolled back by the transaction manager.

The transaction timeout functionality is useful to prevent poorly written code, such as large SQL
queries, from blocking the system indefinitely. The default value is 300 seconds. This should be
adjusted to suit your environment and workload.

Note that transaction timeouts are processed asynchronously, a design decision which can take
some applications by surprise. See the transaction timeout handling section below for more details.

• objectStoreDir - the directory to which transaction data will be logged. This bean property overrides
the jbossts-properties.xml config file value for com.arjuna.ats,arjuna,objectstore.objectStoreDir

This transaction log is required to complete transactions in the case of system failures. The
performance and reliability of the storage device used for it are critical. In general, local RAID disk
should be preferred. Remote storage may be used provided it correctly implements file locking.
However, requiring network I/O for this storage can be a significant bottleneck on performance.
The ObjectStore will normally contain one file per in-flight transaction, each a few kbytes in size.
These are distributed over a directory tree for optimal performance. The small file size and rapid
creation/deleting of files lends itself well to SSD based storage devices, although traditional hard
drives may of course still be used. If a RAID controller is used, it should be configured for write
through cache, in much the same manner as database storage devices. Writing of the transaction
log is automatically skipped in the case of transactions that are rolling back or contain only a single
resource.

The following additional configuration properties present in the jbossts-properties.xml may also be of
interest:

• com.arjuna.common.util.logging.DebugLevel

This setting determines the internal log threshold for the transaction manager codebase. It is
independent of the server's wider log4j logging configuration and represents an additional hurdle
that log messages must pass before being printed. The default value is “0x00000000” i.e. no
debug logging. INFO and WARN messages will still be printed by default. This provides optimal
performance. The value “0xffffffff” should be used when full debug logging is required. This is very
verbose and will result in large log files. Log messages that pass the internal DebugLevel check will
be passed to the server's logging system for further processing. Thus it may also be necessary to
set appropriate configuration for “com.arjuna” code in the server/[name]/conf/jboss-log4j.xml file.
Note that whilst a value of “0xffffffff” may be left in place permanently and the log4j settings used to
turn logging on or off, this is less performant than using the internal DebugLevel checking.

• com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.coordinator.commitOnePhase

This setting determines if the transaction manager will automatically apply the one-phase commit
optimization to the transaction completion protocol in cases where only a single resource is
registered with the transaction. It is enabled (“YES”) by default to provide optimal performance,
since no transaction log write is necessary in such cases. Some resource managers may not be
compatible with this optimization and it is occasionally necessary to disable it. This can be done by
changing the value to “NO”.

• com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.objectstore.transactionSync

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Transactional Resources

This setting controls the flushing of transaction logs to disk during the transaction termination.
It is enabled (“ON”) by default, which results in a FileDescriptor.sync call for each committing
transaction. This is required to provide recovery guarantees and hence ACID properties. If the
applications running in the server can tolerate data inconsistency or loss, greater performance
may be achieved by disabling this behavior by setting the property value to “OFF”. This is not
recommended – it is usually preferable to recraft such applications to avoid using the transaction
manager entirely.

• com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.xa.nodeIdentifier and com.arjuna.ats.jta.xaRecoveryNode

These properties determine the behavior of the transaction recovery system. Correct configuration
is essential to ensure transactions are resolved correctly in the event of a server crash and restart.
See the crash recovery section below for details.

Additional properties that may be added to the jbossts-properties.xml include the following. Care
should be taken to place these in the appropriate section of the file, or they may not be correctly
processed.

• com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.coordinator.enableStatistics

This property enables the gathering of transaction statistics, which may be viewed via methods
on the TransactionManagerService bean or, more commonly, its corresponding JMX MBean. This
option is disabled by default, as the additional locking needed to record statistics accurately may
cause a slight performance impact. Thus the statistics getter methods will thus normally return zero
values. To enable the option, set its value to “YES” in the properties file.

7.3. Transactional Resources

The transaction manager coordinates the update of state via XAResource implementations, which are
provided by the various resource managers. In most instances, resource managers will be databases,
message queues or 3rd party JCA resource adapters. The list of JDBC database drivers and servers
certified for use with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform can be found on the redhat.com website.
In addition there is a reasonable probability of any driver that complies with the relevant standards
functioning correctly. However, interpretation of the XA specification does differ from one vendor to
another, as does quality of driver code. For maximum surety in transactional applications, thorough
testing is essential, especially with regard to recovery behavior.

Database connection pools configured via the application server's -ds.xml files using <xa-datasource>
(see chapter 11) will automatically interact with the transaction manager. i.e. Connections obtained
by looking up such datasource in JNDI and calling getConnection will automatically participate
correctly in an ongoing transaction. This is the dominant use case and should be preferred where
transactional guarantees for data access are required. For cases where the database cannot support
XA transactions, it is also feasible to deploy a connection pool using <local-xa-datasource> Such
datasources participate in the managed transaction using the last resource commit optimization (see
below) and as such provide more limited transactional guarantees. Applications using this approach
should be aware of the limitations and implemented accordingly. Connections obtained from a <no-
tx-datasource> will not interact with the transaction manager and any work done on such connections
must be explicitly committed or rolled back by the application via the JDBC API.

Many databases require additional configuration if they are to be used as XA resource managers.
For example, MS SQL Server requires configuration of the DTC service and installation of a server
side component of the JDBC drivers. Some versions of Oracle similarly require a server side package

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Chapter 7. Transaction Management

to be installed in the database instance. PostgreSQL installations may require an alteration to the
number of outstanding transactions they permit – the default is normally too low for production usage.
MySQL has significant limitations on its XA implementation and is not recommended for use in an XA
transaction. If it is used, the InnoDB storage engine must be configured. Please consult your DBA or
database documentation for further product specific information. In addition, it is important to take any
further database configuration steps needed to support XA recovery, see the recovery section below.

JBoss Messaging provides an XA aware driver and can participate in XA transactions. This is also the
case for many 3rd party message queuing (JMS) products, subject to the same caveats on product
specific configuration as with databases.

7.4. Last Resource Commit Optimization (LRCO)

Although the XA transaction protocol is designed to provide ACID properties by using a two phase
commit protocol, it is recognized that this is not possible in all circumstances. In particular, it is
occasionally necessary to have a resource manager that is not XA aware participate in the transaction.
This is often the case with data stores that can't or won't support distributed transactions. For such
circumstances it is possible to employ a technique variously known as the Last Resource Gambit or
last Resource Commit Optimization. Using this technique, the one phase resource is processed last
in the prepare phase of the transaction, at which time an attempt is made to commit it. If successful,
the transaction log is written and the remaining resources go through the phase two commit. If the last
resource fails to commit, the transaction is rolled back. Whilst this protocol allows for most transactions
to complete normally, certain types of error can cause an inconsistent transaction outcome. Therefore,
we recommend using this approach only when no alternative is available. Where a single <local-tx-
datasource> is used in a transaction, the LRCO will be automatically applied to it. For other cases
it is possible to designate a last resource by using a special marker interface. See the JBossTS
documentation for details.

It is not transactionally safe (or rather, it is even more unsafe) to use more than a single one-phase
resource in the same transaction. For this reason JBossTS treats an attempt to enlist a second such
resource as an error and will terminate the transaction. This use case is most commonly found in
applications migrating from JBossAS 4.0.x servers, where this usage was not considered an error.
Whenever possible the <local-tx-datasource> should be changed to <xa-datasource> to resolve the
difficulty. Where this is not possible, the transaction manager may be configured to allow multiple last
resources. Although this is not recommended, details of the configuration steps may be found on the
jboss.org wiki.

7.5. Transaction Timeout Handling

In order to prevent indefinite locking of resources, the transaction manager will abort in-flight
transactions that have not completed after a specified interval. This abort is done by a set of
background processes, coordinated by the TransactionReaper. It should be noted that the reaper will
rollback transactions without interrupting any threads that may be operating within their scope. This
prevents instability that can result from interrupting threads executing arbitrary code. Furthermore,
it allows for timely abort of transactions where the business logic thread may be executing non-
interruptable operations such as network I/O calls. This approach may, however, cause unexpected
behavior in code that is not designed to handle multithreaded transactions. Warning or error messages
may be printed from e.g. hibernate or other transaction aware components as a result of the
unexpected transaction status change. These should not affect the transaction outcome. The problem
can be minimized by appropriate turning of the transaction timeout.

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Recovery Configuration

7.6. Recovery Configuration

To ensure that the transaction manager can, upon server restart after a crash, successfully complete
any prepared transactions, it is necessary to configure the recovery system correctly.

After the prepare phase of the transaction commit, the transaction manager writes state information to
disk in order that, should a failure occur, it can still complete the transaction and thereby assure ACID
properties. The transaction log storage, which JBossTS terms the ObjectStore, should be configured
in accordance with the guidance provided above. In addition, it is necessary to configure the recovery
system to process the logs.

The information that is written into the logs includes the transaction identity and the xid values
associated to the XAResources enlisted with the transaction. In case where the XAResource itself
implements Serializable, it is also written to the log. Such cases simplify recovery considerably,
but unfortunately are a minority. Most XAResources, including those presented to the transaction
manager by the application server's <xa-datasource>, are not Serializable. Therefore, it is necessary
to explicitly provide the transaction manager with sufficient information to instantiate a new
XAResource instance connected to the same resource manager upon server restart. For resource
managers configured by <xa-datasource> elements in -ds.xml files, this is best achieved by using
the AppServerJDBCXARecovery plugin. One instance is required for each resource manager. JBoss
Messaging includes its own recovery plugin, which must be configured if messaging operations
are required within a transaction. Refer to the JBoss Messaging documentation for further details.
Users may develop their own plugins for resource managers not covered by the previous cases, by
implementing the XAResourceRecovery interface. See the JBossTS documentation for further details.

In addition to configuring the recovery plugins, it is necessary to set a unique identifier for each
JBossTS (i.e. application server) instance and to configure which node identifiers each server
will attempt to recover. For most situations it is recommended that each server instance operate
independently, using its own ObjectStore and recovering its own transactions. In such cases the
com.arjuna.ats.arjuna.xa.nodeIdentifier and com.arjuna.ats.jta.xaRecoveryNode properties in each
server instance should share the same value and this value should be unique to the instance.

7.7. Troubleshooting
This section presents guidance on the possible causes are resolutions for common transaction related
problems.

• I turned on debug logging, but nothing shows up.

JBossTS sends log statements though two levels of filters. Firstly, its own internal logging
abstraction layer, then the application server's log4j. A log statement must pass both filters to be
printed. The most likely case is that's you have enabled only one or the other. See information on
the DebugLevel property above.

• My server logs show WARN Adding multiple last resources is disallowed. and my
transactions are aborted. Why?

You are probably using <local-xa-datasource> rather than <xa-datasource> See the Last Resource
Commit Optimization section above and refer to http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/Multiple1pc

• My server crashed (or was killed). Now it's running again, but my logs are
filling with WARN [com.arjuna.ats.jta.logging.loggerI18N]
[com.arjuna.ats.internal.jta.resources.arjunacore.norecoveryxa] Could not
find new XAResource to use for recovering non-serializable XAResource

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Chapter 7. Transaction Management

You probably forgot to configure recovery for one or more resource managers used in a
transaction. See the recovery section above and http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/
TxNonSerializableXAResource

• My transactions take a long time and sometimes strange things happen. The server log contains
WARN [arjLoggerI18N] [BasicAction_58] - Abort of action id ... invoked
while multiple threads active within it.

Transactions which exceed their timeout may be rolled back. This is done by a background thread,
which can confuse some application code that may be expecting an interrupt. See the transaction
timeout handling section above and http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/TxMultipleThreads

Additional information on these and other issues may be found in the JBossTS documentation and on
the wiki at http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JBossTransactions

7.8. Installing JBossTS JTS

Users who require transaction propagation between business logic in different servers will benefit
from installing the JTS component. Although the JTS does have its own API, it is most commonly
accessed via the standard JTA classes. In such cases, it's a drop in replacement for the default local-
only JTA implementation. The necessary implementation classes are already in place, it is required
only to modify the relevant config file to move between the JTA and JTS modules. The directory docs/
examples/transactions/ contains a version of the jbossts-properties.xml file suitable for running the
JTS mode. It also contains a README.txt file detailing the changes necessary to various other files,
including the transactions-jboss-beans.xml. An ant script which will perform these steps on your
behalf is also included. However, we strongly recommend to consult the README file for additional
information before running the script, as well as backing up any server configuration files which may
be changed. Note that it is necessary to install the JTS into a server configuration that also contains
the CORBA ORB service, as the JTS relies on this. We recommend the 'all' configuration as a starting
point for this. The selection of distributed JTA (JTS, also known internally as jtax) or local-only JTA (the
default) is done at the server level. The additional complexity of the JTS carries a slight performance
overhead, so it is recommended to install the JTS only for servers which host applications requiring
transaction context distribution. Servers running JTA will log:

INFO [TransactionManagerService] JBossTS Transaction Service (JTA version

- ...)

at startup, whereas those running the JTS will log:

INFO [TransactionManagerService] JBossTS Transaction Service (JTS version

- ...)

7.9. Installing JBossTS XTS

The Web Services transaction component, XTS, may be installed to provide WS-AT and WS-BA
support for web services hosted in the server. The application is packaged as a .sar file found in docs/
examples/transactions/ and should be installed by unpacking this archive into the a new jbossxts.sar
directory which you should create in the server/[name]/deploy/ directory of a suitable server. Consult
the README.txt in docs/examples/transactions/ for any additional deployment information. The
server must also be running either JBossTS JTA or JTS and JBossWS Native. Note that XTS is not
currently expected to work with other JBossWS backends such as CXF. The default XTS configuration
is suitable for most usage and will automatically pick up network interface and port binding information

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Transaction Management Console

from the application server configuration. Manual configuration changes are necessary only for
deployments where applications require use of a transaction coordinator on a separate host, for which
the XTS documentation should be consulted. The directory tree created by unpacking the jbossxts.sar
file will contain a jbossxts-api.jar Developers may link against this .jar at build time, but should not
package it with their applications in order to avoid classloading problems. The remaining .jar files
contain internal implementation classes and should not be used directly by application code.

7.10. Transaction Management Console

To facilitate investigation of issues resulting from heuristic or unrecovered transactions, a simple
GUI tool is available for inspection of the internal state of the ObjectStore, in which transaction state
logs are recorded. The tool allows users to view transactions and their enlisted resources, as well
as forcing transaction resolutions i.e. commit or rollback. The tool is an unsupported experimental
prototype and should be used at your own risk. It is available from docs/example/transactions/ and the
README.txt file in that directory describes how it may be deployed.

7.11. Experimental Components

In addition to the supported components of JBossTS that ship as part of JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform, there is ongoing feature work that may eventually find its way into future releases of the
product. Meanwhile these prototype components are available via from the jboss.org community site.
Users are cautioned that there is no guarantee these will work correctly and nor are they covered by
the Enterprise Application Platform support agreement. However, some of the advanced functionality
available may nevertheless be attractive to projects in the early stages of development. Users
downloading these prototypes must be aware of the limitations concerning module compatibility, in
accordance with the 'source code and customization' section below.

• txbridge

For certain use cases it is desirable to be able to invoke traditional transaction components such
as EJBs, within the scope of a Web Services transaction. Likewise, such components may wish to
invoke transactional web services. This involves two distinct transaction types: JTA i.e. XA based
transactions for the JEE components and WS-AT transactions for the web services. It is necessary
to integrate these transactions into a single entity spanning all the involved components. It is this
problem that the transaction bridge addresses.

• BA Framework

The techniques required for writing extended, compensation based transactions for WS-BA are
still in their infancy. The API provided by XTS is low level, requiring the business programmer
to undertake much of the transaction plumbing work. The BA Framework provides high level
annotations that move responsibility for much of the transaction handling into the application server
middleware. Using the framework, programmers can focus on writing business logic and thus be
considerably more productive.

7.12. Source code and upgrading

Most transaction related problems can be diagnosed by JBoss support, upon provision of debug logs
from the server. However, it is occasionally desirable to be able to step though transaction code in a
debugger, or simply to review the code to help understanding of the provided functionality.

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Chapter 7. Transaction Management

The source code for JBossTS can be downloaded direct from the project's svn repository at http://
anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/labs/labs/jbosstm/ To find the version matching the binaries in JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform, consult your server logs. At startup the server prints a string similar to:

INFO [TransactionManagerService] JBossTS Transaction Service (JTA version -

tag:JBOSSTS_4_6_1_GA_CP02) - JBoss Inc.

The value given for the tag corresponds to a tree under /tags/ in the svn repository. Note that the
version refers to the JBossTS releases consumed by Enterprise Application Platform, not the
Enterprise Application Platform release numbering. Users building the Enterprise Application Platform
from source may also consult the version.jboss.jbossts value in component-matix/pom.xml

Please note that installing any version of JBossTS other than those provided with the Enterprise
Application Platform distribution or its CP releases is not supported. Also note that, whilst some
JBossTS components are packaged individually, it is not supported to mix and match versions. i.e.
do not run the JTA from one tag with the XTS from another. API and functionality changes between
releases may make this unstable.

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Chapter 8.

Remoting
The main objective of JBoss Remoting is to provide a single API for most network based invocations
and related services that use pluggable transports and data marshallers. The JBoss Remoting API
provides the ability for making synchronous and asynchronous remote calls, push and pull callbacks,
and automatic discovery of remoting servers. The intention is to allow for the addition of different
transports to fit different needs, yet still maintain the same API for making the remote invocations and
only requiring configuration changes, not code changes, to fit these different needs.

Out of the box, Remoting supplies multiple transports (bisocket, http, rmi, socket, servlet, and their
ssl enabled counterparts), standard and compressing data marshallers, and a configurable facility
for switching between standard jdk serialization and JBoss Serializabion. It is also capable of remote
classloading, has extensive facilities for connection failure notification, performs call by reference
optimization for client/server invocations collocated in a single JVM, and implements multihomed
servers.

In the Enterprise Application Platform, Remoting supplies the transport layer for the EJB2, EJB3, and
Messaging subsystems. In each case, the configuration of Remoting is largely predetermined and
fixed, but there are times when it is useful to know how to alter a Remoting configuration.

8.1. Background
A Remoting server consists of a Connector, which wraps and configures a transport specific server
invoker. A connector is represented by an InvokerLocator string, such as

socket://bluemonkeydiamond.com:8888/?timeout=10000&serialization=jboss

which indicates that a server using the socket transport is accessible at port 8888 of host
bluemonkeydiamond.com, and that the server is configured to use a socket timeout of 10000 and to
use JBoss Serialization. A Remoting client can use an InvokerLocator to connect to a given server.

In the Enterprise Application Platform, Remoting servers and clients are created far below the
surface and are accessible only through configuration files. Moreover, when a SLSB, for example, is
downloaded from the JNDI directory, it comes with a copy of the InvokerLocator, so that it knows how
to contact the appropriate Remoting server. The important fact to note is that, since the server and
its clients share the InvokerLocator, the parameters in the InvokerLocator serve to configure
both clients and servers.

8.2. JBoss Remoting Configuration

There are two kinds of XML files that can be used to create and configure a Remoting Connector. A
file with a name of the form *-service.xml can be used to define a Connector as an MBean, and a file
of the form *-jboss-beans.xml can be used to define a Connector as a POJO.

8.2.1. MBeans
In the HornetQ JMS subsystem, a Remoting server is configured in the file remoting-bisocket-
service.xml, which, in abbreviated form, looks like

<mbean code="org.jboss.remoting.transport.Connector"

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Chapter 8. Remoting

name="jboss.messaging:service=Connector,transport=bisocket"
display-name="Bisocket Transport Connector">
<attribute name="Configuration">
<config>
<invoker transport="bisocket">
<attribute name="marshaller"
isParam="true">org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat</attribute>
<attribute name="unmarshaller"
isParam="true">org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat</attribute>

<attribute name="serverBindAddress">${jboss.bind.address}</
attribute>
<attribute name="serverBindPort">4457</attribute>
<attribute name="callbackTimeout">10000</attribute>
...
</invoker>
...
</config>
</attribute>
</mbean>

This configuration file tells us several facts, including

• This server uses the bisocket transport;

• it runs on port 4457 of host ${jboss.bind.address}; and

• HornetQ uses its own marshalling algorithm.

The InvokerLocator is derived from this file. The important fact to note is that the attribute
"isParam" determines if a parameter is to be included in the InvokerLocator. If "isParam" is
omitted (or if it is set to "false"), then the parameter applies only to the server and is not communicated
to the client. It follows that the InvokerLocator for this Remoting server is (assuming the value of
${jboss.bind.address} is bluemonkeydiamond.com)

bisocket://bluemonkeydiamond.com:4457/?marshaller=
org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat&
unmarshaller=org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat

Note that the parameter "callbackTimeout" is not included in the InvokerLocator.

8.2.2. POJOs
The same Connector could be configured by way of the
org.jboss.remoting.ServerConfiguration POJO:

<bean name="HornetQConnector"
class="org.jboss.remoting.transport.Connector">
<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss.messaging:service=Connector,transport=bisocket",

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POJOs

exposedInterface=org.jboss.remoting.transport.ConnectorMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)</annotation>
<property name="serverConfiguration"><inject
bean="HornetQConfiguration"/></property>
</bean>

<bean name="HornetQConfiguration"
class="org.jboss.remoting.ServerConfiguration">
<constructor>
<parameter>bisocket</parameter>
</constructor>

<property name="invokerLocatorParameters">
<map keyClass="java.lang.String" valueClass="java.lang.String">
<entry>
<key>serverBindAddress</key>
<value>
<value-factory bean="ServiceBindingManager"
method="getStringBinding">
<parameter>HornetQConnector</parameter>
<parameter>${host}</parameter>
</value-factory>
</value>
</entry>
<entry>
<key>serverBindPort</key>
<value>
<value-factory bean="ServiceBindingManager"
method="getStringBinding">
<parameter>HornetQConnector</parameter>
<parameter>${port}</parameter>
</value-factory>
</value>
</entry>
...
<entry><key>marshaller</key>
<value>org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat</value></entry>
<entry><key>unmarshaller</key>
<value>org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat</value></entry>
</map
</property>

<property name="serverParameters">
<map keyClass="java.lang.String" valueClass="java.lang.String">
<entry><key>callbackTimeout</key> <value>10000</value></entry>
</map>
</property>

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Chapter 8. Remoting

...
</bean>

In this version, the configuration information is expressed in the HornetQConfiguration

ServerConfiguration POJO, which is then injected into the HornetQConnector
org.jboss.remoting.transport.Connector POJO. The syntax is that of the Microcontainer,
which is beyond the scope of this chapter. One variation from the MBean version is the use
of the ServiceBindingManager, which is also beyond the scope of this chapter. Note that the
@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX annotation causes the HornetQConnector to be
visible as an MBean named "jboss.messaging:service=Connector,transport=bisocket".

8.3. Multihomed servers

Remoting can create servers bound to multiple interfaces. One application of this facility would be
binding a server to one interface that faces the internet and another that faces a LAN. For example,
the preceding POJO example can be modified by (1) adding POJOs

<bean name="homes1" class="java.lang.StringBuffer">

<constructor>
<parameter class="java.lang.String">
<value-factory bean="ServiceBindingManager"
method="getStringBinding">
<parameter>HornetQConnector:bindingHome1</parameter>
<parameter>${host}:${port}</parameter>
</value-factory>
</parameter>
</constructor>
</bean>

<bean name="homes2" class="java.lang.StringBuffer">

<constructor factoryMethod="append">
<factory bean="homes1"/>
<parameter>
<value-factory bean="ServiceBindingManager"
method="getStringBinding">
<parameter>HornetQConnector:bindingHome2</parameter>
<parameter>!${host}:${port}</parameter>
</value-factory>
</parameter>
</constructor>
</bean>

which results in a StringBuffer with a value something like (according to the ServiceBindingManager
configuration values for HornetQConnector:bindingHome1 and HornetQConnector:bindingHome2)
"external.acme.com:5555!internal.acme.com:4444", and (2) replacing the "serverBindAddress" and
"serverBindPort" parameters with

<entry>

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Address translation

<key>homes</key>
<value><value-factory bean="homes2" method="toString"/></value>
</entry>

which transforms the StringBuffer into the String "external.acme.com:5555!internal.acme.com:4444"

and injects it into the HornetQConnector. The resulting InvokerLocator will look like

bisocket://multihome/?homes=external.acme.com:5555!internal.acme.com:
4444&marshaller=org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat&
unmarshaller=org.jboss.jms.wireformat.JMSWireFormat

8.4. Address translation

Sometimes a server must be accessed through an address translating firewall, and a Remoting server
can be configured with both a binding address/port and an address/port to be used by a client. Two
more parameters are used: "clientConnectAddress" and "clientConnectPort". The "serverBindAddress"
and "serverBindPort" values are used to create the server, and the values of "clientConnectAddress"
and "clientConnectPort" are used in the InvokerLocator, which tells the client where the server is.
There is also an analogous "connecthomes" parameter for multihome servers. In this case, "homes" is
used to configure the server, and "connecthomes" tells the client where the server is.

8.5. Where are they now?

The actual Remoting configuration files for the supported subsystems are as follows:

EJB2: ${JBOSS_HOME}/server/${CONFIG}/deploy/remoting-jboss-beans.xml

EJB3: ${JBOSS_HOME}/server/${CONFIG}/deploy/ejb3-connectors-jboss-beans.xml

HornetQ: ${JBOSS_HOME}/server/${CONFIG}/deploy/messaging/remoting-bisocket-service.xml

8.6. Further information.

Additional details may be found in the Remoting Guide at http://www.jboss.org/jbossremoting/docs/
1
guide/2.5/html/index.html .

1
http://www.jboss.org/jbossremoting/docs/guide/2.5/html/index.html

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Chapter 9.

JBoss Messaging
JBoss Messaging is the new enterprise messaging system from JBoss. It is a complete rewrite
of JBossMQ, the legacy JBoss JMS provider. It is the default JMS provider on JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform 5.

JBoss Messaging is a high Performance JMS 1.1 compliant implementation integrated with JBoss
Transactions. It also offers:

• Clustered Queues and Topics by Default

• Intelligent Message Redistributions

• Transparent Failover

• In memory message Replication

JBoss Messaging is an integral part of Red Hat's strategy for messaging.

JBoss Messaging provides an open source and standards-based messaging platform that brings
enterprise-class messaging to the mass market. It also implements a high performance, robust
messaging core that is designed to support the largest and most heavily utilized SOA, enterprise
service buses (ESBs) and other integration needs ranging from the simplest to the highest network
demands.

It allows you to smoothly distribute your application load across your cluster, intelligently balancing and
utilizing each nodes CPU cycles, with no single point of failure. This provides a highly scalable and
performance implementation for clustering.

JBoss Messaging includes a JMS front-end to deliver messaging in a standards-based format as well
as being designed to be able to support other messaging protocols in the future.

9.1. Configuring JBoss Messaging

The JBoss Messaging service configuration is spread among several configuration files. Depending
on the functionality provided by the services it configures, the configuration data is distributed between
<JBOSS_HOME>/server/<configuration>/deploy/messaging-service.xml, remoting-
service.xml, connection-factories-service.xml, destinations-service.xml and
xxx-persistence-service.xml (where xxx is the name of your database). The default will be
hsqldb-persistence-service.xml for the hsqldb database.

9.1.1. Configuring the SecurityStore

SecurityStore is a pluggable object, and it has a default implementation in messaging-
service.xml:

<depends optional-attribute-name="SecurityStore"
proxy-type="org.jboss.jms.server.SecurityStore">
jboss.messaging:service=SecurityStore
</depends>

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This implementation points the ServerPeer to jboss.messaging:service=SecurityStore,

which is defined in the messaging-jboss-beans.xml file.

9.1.2. SecurityStore Attributes

The following are SecurityStore attributes from the messaging-jboss-beans.xml file above.

DefaultSecurityConfig
Default security configuration is used when the security configuration for a specific queue or topic has
not been overridden in the destination's deployment descriptor. It has exactly the same syntax and
semantics as in JBossMQ.

The DefaultSecurityConfig attribute element should contain one <security> element. The <security>
element can contain multiple <role> elements. Each <role> element defines the default access for that
particular role.

If the read attribute is true then that role will be able to read (create consumers, receive messaages or
browse) destinations by default. If the write attribute is true then that role will be able to write (create
producers or send messages) to destinations by default. If the create attribute is true then that role will
be able to create durable subscriptions on topics by default.

SecurityDomain
The JAAS security domain to be used by this server peer.

SuckerPassword
This defines how the SecurityStore will authenticate the sucker user (JBM.SUCKER).

9.2. Configuring the ServerPeer

The ServerPeer is the heart of the JBoss Messaging JMS. All JBoss Messaging services are
rooted at the server peer and the server's configuration resides in the messaging-service.xml
configuration file. An example of a Server Peer configuration is presented below, though not all values
for the server peer's attributes are specified in the example.

<!-- ServerPeer MBean configuration

============================== -->

<attribute name="ServerPeerID">${jboss.messaging.ServerPeerID:0}</
attribute>

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Configuring the ServerPeer

<attribute name="DefaultQueueJNDIContext">/queue</attribute>

<attribute name="DefaultTopicJNDIContext">/topic</attribute>

<attribute name="PostOffice">jboss.messaging:service=PostOffice</
attribute>

<attribute
name="DefaultDLQ">jboss.messaging.destination:service=Queue,name=DLQ</
attribute>

<!-- The default maximum number of times to attempt delivery of a message

before sending to the DLQ (if configured).
This can be overridden on a per destinatin basis -->

<attribute name="DefaultExpiryQueue">
jboss.messaging.destination:service=Queue,name=ExpiryQueue
</attribute>

<!-- The default redelivery delay to impose. This can be overridden on a

per destination basis -->

<!-- The periodicity of the message counter manager enquiring on queues

for statistics -->

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<attribute name="StrictTck">false</attribute>

jboss.messaging.connectionfactory:service=ClusterPullConnectionFactory
</attribute>

<!-- When redistributing messages in the cluster. Do we need to preserve

the order of messages received
by a particular consumer from a particular producer? -->

<attribute name="DefaultPreserveOrdering">false</attribute>

<!-- The password used by the message sucker connections to create

connections.
THIS SHOULD ALWAYS BE CHANGED AT INSTALL TIME TO SECURE SYSTEM
<attribute name="SuckerPassword"></attribute>
-->

<!-- The name of the server aspects configuration resource

<attribute name="ServerAopConfig">aop/jboss-aop-messaging-server.xml</
attribute>
-->

<depends optional-attribute-
name="PersistenceManager">jboss.messaging:service=PersistenceManager</
depends>

<depends optional-attribute-
name="JMSUserManager">jboss.messaging:service=JMSUserManager</depends>

<depends>
jboss.messaging:service=Connector,transport=bisocket

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Server Attributes

</depends>
<depends optional-attribute-name="SecurityStore"
proxy-type="org.jboss.jms.server.SecurityStore">
jboss.messaging:service=SecurityStore
</depends>
</mbean>
...

9.3. Server Attributes

This section discusses the MBean attributes of the ServerPeer MBean.

9.3.1. ServerPeerID
The ServerPeerID is the unique ID of the server peer that every node you deploy must have. This
applies whether the different nodes form a cluster, or are only linked via a message bridge. The ID
must be a valid integer.

Note
The scope of ServerPeerID is currently from 0 to 255.

9.3.2. DefaultQueueJNDIContext
The default JNDI context to use when binding queues. Defaults to /queue.

9.3.3. DefaultTopicJNDIContext
The default JNDI context to use when binding topics.wa Defaults to /topic.

9.3.4. PostOffice
This is the post office that the ServerPeer uses. You will not normally need to change this attribute.
The post office is responsible for routing messages to queues and maintaining the mapping between
addresses and queues.

9.3.5. DefaultDLQ
This is the name of the default DLQ (Dead Letter Queue) the server peer will use for destinations.
The DLQ can be overridden on a per destination basis - see the destination MBean configuration for
more details. A DLQ is a special destination where messages are sent when the server has attempted
to deliver them unsuccessfully more than a certain number of times. If the DLQ is not specified at all
then the message will be removed after the maximum number of delivery attempts. The maximum
number of delivery attempts can be specified using the attribute DefaultMaxDeliveryAttempts for a
global default or individually on a per destination basis.

9.3.6. DefaultMaxDeliveryAttempts
The default for the maximum number of times delivery of a message will be attempted before sending
the message to the DLQ, if configured.

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The default value is 10.This value can also be overridden on a per destination basis.

9.3.7. DefaultExpiryQueue
This is the name of the default expiry queue the server peer will use for destinations. The expiry can
be overridden on a per destination basis - see the destination MBean configuration for more details.
An expiry queue is a special destination where messages are sent when they have expired. Message
expiry is determined by the value of Message::getJMSExpiration() If the expiry queue is not specified
at all then the message will be removed after it is expired.

9.3.8. DefaultRedeliveryDelay
When redelivering a message after failure of previous delivery it is often beneficial to introduce a delay
perform redelivery in order to prevent thrashing of delivery-failure, delivery-failure etc.

The default value is 0 which means there will be no delay.

Change this if your application could benefit with a delay before redelivery. This value can also be
overridden on a per destination basis.

9.3.9. MessageCounterSamplePeriod
Periodically the server will query each queue to gets its statistics. This is the period.

The default value is 10000 milliseconds.

9.3.10. FailoverStartTimeout
The maximum number of milliseconds the client will wait for failover to start on the server side when a
problem is detected.

The default value is 60000 (one minute).

9.3.11. FailoverCompleteTimeout
The maximum number of milliseconds the client will wait for failover to complete on the server side
after it has started. The default value is 300000 (five minutes).

9.3.12. DefaultMessageCounterHistoryDayLimit
JBoss Messaging provides a message counter history which shows the number of messages arriving
on each queue of a certain number of days. This attribute represents the maxiumum number of days
for which to store message counter history. It can be overridden on a per destination basis.

9.3.13. ClusterPullConnectionFactory
The name of the connection factory to use for pulling messages between nodes. If you wish to turn
off message sucking between queues altogether, but retain failover, then you can ommit this attribute
altogether.

9.3.14. DefaultPreserveOrdering
If true, then strict JMS ordering is preserved in the cluster. See the cluster configurations section for
more details. Default is false.

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RecoverDeliveriesTimeout

9.3.15. RecoverDeliveriesTimeout
When failover occurs, already delivered messages will be kept aside, waiting for clients to reconnect.
In the case that clients never reconnect (e.g. the client is dead) then eventually these messages will
timeout and be added back to the queue. The value is in ms. The default is 5 mins.

9.3.16. SuckerPassword
JBoss Messaging internally makes connections between nodes in order to redistribute messages
between clustered destinations. These connections are made with the user name of a special
reserved user. On this parameter you define the password used as these connections are made.
You will need to configure the Sucker password in the SecurityStore mbean configuration file
(messaging-jboss-beans.xml), the ServerPeer Sucker password will be ignored.

Warning
This must be specified at install time, or the default password will be used. Any one who
then knows the default password will be able to gain access to any destinations on the
server. This value must be changed at install time.

9.3.17. StrictTCK
Set to true if you want strict JMS TCK semantiocs

9.3.18. Destinations
Returns a list of the destinations (queues and topics) currently deployed.

9.3.19. MessageCounters
JBoss Messaging provides a message counter for each queue.

9.3.20. MessageStatistics
JBoss Messaging provides statistics for each message counter for each queue.

9.3.21. SupportsFailover
Set to false to prevent server side failover occurring in a cluster when a node crashes.

9.3.22. PersistenceManager
This is the persistence manager that the ServerPeer uses. You will not normally need to change this
attribute.

9.3.23. JMSUserManager
This is the JMS user manager that the ServerPeer uses. You will not normally need to change this
attribute.

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9.3.24. SecurityStore
This is the pluggable SecurityStore. If you redefine this SecurityStore, notice it will need to
authenticate the MessageSucker user ("JBM.SUCKER") with all the special permissions required by
clustering.

9.4. MBean operations of the ServerPeer MBean

9.4.1. DeployQueue
This operation lets you programmatically deploy a queue. There are two overloaded versions of this
operation. If the queue already exists but is undeployed it is deployed. Otherwise it is created and
deployed. The name parameter represents the name of the destination to deploy. The jndiName
parameter (optional) represents the full jndi name where to bind the destination. If this is not specified
then the destination will be bound in <DefaultQueueJNDIContext>/<name>.

The first version of this operation deploys the destination with the default paging parameters. The
second overloaded version deploys the destination with the specified paging parameters. See the
section on configuring destinations for a discussion of what the paging parameters mean.

9.4.2. UndeployQueue
This operation lets you programmatically undeploy a queue. The queue is undeployed but is NOT
removed from persistent storage. This operation returns true if the queue was successfull undeployed.
otherwise it returns false.

9.4.3. DestroyQueue
This operation lets you programmatically destroy a queue. The queue is undeployed and then all its
data is destroyed from the database.

Warning
Be cautious when using this method since it will delete all data for the queue.

This operation returns true if the queue was successfully destroyed. otherwise it returns false.

9.4.4. DeployTopic
This operation lets you programmatically deploy a topic.

There are two overloaded versions of this operation.

If the topic already exists but is undeployed it is deployed. Otherwise it is created and deployed.

The name parameter represents the name of the destination to deploy.

The jndiName parameter (optional) represents the full jndi name where to bind the destination. If this is
not specified then the destination will be bound in <DefaultTopicJNDIContext>/<name>.

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UndeployTopic

9.4.5. UndeployTopic
This operation lets you programmatically undeploy a topic. The queue is undeployed but is NOT
removed from persistent storage. This operation returns true if the topic was successfully undeployed.
otherwise it returns false.

9.4.6. DestroyTopic
This operation lets you programmatically destroy a topic.

The topic is undeployed and then all its data is destroyed from the database.

Warning
Be careful when using this method since it will delete all data for the topic.

This operation returns true if the topic was successfully destroyed. otherwise it returns false.

9.4.7. ListMessageCountersAsHTML
This operation returns message counters in an easy to display HTML format.

9.4.8. ResetAllMesageCounters
This operation resets all message counters to zero.

9.4.9. EnableMessageCounters
This operation enables all message counters for all destinations. Message counters are disabled by
default.

9.4.10. DisableMessageCounters
This operation disables all message counters for all destinations. Message counters are disabled by
default.

9.4.11. RetrievePreparedTransactions
Retrieves a list of the Xids for all transactions currently in a prepared state on the node.

9.4.12. ShowPreparedTransactionsAsHTML
Retrieves a list of the Xids for all transactions currently in a prepared state on the node in an easy to
display HTML format.

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Chapter 10.

Use Alternative Databases with JBoss

Enterprise Application Platform
10.1. How to Use Alternative Databases
JBoss utilizes the Hypersonic database as its default database. While this is good for development
and prototyping, you or your company will probably require another database to be used for
production. This chapter covers configuring JBoss Enterprise Application Platform to use alternative
databases. We cover the procedures for all officially supported databases on the JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform. They include: MySQL 5.0, MySQL 5.1, PostgreSQL 8.2.4, PostgreSQL 8.3.5,
Oracle 10g, Oracle 11g R2, Oracle 11g R2 RAC, DB2 9.7, Sybase ASE 15.0, and MS SQL 2005 and
2008.

Please note that in this chapter, we explain how to use alternative databases to support all services
in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. This includes all the system level services such as EJB
and JMS. For individual applications (e.g., WAR or EAR) deployed in JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform, you can still use any backend database by setting up the appropriate data source
connection.

We assume that you have already installed the external database server, and have it running. You
should create an empty database named jboss, accessible via the username / password pair
jbossuser / jbosspass. The jboss database is used to store JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform internal data -- JBoss Enterprise Application Platform will automatically create tables and
data in it.

10.2. Install JDBC Drivers

For the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and our applications to use the external database, we
also need to install the database's JDBC driver. The JDBC driver is a JAR file, which you'll need to
copy into your JBoss Enterprise Application Platform's <JBoss_Home>/server/all/lib directory.
Replace all with the server configuration you are using if needed. This file is loaded when JBoss
starts up. So if you have the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform running, you'll need to shut down
and restart. The availability of JDBC drivers for different databases are as follows.

• MySQL JDBC drivers can be downloaded from the MySQL web site http://www.mysql.com/products/
connector/.

• Postgres JDBC drivers can be downloaded from the Postgres web site http://jdbc.postgresql.org/.

• Oracle JDBC drivers can be downloaded from the Oracle web site http://www.oracle.com/
1
technology/software/tech/java/sqlj_jdbc/index.html .

• IBM DB2 JDBC drivers can be downloaded from the IBM web site http://www-306.ibm.com/
software/data/db2/java/.

• Sybase JDBC drivers can be downloaded from the Sybase jConnect product page http://
www.sybase.com/products/allproductsa-z/softwaredeveloperkit/jconnect

• MS SQL Server JDBC drivers can be downloaded from the MSDN web site http://
msdn.microsoft.com/data/jdbc/.

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10.2.1. Special notes on Sybase

Some of the services in JBoss uses null values for the default tables that are created. Sybase
Adaptive Server should be configured to allow nulls by default.

sp_dboption db_name, "allow nulls by default", true

Refer the sybase manuals for more options.

Enable JAVA services

To use any java service like JMS, CMP, timers etc. configured with Sybase, java should be enabled on
Sybase Adaptive Server. To do this use:

sp_configure "enable java",1

Refer to the sybase manuals for more information.

If java is not enabled you might see this exception being thrown when you try to use any of the above
services.

com.sybase.jdbc2.jdbc.SybSQLException: Cannot run this command because Java

services are not enabled. A user with System Administrator (SA) role must
reconfigure the system to enable Java

CMP Configuration
To use Container Managed Persistence for user defined Java objects with Sybase Adaptive Server
Enterprise the java classes should be installed in the database. The system table 'sysxtypes' contains
one row for each extended, Java-SQL datatype. This table is only used for Adaptive Servers enabled
for Java. Install java classes using the installjava program.

installjava -f <jar-file-name> -S<sybase-server> -U<super-user> -P<super-

pass> -D<db-name>

Refer the installjava manual in Sybase for more options.

Installing Java Classes

1. You have to be a super-user with required privileges to install java classes.

2. The jar file you are trying to install should be created without compression.

3. Java classes that you install and use in the server must be compiled with JDK 1.2.2.
If you compile a class with a later JDK, you will be able to install it in the server using
the installjava utility, but you will get a java.lang.ClassFormatError exception when you
attempt to use the class. This is because Sybase Adaptive Server uses an older JVM
internally, and hence requires the java classes to be compiled with the same.

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Configuring JDBC DataSources

10.2.2. Configuring JDBC DataSources

The schema for the top-level datasource elements of the *-ds.xml configuration deployment file
is shown in Figure 10.1, “The simplified JCA DataSource configuration descriptor top-level schema
elements”.

Figure 10.1. The simplified JCA DataSource configuration descriptor top-level schema elements

Multiple datasource configurations may be specified in a configuration deployment file. The child
elements of the datasources root are:

• mbean: Any number mbean elements may be specified to define MBean services that should be
included in the jboss-service.xml descriptor that results from the transformation. This may be
used to configure services used by the datasources.

• no-tx-datasource: This element is used to specify the

(org.jboss.resource.connectionmanager) NoTxConnectionManager service
configuration. NoTxConnectionManager is a JCA connection manager with no transaction
support. The no-tx-datasource child element schema is given in Figure 10.2, “The non-
transactional DataSource configuration schema”.

• local-tx-datasource: This element is used to specify the

(org.jboss.resource.connectionmanager) LocalTxConnectionManager service
configuration. LocalTxConnectionManager implements a ConnectionEventListener that
implements XAResource to manage transactions through the transaction manager. To ensure
that all work in a local transaction occurs over the same ManagedConnection, it includes a xid
to ManagedConnection map. When a Connection is requested or a transaction started with
a connection handle in use, it checks to see if a ManagedConnection already exists enrolled
in the global transaction and uses it if found. Otherwise, a free ManagedConnection has its
LocalTransaction started and is used. The local-tx-datasource child element schema is
given in Figure 10.3, “The non-XA DataSource configuration schema”

• xa-datasource: This element is used to specify the

(org.jboss.resource.connectionmanager) XATxConnectionManager service
configuration. XATxConnectionManager implements a ConnectionEventListener that
obtains the XAResource to manage transactions through the transaction manager from the

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adaptor ManagedConnection. To ensure that all work in a local transaction occurs over the same
ManagedConnection, it includes a xid to ManagedConnection map. When a Connection
is requested or a transaction started with a connection handle in use, it checks to see if a
ManagedConnection already exists enrolled in the global transaction and uses it if found.
Otherwise, a free ManagedConnection has its LocalTransaction started and is used. The
xa-datasource child element schema is given in Figure 10.4, “The XA DataSource configuration
schema”.

• ha-local-tx-datasource: This element is identical to local-tx-datasource, with the addition of

the experimental datasource failover capability allowing JBoss to failover to an alternate database in
the event of a database failure.

• ha-xa-datasource: This element is identical to xa-datasource, with the addition of the

experimental datasource failover capability allowing JBoss to failover to an alternate database in the
event of a database failure.

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Figure 10.2. The non-transactional DataSource configuration schema

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Figure 10.3. The non-XA DataSource configuration schema

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Figure 10.4. The XA DataSource configuration schema

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Figure 10.5. The schema for the experimental non-XA DataSource with failover

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Configuring JDBC DataSources

Figure 10.6. The schema for the experimental XA Datasource with failover

Elements that are common to all datasources include:

• jndi-name: The JNDI name under which the DataSource wrapper will be bound. Note that this
name is relative to the java:/ context, unless use-java-context is set to false. DataSource
wrappers are not usable outside of the server VM, so they are normally bound under the java:/,
which isn't shared outside the local VM.

• use-java-context: If this is set to false the the datasource will be bound in the global JNDI context
rather than the java: context.

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• user-name: This element specifies the default username used when creating a new connection.
The actual username may be overridden by the application code getConnection parameters or
the connection creation context JAAS Subject.

• password: This element specifies the default password used when creating a new connection. The
actual password may be overridden by the application code getConnection parameters or the
connection creation context JAAS Subject.

• application-managed-security: Specifying this element indicates that connections in

the pool should be distinguished by application code supplied parameters, such as from
getConnection(user, pw).

• security-domain: Specifying this element indicates that connections in the pool should be
distinguished by JAAS Subject based information. The content of the security-domain is the
name of the JAAS security manager that will handle authentication. This name correlates to the
JAAS login-config.xml descriptor application-policy/name attribute.

• security-domain-and-application: Specifying this element indicates that connections in the pool

should be distinguished both by application code supplied parameters and JAAS Subject based
information. The content of the security-domain is the name of the JAAS security manager
that will handle authentication. This name correlates to the JAAS login-config.xml descriptor
application-policy/name attribute.

• use-strict-min: This element specifies whether idle connections that are below the minimum pool
size should be closed.

• min-pool-size: This element specifies the minimum number of connections a pool should hold.
These pool instances are not created until an initial request for a connection is made. This defaults
to 0.

• max-pool-size: This element specifies the maximum number of connections for a pool. No more
than the max-pool-size number of connections will be created in a pool. This defaults to 20.

• blocking-timeout-millis: This element specifies the maximum time in milliseconds to block while
waiting for a connection before throwing an exception. Note that this blocks only while waiting for
a permit for a connection, and will never throw an exception if creating a new connection takes an
inordinately long time. The default is 5000.

• idle-timeout-minutes: This element specifies the maximum time in minutes a connection may be
idle before being closed. The actual maximum time depends also on the IdleRemover scan time,
which is 1/2 the smallest idle-timeout-minutes of any pool.

• new-connection-sql: This is a SQL statement that should be executed when a new connection is
created. This can be used to configure a connection with database specific settings not configurable
via connection properties.

• check-valid-connection-sql: This is a SQL statement that should be run on a connection before it

is returned from the pool to test its validity to test for stale pool connections. An example statement
could be: select count(*) from x.

• exception-sorter-class-name: This specifies a class that implements the

org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.ExceptionSorter interface to examine database
exceptions to determine whether or not the exception indicates a connection error. Current
implementations include:

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• org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.OracleExceptionSorter
• org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.MySQLExceptionSorter
• org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.SybaseExceptionSorter
• org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.InformixExceptionSorte

• valid-connection-checker-class-name: This specifies a class that implements the

org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.ValidConnectionChecker interface to
provide a SQLException isValidConnection(Connection e) method that is called
with a connection that is to be returned from the pool to test its validity. This overrides the
check-valid-connection-sql when present. The only provided implementation is
org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.OracleValidConnectionChecker.

• track-statements: This boolean element specifies whether to check for unclosed statements
when a connection is returned to the pool. If true, a warning message is issued for each unclosed
statement. If the log4j category org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.WrappedConnection
has trace level enabled, a stack trace of the connection close call is logged as well. This is a debug
feature that can be turned off in production.

• prepared-statement-cache-size: This element specifies the number of prepared statements per

connection in an LRU cache, which is keyed by the SQL query. Setting this to zero disables the
cache.

• depends: The depends element specifies the JMX ObjectName string of a service that the
connection manager services depend on. The connection manager service will not be started until
the dependent services have been started.

• type-mapping: This element declares a default type mapping for this datasource. The type mapping
should match a type-mapping/name element from standardjbosscmp-jdbc.xml.

Additional common child elements for both no-tx-datasource and local-tx-datasource

include:

• connection-url: This is the JDBC driver connection URL string, for example,
jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost:1701.

• driver-class: This is the fully qualified name of the JDBC driver class, for example,
org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver.

• connection-property: The connection-property element allows you to pass in arbitrary

connection properties to the java.sql.Driver.connect(url, props) method. Each
connection-property specifies a string name/value pair with the property name coming from
the name attribute and the value coming from the element content.

Elements in common to the local-tx-datasource and xa-datasource are:

• transaction-isolation: This element specifies the java.sql.Connection transaction isolation

level to use. The constants defined in the Connection interface are the possible element content
values and include:

• TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED
• TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED
• TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ
• TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE

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• TRANSACTION_NONE

• no-tx-separate-pools: The presence of this element indicates that two connection pools are
required to isolate connections used with JTA transaction from those used without a JTA transaction.
The pools are lazily constructed on first use. Its use case is for Oracle (and possibly other vendors)
XA implementations that don't like using an XA connection with and without a JTA transaction.

The unique xa-datasource child elements are:

• track-connection-by-tx: Specifying a true value for this element makes the connection
manager keep an xid to connection map and only put the connection back in the pool when the
transaction completes and all the connection handles are closed or disassociated (by the method
calls returning). As a side effect, we never suspend and resume the xid on the connection's
XAResource. This is the same connection tracking behavior used for local transactions.

The XA spec implies that any connection may be enrolled in any transaction using any xid for
that transaction at any time from any thread (suspending other transactions if necessary). The
original JCA implementation assumed this and aggressively delisted connections and put them
back in the pool as soon as control left the EJB they were used in or handles were closed. Since
some other transaction could be using the connection the next time work needed to be done on
the original transaction, there is no way to get the original connection back. It turns out that most
XADataSource driver vendors do not support this, and require that all work done under a particular
xid go through the same connection.

• xa-datasource-class: The fully qualified name of the javax.sql.XADataSource implementation

class, for example, com.informix.jdbcx.IfxXADataSource.

• xa-datasource-property: The xa-datasource-property element allows for specification of

the properties to assign to the XADataSource implementation class. Each property is identified
by the name attribute and the property value is given by the xa-datasource-property element
content. The property is mapped onto the XADataSource implementation by looking for a
JavaBeans style getter method for the property name. If found, the value of the property is set
using the JavaBeans setter with the element text translated to the true property type using the
java.beans.PropertyEditor for the type.

• isSameRM-override-value: A boolean flag that allows one to override the behavior of the
javax.transaction.xa.XAResource.isSameRM(XAResource xaRes) method
behavior on the XA managed connection. If specified, this value is used unconditionally as the
isSameRM(xaRes) return value regardless of the xaRes parameter.

The failover options common to ha-xa-datasource and ha-local-tx-datasource are:

• url-delimeter: This element specifies a character used to separate multiple JDBC URLs.

• url-property: In the case of XA datasources, this property specifies the name of the xa-
datasource-property that contains the list of JDBC URLs to use.

10.3. Creating a DataSource for the External Database

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform connects to relational databases via datasources. These
datasource definitions can be found in the <JBoss_Home>/server/all/deploy directory. The
datasource definitions are deployable just like WAR and EAR files. The datasource files can be
recognized by looking for the XML files that end in *-ds.xml.

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Datasource definition files

The datasource definition files for all supported external databases can be found in the
<JBoss_Home>/docs/examples/jca directory.

• MySQL: mysql-ds.xml

• PostgreSQL: postgres-ds.xml

• Oracle: oracle-ds.xml

• DB2: db2-ds.xml

• Sybase: sybase-ds.xml

• MS SQL Server: mssql-ds.xml

The following code snippet shows the mysql-ds.xml file as an example. All the other *-ds.xml
files are very similiar. You will need to change the connection-url, as well as the user-name /
password, to fit your own database server installation.

<datasources>
<local-tx-datasource>
<jndi-name>MySqlDS</jndi-name>
<connection-url>jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/jboss</connection-url>
<driver-class>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</driver-class>
<user-name>jbossuser</user-name>
<password>jbosspass</password>
<exception-sorter-class-name>
org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.MySQLExceptionSorter
</exception-sorter-class-name>

<!-- corresponding type-mapping in the standardjbosscmp-jdbc.xml (optional)

-->
<metadata>
<type-mapping>mySQL</type-mapping>
</metadata>
</local-tx-datasource>

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</datasources>

Once you customized the *-ds.xml file to connect to your external database, you need to copy it
to the <JBoss_Home>/server/all/deploy directory. The database connection is now available
through the JNDI name specified in the *-ds.xml file.

10.4. Common configuration for DataSources and

ConnectionFactorys

10.4.1. General
• <mbean> - a standard jboss mbean deployment

• <depends> - the ObjectName of an MBean service this ConnectionFactory or DataSource

deployment depends upon

• <jndi-name> - the jndi name where it is bound. This is prefixed with java by default:

• <use-java-context> - set this to false to drop the java: context from the jndi name

10.4.2. XA
<xa-resource-timeout> - the number of seconds passed to

XAResource.setTranasctionTimeout()

when not zero. This feature is available on JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.0.3 and above.

10.4.3. Security parameters

JCA Login Modules - are used to inject security configuration into the connection when configured

• nothing - uses the user/password specified in -ds.xml for DataSources or the getConnection/
createConnection method without a user/password (the default).

• <application-managed-security> - uses the user/password passed on the getConnection or

createConnection request by the application.

• <security-domain> - uses the identified login module configured in conf/login-module.xml.

• <security-domain-and-application> - uses the identified login module configured in conf/login-

module.xml and other connection request information supplied by the application, e.g. queue or
topic in JMS.

10.4.3.1. Pooling parameters

• <no-tx-separate-pools> - whether separate subpools should be created for connections inside and
outside JTA transactions (default false).

• <min-pool-size> - the minimum number of connections in the pool (default 0 - zero)

• <max-pool-size> - the maximum number of connections in the pool (default 20)

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• <blocking-timeout-millis> - the length of time to wait for a connection to become available when all
the connections are checked out (default 5000 == 5 seconds, from 3.2.4 it is 30000 == 30 seconds)

• <idle-timeout-minutes> - the number of minutes after which unused connections are closed (default
15 minutes)

• <track-connection-by-tx> - whether the connection should be "locked" to the transaction, returning

it to the pool at the end of the transaction; in pre-JBoss-5.x releases the default value for Local
connection factories is true and false for XA; since JBoss-5.x the default value is true for both Local
and XA and the element is deprecated.

• <interleaving/> - enables interleaving for XA connection factories (this feature was added in
JBoss-5.x)

• <prefill> - whether to attempt to prefill the connection pool to the minimum number of connections.
NOTE: only supporting pools (OnePool) support this feature. A warning can be found in the logs if
the pool does not support this. This feature is available in JBoss 4.0.5 and above.

• <background-validation-millis> - background connection validation reduces the overall load on the

RDBMS system when validating a connection. Setting this parameter means that JBoss will attempt
to validate the current connections in the pool as a separate thread (ConnectionValidator). This
parameter's value defines the interval, in milliseconds, for which the ConnectionValidator will
run. (This value should not be the same as your <idle-timeout-minutes> value.)

• <use-fast-fail> - Whether or not to continue to attempt to acquire a connection from the pool even
if the nth attempt has failed. False by default. This is to address performance issues where SQL
validation may take significant time and resources to execute.

10.4.3.2. Security and Pooling

Unless the ResourceAdapter has <reauthentication-support> using multiple security identities will
create subpools for each identity.

Note
The min and max pool size are per subpool so be careful with these parameters if you
have lots of identities.

10.5. Change Database for the JMS Services

The JMS service in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform uses relational databases to persist its
messages. For improved performance, we should change the JMS service to take advantage of the
external database. To do that, we need to replace the file {jboss.dist}/server/${server}/
deploy/messaging/${database}-persistence-service.xml with the file ${jboss.dist}/
docs/examples/jms/${database}-persistence-service.xml depending on your external
database.

• MySQL: mysql-persistence-service.xml

• PostgreSQL: postgresql-persistence-service.xml

• Oracle: oracle-persistence-service.xml

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• DB2: db2-persistence-service.xml

• Sybase: sybase-persistence-service.xml

• MS SQL Server: mssql-persistence-service.xml

10.6. Support Foreign Keys in CMP Services

Next, we need to go change the <JBoss_Home>/server/all/conf/standardjbosscmp-
jdbc.xml file so that the fk-constraint property is true. That is needed for all external
databases we support on the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. This file configures the database
connection settings for the EJB2 CMP beans deployed in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

<fk-constraint>true</fk-constraint>

10.7. Specify Database Dialect for Java Persistence API

The Java Persistence API (JPA) entity manager can save EJB3 entity beans to any backend
database. Hibernate provides the JPA implementation in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.
Hibernate has a dialect auto-detection mechanism that works for most databases including the
dialects for databases referenced in this appendix which are listed below. If a specific dialect is
needed for alternative databases, you can configure the database dialect in the ${jboss.dist}/
server/${server}/deployers/ejb3.deployer/META-INF/jpa-deployers-jboss-
beans.xml file. To configure this file you need to uncomment the set of tags related to the map entry
hibernate.dialect and change the values to the following based on the database you setup.

• Oracle 10g: org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect

• Oracle 11g: org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005: org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008: org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect

• PostgresSQL 8.2.3: org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect

• PostgresSQL 8.3.7: org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect

• MySQL 5.0: org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect

• MySQL 5.1: org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect

• DB2 9.1: org.hibernate.dialect.DB2Dialect

• Sybase ASE 15: org.hibernate.dialect.SybaseDialect

10.8. Change Other JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

Services to Use the External Database
Besides JMS, CMP, and JPA, we still need to hook up the rest of JBoss services with the external
database. There are two ways to do it. One is easy but inflexible. The other is flexible but requires
more steps. Now, let's discuss those two approaches respectively.

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The Easy Way

10.8.1. The Easy Way

The easy way is just to change the JNDI name for the external database to DefaultDS. Most JBoss
services are hard-wired to use the DefaultDS by default. So, by changing the datasource name, we
do not need to change the configuration for each service individually.

To change the JNDI name, just open the *-ds.xml file for your external database, and change the
value of the jndi-name property to DefaultDS. For instance, in mysql-ds.xml, you'd change
MySqlDS to DefaultDS and so on. You will need to remove the <JBoss_Home>/server/all/
deploy/hsqldb-ds.xml file after you are done to avoid duplicated DefaultDS definition.

In the messaging/${database}-persistence-service.xml file, you should also change the

datasource name in the depends tag for the PersistenceManagers MBean to DefaultDS. For
instance, for mysql-persistence-service.xml file, we change the MySqlDS to DefaultDS.

.. ...
<mbean code="org.jboss.messaging.core.jmx.JDBCPersistenceManagerService"
name="jboss.messaging:service=PersistenceManager" xmbean-dd="xmdesc/
JDBCPersistenceManager-xmbean.xml">

<depends>jboss.jca:service=DataSourceBinding,name=DefaultDS</depends>

10.8.2. The More Flexible Way

Changing the external datasource to DefaultDS is convenient. But if you have applications that
assume the DefaultDS always points to the factory-default HSQL DB, that approach could break
your application. Also, changing DefaultDS destination forces all JBoss services to use the external
database. What if you want to use the external database only on some services?

A safer and more flexible way to hook up JBoss Enterprise Application Platform services with the
external datasource is to manually change the DefaultDS in all standard JBoss services to the
datasource JNDI name defined in your *-ds.xml file (e.g., the MySqlDS in mysql-ds.xml etc.).
Below is a complete list of files that contain DefaultDS. You can update them all to use the external
database on all JBoss services or update some of them to use different combination of datasources
for different services.

• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/conf/login-config.xml: This file is used in Java EE

container managed security services.

• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/conf/standardjbosscmp-jdbc.xml: This file

configures the CMP beans in the EJB container.

• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/ejb2-timer-service.xml: This file

configures the EJB timer services.

• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/juddi-service.sar/META-INF/jboss-
service.xml: This file configures the UUDI service.

• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/juddi-service.sar/juddi.war/WEB-
INF/jboss-web.xml: This file configures the UUDI service.

• <JBoss_Home>/server/all/deploy/juddi-service.sar/juddi.war/WEB-INF/
juddi.properties: This file configures the UUDI service.

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• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/uuid-key-generator.sar/META-INF/
jboss-service.xml: This file configures the UUDI service.

• ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/messaging/messaging-jboss-
beans.xml and ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/messaging/persistence-
service.xml: Those files configure the JMS persistence service as we discussed earlier.

10.9. A Special Note About Oracle DataBases

In our setup discussed in this chapter, we rely on the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform to
automatically create needed tables in the external database upon server startup. That works most of
the time. But for databases like Oracle, there might be some minor issues if you try to use the same
database server to back more than one JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instance.

The Oracle database creates tables of the form schemaname.tablename. The TIMERS and
HILOSEQUENCES tables needed by JBoss Enterprise Application Platform would not get created on a
schema if the table already exists on a different schema. To work around this issue, you need to edit
the ${jboss.dist}/server/${server}/deploy/ejb2-timer-service.xml file to change
the table name from TIMERS to something like schemaname2.tablename.

<mbean code="org.jboss.ejb.txtimer.DatabasePersistencePolicy"
name="jboss.ejb:service=EJBTimerService,persistencePolicy=database">

<depends optional-attribute-name="DataSource">
jboss.jca:service=DataSourceBinding,name=DefaultDS
</depends>

<attribute name="DatabasePersistencePlugin">
org.jboss.ejb.txtimer.GeneralPurposeDatabasePersistencePlugin
</attribute>

<attribute name="TimersTable">TIMERS</attribute>
</mbean>

Similarly, you need to change the <JBoss_Home>/server/all/deploy/uuid-key-

generator.sar/META-INF/jboss-service.xml file to change the table name from
HILOSEQUENCES to something like schemaname2.tablename as well.

<depends>jboss:service=TransactionManager</depends>

<depends optional-attribute-
name="DataSource">jboss.jca:service=DataSourceBinding,name=DefaultDS</
depends>

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<attribute name="TableName">HILOSEQUENCES</attribute>

10.10. DataSource configuration

DataSources are defined inside a <datasources> element.

• <no-tx-datasource> - a DataSource that does not take part in JTA transactions using a
java.sql.Driver

• <local-tx-datasource> - a DataSource that does not support two phase commit using a
java.sql.Driver

• <xa-datasource> - a DataSource that does support two phase commit using a

javax.sql.XADataSource

10.11. Parameters specific for java.sql.Driver usage

• <connection-url> - the JDBC driver connection url string

• <driver-class> - the JDBC driver class implementing java.sql.Driver

• <connection-property> - used to configure the connections retrieved from the java.sql.Driver. For
example:

<connection-property name="char.encoding">UTF-8</connection-property>

10.12. Parameters specific for javax.sql.XADataSource

usage
• <xa-datasource-class> - This is the class that implements the XADataSource

• <xa-datasource-property> - This contains that properties that are used to configure the
XADataSource. For example:

<xa-datasource-property name="IfxWAITTIME">10</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="IfxIFXHOST">myhost.mydomain.com</xa-
datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="PortNumber">1557</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="DatabaseName">mydb</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="ServerName">myserver</xa-datasource-property>

• <isSameRM-override-value> - In order to fix issues with Oracle this property should be set to false

• <track-connection-by-tx/> - This property is deprecated and enabled by default in order to correct

issues with Oracle

• <no-tx-separate-pools/> - This property will pool Transactional and non-Transactional connections

separately and cause your total pool size to be twice the max-pool-size, as two pools will be
created. This is used to fix issues with Oracle.

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10.13. Common DataSource parameters

• <jndi-name> - the JNDI name under which the DataSource should be bound.

• <use-java-context> - A boolean indicating if the jndi-name should be prefixed with java: which
causes the DataSource to only be accessible from within the jboss server vm. The default is true.

• <user-name> - the user name used when creating the connection (not used when security is
configured)

• <password> - the password used when creating the connection (not used when security is
configured)

• <transaction-isolation> - the default transaction isolation of the connection (unspecified means use
the default provided by the database):
• TRANSACTION_READ_UNCOMMITTED

• TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED

• TRANSACTION_REPEATABLE_READ

• TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE

• TRANSACTION_NONE

• <new-connection-sql> - an sql statement that is executed against each new connection. This can be
used to set the connection schema, etc.

• <check-valid-connection-sql> - an sql statement that is executed before it is checked out from the
pool to make sure it is still valid. If the sql fails, the connection is closed and new ones created.

• <valid-connection-checker-class-name> - a class that can check whether a connection is valid using

a vendor specific mechanism

• <exception-sorter-class-name> - a class that looks at vendor specific messages to determine

whether sql errors are fatal and thus the connection should be destroyed. If none specified, no
errors will be treated as fatal.

• <track-statements> - (a) whether to monitor for unclosed Statements and ResultSets and issue
warnings when the user forgets to close them (default nowarn)

• <prepared-statement-cache-size> - the number of prepared statements per connection to be kept

open and reused in subsequent requests. They are stored in a LRU cache. The default is 0 (zero),
meaning no cache.

• <share-prepared-statements> - (b) with prepared statement cache enabled whether two requests in
the same transaction should return the same statement (from jboss-4.0.2 - default false).

• <set-tx-query-timeout> - whether to enable query timeout based on the length of time remaining until
the transaction times out (default false - NOTE: This was NOT ported to 4.0.x until 4.0.3)

• <query-timeout> - a static configuration of the maximum of seconds before a query times out (since
4.0.3)

• <metadata/typemapping> - a pointer to the type mapping in conf/standardjbosscmp.xml (available

from JBoss 4 and above)

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Common DataSource parameters

• <validate-on-match> - Prior to JBoss 4.0.5, connection validation occurred when the JCA layer
attempted to match a managed connection. With the addition of <background-validation> this is no
longer required. Specifying <validate-on-match> forces the old behavior. NOTE: this is typically NOT
used in conjunction with <background-validation>

• <background-validation> - In JBoss 4.0.5, background connection validation as been added to

reduce the overall load on the RDBMS system when validating a connection. When using this
feature, JBoss will attempt to validate the current connections in the pool is a seperate thread
(ConnectionValidator). Default is False.

• <idle-timeout-minutes> - indicates the maximum time a connection may be idle before being closed.
Default is 15 minutes.

• <background-validation-minutes> - The interval, in minutes, that the ConnectionValidator will run.

Default is 10 minutes. NOTE: It is prudent to set this value to something greater or less than the
<idle-timeout-minutes>

• <url-delimiter> - From JBoss5 database failover is part of the main datasource config

• <url-property> - From JBoss5 database failover is part of the main datasource config

• <url-selector-strategy-class-name> - From JBoss5 ONLY database failover is part of the main

datasource config

• <stale-connection-checker-class-name> - An implementation of
org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.StateConnectionChecker that will decide whether SQLExceptions
that notify of bad connections throw org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.StateConnectionException
(from JBoss5)

From JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 3.2.6 and above, track-statements has a new option:

<track-statements>nowarn</track-statements

This option closes Statements and ResultSets without a warning. It is also the new default value.

The purpose is to workaround questionable driver behavior where the driver applies auto-commit
semantics to local transactions.

Connection c = dataSource.getConnection(); // auto-commit == false

PreparedStatement ps1 = c.prepareStatement(...);
ResultSet rs1 = ps1.executeQuery();
PreparedStatement ps2 = c.prepareStatement(...);
ResultSet rs2 = ps2.executeQuery();

Assuming the prepared statements are the same. For some drivers, ps2.executeQuery() will
automatically close rs1 so we actually need two real prepared statements behind the scenes. This
*should* only be for the auto-commit semantic where re-running the query starts a new transaction
automatically. For drivers that follow the spec, you can set it to true to share the same real prepared
statement.

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10.14. Generic Datasource Sample

<datasources>
<local-tx-datasource>
<jndi-name>GenericDS</jndi-name>
<connection-url>[jdbc: url for use with Driver class]</connection-url>
<driver-class>[fully qualified class name of java.sql.Driver
implementation]</driver-class>
<user-name>x</user-name>
<password>y</password>


<connection-property name="char.encoding">UTF-8</connection-property>
<transaction-isolation>TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE</transaction-isolation>

<min-pool-size>5</min-pool-size>
<max-pool-size>100</max-pool-size>
<blocking-timeout-millis>5000</blocking-timeout-millis>
<idle-timeout-minutes>15</idle-timeout-minutes>

<!-- sql to call on an existing pooled connection when it is obtained from

pool
<check-valid-connection-sql>some arbitrary sql</check-valid-connection-sql>
-->

<set-tx-query-timeout/>
<query-timeout>300</query-timeout> <!-- maximum of 5 minutes for queries --
>

<security-domain>MyRealm</security-domain>

<application-managed-security/>

<!--Anonymous depends elements are copied verbatim into the

ConnectionManager mbean config-->
<depends>myapp.service:service=DoSomethingService</depends>

</local-tx-datasource>

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<mbean code="org.jboss.tm.XidFactory"
name="jboss:service=XidFactory">
<attribute name="Pad">true</attribute>
</mbean>

<xa-datasource>
<jndi-name>GenericXADS</jndi-name>
<xa-datasource-class>[fully qualified name of class implementing
javax.sql.XADataSource goes here]</xa-datasource-class>
<xa-datasource-property name="SomeProperty">SomePropertyValue</xa-
datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="SomeOtherProperty">SomeOtherValue</xa-
datasource-property>

<user-name>x</user-name>
<password>y</password>
<transaction-isolation>TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE</transaction-isolation>

<!-- sql to call on an existing pooled connection when it is obtained from

pool
<check-valid-connection-sql>some arbitrary sql</check-valid-connection-sql>
-->

<security-domain/>

<application-managed-security/>

</xa-datasource>

</datasources>

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10.15. Datasource sample for Oracle RAC

<datasources>
<local-tx-datasource>
<jndi-name>DefaultDS</jndi-name>
<connection-url>jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
(HOST=YOUR_HOST)(PORT=1521))
(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=YOUR_SERVICE_NAME)))</connection-url>
<driver-class>oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver</driver-class>
<user-name>jboss</user-name>
<password>password</password>
<exception-sorter-class-
name>org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.OracleExceptionSorter</
exception-sorter-class-name>
<metadata>
<type-mapping>Oracle9i</type-mapping>
</metadata>
<transaction-isolation>TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED</transaction-
isolation>
</local-tx-datasource>
</datasources>

10.16. XA Datasource sample for Oracle RAC

<datasources>
<xa-datasource>
<jndi-name>YourJndiName</jndi-name>
<track-connection-by-tx>true</track-connection-by-tx>
<isSameRM-override-value>false</isSameRM-override-value>
<xa-datasource-class>oracle.jdbc.xa.client.OracleXADataSource</xa-
datasource-class>
<xa-datasource-property
name="URL">jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
(HOST=YOUR_HOST)(PORT=1521))
(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=YOUR_SERVICE_NAME)))</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="User">your_user</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="Password">your_password</xa-datasource-
property>

<exception-sorter-class-
name>org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.OracleExceptionSorter</
exception-sorter-class-name>

<no-tx-separate-pools/>

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<metadata>
<type-mapping>Oracle9i</type-mapping>
</metadata>
</xa-datasource>
</datasources>

You can also use the following URL structure, which supports load-balancing:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(LOAD_BALANCE=ON)
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=YOUR_NODE_1)(PORT=1521))
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
(HOST=YOUR_NODE_2)(PORT=1521)))
(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=YOUR_SERVICE_NAME)))

10.17. Configuring a DataSource for remote usage

From JBoss-4.0.0 and above, there is support for accessing a DataSource from a remote client. The
one change that is necessary for the client to be able to lookup the DataSource from JNDI is to specify
use-java-context=false as shown here:

<datasources>
<local-tx-datasource>
<jndi-name>GenericDS</jndi-name>
<use-java-context>false</use-java-context>
<connection-url>...</connection-url>

This results in the DataSource being bound under the JNDI name "GenericDS" instead of the default
of "java:/GenericDS" which restricts the lookup to the same VM as the jboss server.

Note
JBoss does not recommend using this feature on a production environment. It requires
accessing a connection pool remotely and this is an anti-pattern as connections are
not serializable. Besides, transaction propagation is not supported and it could lead to
connection leaks if the remote clients are unreliable (i.e crashes, network failure). If you
do need to access a datasource remotely, JBoss recommends accessing it via a remote
session bean facade.

10.18. Configuring a DataSource to use login modules

Add the security-domain parameter to the *-ds.xml file.

<datasources>
<local-tx-datasource>
...
<security-domain>MyDomain</security-domain>
...
</local-tx-datasource>

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Chapter 10. Use Alternative Databases with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

</datasources>

Add an application-policy to the login-config.xml file. The authentication section should include the
configuration for your login-module. For example, if you want to encrypt the database password, use
the SecureIdentityLoginModule login module.

<application-policy name="MyDomain">
<authentication>
<login-module code="org.jboss.resource.security.SecureIdentityLoginModule"
flag="required">
<module-option name="username">scott</module-option>
<module-option name="password">-170dd0fbd8c13748</module-option>
<module-option name="managedConnectionFactoryName">
jboss.jca:service=LocalTxCM,name=OracleDSJAAS
</module-option>
</login-module>
</authentication>
</application-policy>

In case you plan to fetch the data source connection from a web application, make sure authentication
is turned on for the web application. This is in order for the Subject to be populated. If you wish
for users to be able to connect anonymously, an additional login module needs to be added to the
application-policy, in order to populate the security credentials. Add the UsersRolesLoginModule
as the first login module in the chain. The usersProperties and rolesProperties parameters can be
directed to dummy files.

<login-module code="org.jboss.security.auth.spi.UsersRolesLoginModule"
flag="required">
<module-option name="unauthenticatedIdentity">nobody</module-option>
<module-option name="usersProperties">props/users.properties</module-
option>
<module-option name="rolesProperties">props/roles.properties</module-
option>
</login-module>

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Chapter 11.

Pooling
11.1. Strategy
1
JBossJCA uses a ManagedConnectionPool to perform the pooling. The
ManagedConnectionPool is made up of subpools depending upon the strategy chosen and other
pooling parameters.

xml mbean Internal Name Description

ByNothing OnePool A single pool of
equivalent connections
<application-managed- ByApplication PoolByCRI Use the connection
security/> properties from
allocateConnection()
<security-domain/> ByContainer PoolBySubject A pool per Subject, e.g.
preconfigured or EJB/
Web login subjects
<security-domain-and- ByContainerAndApplicaton
PoolBySubjectAndCri A per Subject and
applicaton/> connection property
combination

Note
The xml names imply this is just about security. This is misleading.

For <security-domain-and-application/> the Subject always overrides any user/password from

createConnection(user, password) in the CRI:

(
ConnectionRequestInfo
)

11.2. Transaction stickness

You can force the same connection from a (sub-)pool to get reused throughout a transaction with the
<track-connection-by-tx/> flag

Note
This is the only supported behaviour for "local" transactions. This element is deprecated
in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 where transaction stickiness is enabled by
default. XA users can explicitly enable interleaving with <interleaving/> element.

1
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Chapter 11. Pooling

11.3. Workaround for Oracle

Oracle does not like XA connections getting used both inside and outside a JTA transaction. To
workaround the problem you can create separate sub-pools for the different contexts using <no-tx-
separate-pools/>.

11.4. Pool Access

The pool is designed for concurrent usage.

Upto <max-pool-size/> threads can be inside the pool at the same time (or using connections from a
pool).

Once this limit is reached, threads wait for the <blocking-timeout-seconds/> to use the pool before
2
throwing a No Managed Connections Available

You may want to use the <allocation-retry/> and <allocation-retry-wait-millis/> elements to have the
pool retry to obtain a connection before throwing the exception.

11.5. Pool Filling

The number of connections in the pool is controlled by the pool sizes.

• <min-pool-size/> - When the number of connections falls below this size, new connections are
created

• <max-pool-size/> - No more than this number of connections are created

• <prefill/> - Feature Request has been implemented for 4.0.5. Note: the only pooling strategy that
supports this feature is OnePool?, or ByNothing? pooling criteria.

The pool filling is done by a separate "Pool Filler" thread rather than blocking application threads.

11.6. Idle Connections

You can configure connections to be closed when they are idle. e.g. If you just had a peak period and
now want to reap the unused ones. This is done via the <idle-timeout-minutes/>.

Idle checking is done on a separate "Idle Remover" thread on an LRU (least recently used) basis. The
check is done every idle-timeout-minutes divided by 2 for connections unused for idle-timeout-minutes.

The pool itself operates on an MRU (most recently used) basis. This allows the excess connections to
be easily identified.

Should closing idle connections cause the pool to fall below the min-pool-size, new/fresh connections
are created.

Note
If you have long running transactions and you use interleaving (i.e. don't track-connection-
by-tx) make sure the idle timeout is greater than the transaction timeout. When
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Dead connections

interleaving the connection is returned to the pool for others to use. If however nobody
does use it, it would be a candidate for removal before the transaction is committed.

11.7. Dead connections

The JDBC protocol does not provide a natural connectionErrorOccured() event when a
connection is broken. To support dead/broken connection checking there are a number of plugins.

11.7.1. Valid connection checking

The simplest format is to just run a "quick" sql statement:

<check-valid-connection-sql>select 1 from dual</check-valid-connection-sql>

before handing the connection to the application. If this fails, another connection is selected until there
are no more connections at which point new connections are constructed.

The potentially more performant check is to use vendor specific features, e.g. Oracle's or MySQL's
pingDatabase() via the

<valid-connection-checker-class-name/>

11.7.2. Errors during SQL queries

You can check if a connection broke during a query by the looking the error codes or messages of the
SQLException for FATAL errors rather than normal SQLExceptions. These codes/messages can be
vendor specific, e.g.

<exception-sorter-class-
name>org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.OracleExceptionSorter</
exception-sorter-class-name>

For

FATAL

errors the connection will be closed.

11.7.3. Changing/Closing/Flushing the pool

3
• change or flush() the pool

• closing/undeploying the pool will do a flush first

11.7.4. Other pooling

4
Thirdparty Pools - only if you know what you are doing

4
http://www.jboss.org/community/docs/DOC-10020?uniqueTitle=false

123
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Chapter 12.

Frequently Asked Questions

12.1. I have problems with Oracle XA?
Check that you:
1. You have pad=true for the XidFactory? in conf/jboss-service.xml.

2. You have <track-connection-by-tx/> in your oracle-xa-ds.xml (not necessarily for JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform 5.x where it is enabled by default and the element is deprecated).

3. You have <isSameRM-override-value>false</isSameRM-override-value> in your oracle-xa-ds.xml.

4. You have <no-tx-separate-pools/> in your oracle-xa-ds.xml.

5. That your jbosscmp-jdbc.xml is specifying the same version of oracle as the one you use.

6. That the oracle server you connect to has XA.

Configuring Oracle Database for XA Support You can configure Oracle database to support XA
resources. This enables you to use JDBC 2.0-compliant Oracle driver. To XA-initialize Oracle
database, complete the following steps:

Make sure that Oracle JServer is installed with your database. If it is not installed, you must add it
using Oracle Database Configuration Assistant. Choose "Change an Existing DB" and then select the
database to which you want to add Oracle JServer. Choose "Next", then "Oracle JServer" and then
"Finish". If the settings you have made to your database previously, are not suitable or insufficient
for the Oracle JServer installation, the system prompts you to enter additional parameters. The
database configuration file ( init.ora ) is located in \oracle\admin\<your_db_name>\pfile
directory. Execute initxa.sql over your database. By default, this script file is located in \oracle
\ora81\javavm\install. If errors occur during the execution of the file, you must execute the SQL
statements from the file manually. Use DBA Studio to create a package and package body named
JAVA_XA in SYS schema, and a synonym of this package (also named JAVA_XA) in PUBLIC schema.

A slightly more detailed set of instructions can be found at Configuring and using XA distributed
1
transactions in WebSphere Studio - Oracle Exception section .

1
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0407_woolf/0407_woolf.html?
ca=dnp-327#oracle_exception

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Part III. Clustering Guide
Chapter 13.

Introduction and Quick Start

Clustering allows you to run an application on several parallel servers (a.k.a cluster nodes) while
providing a single view to application clients. Load is distributed across different servers, and even
if one or more of the servers fails, the application is still accessible via the surviving cluster nodes.
Clustering is crucial for scalable enterprise applications, as you can improve performance by adding
more nodes to the cluster. Clustering is crucial for highly available enterprise applications, as it is the
clustering infrastructure that supports the redundancy needed for high availability.

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform comes with clustering support out of the box, as part of the
all configuration. The all configuration includes support for the following:
• A scalable, fault-tolerant JNDI implementation (HA-JNDI).

• Web tier clustering, including:

• High availability for web session state via state replication.

• Ability to integrate with hardware and software load balancers, including special integration with
mod_jk and other JK-based software load balancers.

• Single Sign-on support across a cluster.

• EJB session bean clustering, for both stateful and stateless beans, and for both EJB3 and EJB2.

• A distributed cache for JPA/Hibernate entities.

• A framework for keeping local EJB2 entity caches consistent across a cluster by invalidating cache
entries across the cluster when a bean is changed on any node.

• Distributed JMS queues and topics via JBoss Messaging.

• Deploying a service or application on multiple nodes in the cluster but having it active on only one
(but at least one) node is called a HA Singleton.

• Keeping deployed content in sync on all nodes in the cluster via the Farm service.

In this Clustering Guide we aim to provide you with an in depth understanding of how to use JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform's clustering features. In this first part of the guide, the goal is to
provide some basic "Quick Start" steps to encourage you to start experimenting with JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform Clustering, and then to provide some background information that will allow you
to understand how JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Clustering works. The next part of the guide
then explains in detail how to use these features to cluster your JEE services. Finally, we provide
some more details about advanced configuration of JGroups and JBoss Cache, the core technologies
that underlie JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Clustering.

13.1. Quick Start Guide

The goal of this section is to give you the minimum information needed to let you get started
experimenting with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Clustering. Most of the areas touched on in
this section are covered in much greater detail later in this guide.

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Chapter 13. Introduction and Quick Start

13.1.1. Initial Preparation

Preparing a set of servers to act as a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform cluster involves a few
simple steps:

• Install JBoss Enterprise Application Platform on all your servers. In its simplest form, this is
just a matter of unzipping the JBoss download onto the filesystem on each server.

If you want to run multiple JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instances on a single server,
you can either install the full JBoss distribution onto multiple locations on your filesystem, or you
can simply make copies of the all configuration. For example, assuming the root of the JBoss
distribution was unzipped to /var/jboss, you would:

$ cd /var/jboss/server
$ cp -r all node1
$ cp -r all node2

• For each node, determine the address to bind sockets to. When you start JBoss, whether
clustered or not, you need to tell JBoss on what address its sockets should listen for traffic. (The
default is localhost which is secure but isn't very useful, particularly in a cluster.) So, you need to
decide what those addresses will be.

• Ensure multicast is working. By default JBoss Enterprise Application Platform uses UDP multicast
for most intra-cluster communications. Make sure each server's networking configuration supports
multicast and that multicast support is enabled for any switches or routers between your servers.
If you are planning to run more than one node on a server, make sure the server's routing table
includes a multicast route. See the JGroups documentation at http://www.jgroups.org for more on
this general area, including information on how to use JGroups' diagnostic tools to confirm that
multicast is working.

Note
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clustering does not require the use of UDP
multicast; the Enterprise Application Platform can also be reconfigured to use TCP
unicast for intra-cluster communication.

• Determine a unique integer "ServerPeerID" for each node. This is needed for JBoss Messaging
clustering, and can be skipped if you will not be running JBoss Messaging (i.e. you will remove JBM
from your server configuration's deploy directory). JBM requires that each node in a cluster has a
unique integer id, known as a "ServerPeerID", that should remain consistent across server restarts.
A simple 1, 2, 3, ..., x naming scheme is fine. We'll cover how to use these integer ids in the next
section.

Beyond the above required steps, the following two optional steps are recommended to help ensure
that your cluster is properly isolated from other JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clusters that
may be running on your network:

• Pick a unique name for your cluster. The default name for a JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform cluster is "DefaultPartition". Come up with a different name for each cluster in your
environment, e.g. "QAPartition" or "BobsDevPartition". The use of "Partition" is not required; it's just
a semi-convention. As a small aid to performance try to keep the name short, as it gets included

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Launching a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Cluster

in every message sent around the cluster. We'll cover how to use the name you pick in the next
section.

• Pick a unique multicast address for your cluster. By default JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform uses UDP multicast for most intra-cluster communication. Pick a different multicast address
for each cluster you run. Generally a good multicast address is of the form 239.255.x.y. See
1
http://www.29west.com/docs/THPM/multicast-address-assignment.html for a good discussion on
multicast address assignment. We'll cover how to use the address you pick in the next section.

See Section 22.6.2, “Isolating JGroups Channels” for more on isolating clusters.

13.1.2. Launching a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Cluster

The simplest way to start a JBoss server cluster is to start several JBoss instances on the same local
network, using the -c all command line option for each instance. Those server instances will detect
each other and automatically form a cluster.

Let's look at a few different scenarios for doing this. In each scenario we'll be creating a two node
cluster, where the ServerPeerID for the first node is 1 and for the second node is 2 . We've decided
to call our cluster "DocsPartition" and to use 239.255.100.100 as our multicast address. These
scenarios are meant to be illustrative; the use of a two node cluster shouldn't be taken to mean that is
the best size for a cluster; it's just that's the simplest way to do the examples.

• Scenario 1: Nodes on Separate Machines

This is the most common production scenario. Assume the machines are named "node1" and
"node2", while node1 has an IP address of 192.168.0.101 and node2 has an address of
192.168.0.102. Assume the "ServerPeerID" for node1 is 1 and for node2 it's 2. Assume on each
machine JBoss is installed in /var/jboss.

On node1, to launch JBoss:

$ cd /var/jboss/bin
$ ./run.sh -c all -g DocsPartition -u 239.255.100.100 \
-b 192.168.0.101 -Djboss.messaging.ServerPeerID=1

On node2, it's the same except for a different -b value and ServerPeerID:

$ cd /var/jboss/bin
$ ./run.sh -c all -g DocsPartition -u 239.255.100.100 \
-b 192.168.0.102 -Djboss.messaging.ServerPeerID=2

The -c switch says to use the all config, which includes clustering support. The -g switch sets
the cluster name. The -u switch sets the multicast address that will be used for intra-cluster
communication. The -b switch sets the address on which sockets will be bound. The -D switch
sets system property jboss.messaging.ServerPeerID, from which JBoss Messaging gets its
unique id.

• Scenario 2: Two Nodes on a Single, Multihomed, Server

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Running multiple nodes on the same machine is a common scenario in a development environment,
and is also used in production in combination with Scenario 1. (Running all the nodes in a
production cluster on a single machine is generally not recommended, since the machine itself
becomes a single point of failure.) In this version of the scenario, the machine is multihomed,
i.e. has more than one IP address. This allows the binding of each JBoss instance to a different
address, preventing port conflicts when the nodes open sockets.

Assume the single machine has the 192.168.0.101 and 192.168.0.102 addresses assigned,
and that the two JBoss instances use the same addresses and ServerPeerIDs as in Scenario 1. The
difference from Scenario 1 is we need to be sure each Enterprise Application Platform instance has
its own work area. So, instead of using the all config, we are going to use the node1 and node2
configs we copied from all earlier in the previous section.

To launch the first instance, open a console window and:

$ cd /var/jboss/bin
$ ./run.sh -c node1 -g DocsPartition -u 239.255.100.100 \
-b 192.168.0.101 -Djboss.messaging.ServerPeerID=1

For the second instance, it's the same except for different -b and -c values and a different
ServerPeerID:

$ cd /var/jboss/bin
$ ./run.sh -c node2 -g DocsPartition -u 239.255.100.100 \
-b 192.168.0.102 -Djboss.messaging.ServerPeerID=2

• Scenario 3: Two Nodes on a Single, Non-Multihomed, Server

This is similar to Scenario 2, but here the machine only has one IP address available. Two
processes can't bind sockets to the same address and port, so we'll have to tell JBoss to use
different ports for the two instances. This can be done by configuring the ServiceBindingManager
service by setting the jboss.service.binding.set system property.

To launch the first instance, open a console window and:

$ cd /var/jboss/bin
$ ./run.sh -c node1 -g DocsPartition -u 239.255.100.100 \
-b 192.168.0.101 -Djboss.messaging.ServerPeerID=1 \
-Djboss.service.binding.set=ports-default

For the second instance:

$ cd /var/jboss/bin
$ ./run.sh -c node2 -g DocsPartition -u 239.255.100.100 \
-b 192.168.0.101 -Djboss.messaging.ServerPeerID=2 \

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Web Application Clustering Quick Start

-Djboss.service.binding.set=ports-01

This tells the ServiceBindingManager on the first node to use the standard set of ports (e.g.
JNDI on 1099). The second node uses the "ports-01" binding set, which by default for each
port has an offset of 100 from the standard port number (e.g. JNDI on 1199). See the conf/
bindingservice.beans/META-INF/bindings-jboss-beans.xml file for the full
ServiceBindingManager configuration.

Note that this setup is not advised for production use, due to the increased management
complexity that comes with using different ports. But it is a fairly common scenario in development
environments where developers want to use clustering but cannot multihome their workstations.

Note
Including -Djboss.service.binding.set=ports-default on the command line
for node1 isn't technically necessary, since ports-default is the ... default. But using
a consistent set of command line arguments across all servers is helpful to people less
familiar with all the details.

That's it; that's all it takes to get a cluster of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform servers up and
running.

13.1.3. Web Application Clustering Quick Start

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform supports clustered web sessions, where a backup copy of
each user's HttpSession state is stored on one or more nodes in the cluster. In case the primary
node handling the session fails or is shut down, any other node in the cluster can handle subsequent
requests for the session by accessing the backup copy. Web tier clustering is discussed in detail in
Chapter 19, HTTP Services.

There are two aspects to setting up web tier clustering:

• Configuring an External Load Balancer. Web applications require an external load balancer to
balance HTTP requests across the cluster of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instances (see
Section 14.2.2, “External Load Balancer Architecture” for more on why that is). JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform itself doesn't act as an HTTP load balancer. So, you will need to set up a
hardware or software load balancer. There are many possible load balancer choices, so how to
configure one is really beyond the scope of a Quick Start. But see Section 19.1, “Configuring load
balancing using Apache and mod_jk” for details on how to set up the popular mod_jk software load
balancer.

• Configuring Your Web Application for Clustering. This aspect involves telling JBoss you
want clustering behavior for a particular web app, and it couldn't be simpler. Just add an empty
distributable element to your application's web.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-
app_2_5.xsd"
version="2.5">

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Chapter 13. Introduction and Quick Start

</web-app>

Simply doing that is enough to get the default JBoss Enterprise Application Platform web session
clustering behavior, which is appropriate for most applications. See Section 19.2, “Configuring HTTP
session state replication” for more advanced configuration options.

13.1.4. EJB Session Bean Clustering Quick Start

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform supports clustered EJB session beans, whereby requests for a
bean are balanced across the cluster. For stateful beans a backup copy of bean state is maintained on
one or more cluster nodes, providing high availability in case the node handling a particular session
fails or is shut down. Clustering of both EJB2 and EJB3 beans is supported.

For EJB3 session beans, simply add the org.jboss.ejb3.annotation.Clustered annotation to

the bean class for your stateful or stateless bean:

@javax.ejb.Stateless
@org.jboss.ejb3.annotation.Clustered
public class MyBean implements MySessionInt {

public void test() {

// Do something cool
}
}

For EJB2 session beans, or for EJB3 beans where you prefer XML configuration over annotations,
simply add a clustered element to the bean's section in the JBoss-specific deployment descriptor,
jboss.xml:

<jboss>
<enterprise-beans>
<session>
<ejb-name>example.StatelessSession</ejb-name>
<jndi-name>example.StatelessSession</jndi-name>
<clustered>true</clustered>
</session>
</enterprise-beans>
</jboss>

See Chapter 17, Clustered Session EJBs for more advanced configuration options.

13.1.5. Entity Clustering Quick Start

One of the big improvements in the clustering area in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 is the
use of the new Hibernate/JBoss Cache integration for second level entity caching that was introduced

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Entity Clustering Quick Start

in Hibernate 3.3. In the JPA/Hibernate context, a second level cache refers to a cache whose contents
are retained beyond the scope of a transaction. A second level cache may improve performance by
reducing the number of database reads. You should always load test your application with second
level caching enabled and disabled to see whether it has a beneficial impact on your particular
application.

If you use more than one JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instance to run your JPA/Hibernate
application and you use second level caching, you must use a cluster-aware cache. Otherwise a
cache on server A will still hold out-of-date data after activity on server B updates some entities.

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform provides a cluster-aware second level cache based on JBoss
Cache. To tell JBoss Enterprise Application Platform's standard Hibernate-based JPA provider to
enable second level caching with JBoss Cache, configure your persistence.xml as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd"
version="1.0">
<persistence-unit name="somename" transaction-type="JTA">
<jta-data-source>java:/SomeDS</jta-data-source>
<properties>
<property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache"
value="true"/>
<property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class"

value="org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.JndiMultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory"/>
<property name="hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cachefactory"
value="java:CacheManager"/>

</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>

That tells Hibernate to use the JBoss Cache-based second level cache, but it doesn't tell it what
entities to cache. That can be done by adding the org.hibernate.annotations.Cache
annotation to your entity class:

package org.example.entities;

import java.io.Serializable;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import org.hibernate.annotations.Cache;
import org.hibernate.annotations.CacheConcurrencyStrategy;

@Entity
@Cache (usage=CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL)
public class Account implements Serializable

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See Chapter 18, Clustered Entity EJBs for more advanced configuration options and details on how to
configure the same thing for a non-JPA Hibernate application.

Note
Clustering can add significant overhead to a JPA/Hibernate second level cache, so
don't assume that just because second level caching adds a benefit to a non-clustered
application that it will be beneficial to a clustered application. Even if clustered second
level caching is beneficial overall, caching of more frequently modified entity types may
be beneficial in a non-clustered scenario but not in a clustered one. Always load test your
application.

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Chapter 14.

Clustering Concepts
In the next section, we discuss basic concepts behind JBoss' clustering services. It is helpful that you
understand these concepts before reading the rest of the Clustering Guide.

14.1. Cluster Definition

A cluster is a set of nodes that communicate with each other and work toward a common goal. In
a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform cluster (also known as a “partition”), a node is an JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform instance. Communication between the nodes is handled by the
JGroups group communication library, with a JGroups Channel providing the core functionality
of tracking who is in the cluster and reliably exchanging messages between the cluster members.
JGroups channels with the same configuration and name have the ability to dynamically discover each
other and form a group. This is why simply executing “run -c all” on two Enterprise Application Platform
instances on the same network is enough for them to form a cluster – each Enterprise Application
Platform starts a Channel (actually, several) with the same default configuration, so they dynamically
discover each other and form a cluster. Nodes can be dynamically added to or removed from clusters
at any time, simply by starting or stopping a Channel with a configuration and name that matches the
other cluster members.

On the same Enterprise Application Platform instance, different services can create their own
Channel. In a standard startup of the Enterprise Application Platform 5 all configuration, two different
services create a total of four different channels – JBoss Messaging creates two and a core general
purpose clustering service known as HAPartition creates two more. If you deploy clustered web
applications, clustered EJB3 SFSBs or a clustered JPA/Hibernate entity cache, additional channels will
be created. The channels the Enterprise Application Platform connects can be divided into three broad
categories: a general purpose channel used by the HAPartition service, channels created by JBoss
Cache for special purpose caching and cluster wide state replication, and two channels used by JBoss
Messaging.

So, if you go to two Enterprise Application Platform 5.0.x instances and execute run -c all, the
channels will discover each other and you'll have a conceptual cluster. It's easy to think of this as
a two node cluster, but it's important to understand that you really have multiple channels, and hence
multiple two node clusters.

On the same network, you may have different sets of servers whose services wish to cluster.
Figure 14.1, “Clusters and server nodes” shows an example network of JBoss server instances
divided into three sets, with the third set only having one node. This sort of topology can be set up
simply by configuring the Enterprise Application Platform instances such that within a set of nodes
meant to form a cluster the Channel configurations and names match while they differ from any other
channel configurations and names match while they differ from any other channels on the same
network. The Enterprise Application Platform tries to make this is easy as possible, such that servers
that are meant to cluster only need to have the same values passed on the command line to the -g
(partition name) and -u (multicast address) startup switches. For each set of servers, different values
should be chosen. The sections on “JGroups Configuration” and “Isolating JGroups Channels” cover in
detail how to configure the Enterprise Application Platform such that desired peers find each other and
unwanted peers do not.

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Figure 14.1. Clusters and server nodes

14.2. Service Architectures

The clustering topography defined by the JGroups configuration on each node is of great importance
to system administrators. But for most application developers, the greater concern is probably the
cluster architecture from a client application's point of view. Two basic clustering architectures are
used with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform: client-side interceptors (a.k.a smart proxies or stubs)
and external load balancers. Which architecture your application will use will depend on what type of
client you have.

14.2.1. Client-side interceptor architecture

Most remote services provided by the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, including JNDI, EJB,
JMS, RMI and JBoss Remoting, require the client to obtain (for example, to look up and download)
a remote proxy object. The proxy object is generated by the server and it implements the business
interface of the service. The client then makes local method calls against the proxy object. The
proxy automatically routes the call across the network where it is invoked against service objects
managed in the server. The proxy object figures out how to find the appropriate server node, marshal
call parameters, un-marshall call results, and return the result to the caller client. In a clustered
environment, the server-generated proxy object includes an interceptor that understands how to route
calls to multiple nodes in the cluster.

The proxy's clustering logic maintains up-to-date knowledge about the cluster. For instance, it knows
the IP addresses of all available server nodes, the algorithm to distribute load across nodes (see next
section), and how to failover the request if the target node not available. As part of handling each
service request, if the cluster topology has changed the server node updates the proxy with the latest
changes in the cluster. For instance, if a node drops out of the cluster, each proxy is updated with the
new topology the next time it connects to any active node in the cluster. All the manipulations done
by the proxy's clustering logic are transparent to the client application. The client-side interceptor
clustering architecture is illustrated in Figure 14.2, “The client-side interceptor (proxy) architecture for
clustering”.

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External Load Balancer Architecture

Figure 14.2. The client-side interceptor (proxy) architecture for clustering

14.2.2. External Load Balancer Architecture

The HTTP-based JBoss services do not require the client to download anything. The client (for
example, a web browser) sends in requests and receives responses directly over the wire using the
HTTP protocol). In this case, an external load balancer is required to process all requests and dispatch
them to server nodes in the cluster. The client only needs to know how to contact the load balancer;
it has no knowledge of the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instances behind the load balancer.
The load balancer is logically part of the cluster, but we refer to it as “external” because it is not
running in the same process as either the client or any of the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
instances. It can be implemented either in software or hardware. There are many vendors of hardware
load balancers; the mod_jk Apache module is an excellent example of a software load balancer. An
external load balancer implements its own mechanism for understanding the cluster configuration
and provides its own load balancing and failover policies. The external load balancer clustering
architecture is illustrated in Figure 14.3, “The external load balancer architecture for clustering”.

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Figure 14.3. The external load balancer architecture for clustering

A potential problem with an external load balancer architecture is that the load balancer itself may be a
single point of failure. It needs to be monitored closely to ensure high availability of the entire cluster's
services.

14.3. Load-Balancing Policies

Both the JBoss client-side interceptor (stub) and load balancer use load balancing policies to
determine to which server node a new request should be sent. In this section, let's go over the load
balancing policies available in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

14.3.1. Client-side interceptor architecture

In JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5, the following load balancing options are available when the
client-side interceptor architecture is used. The client-side stub maintains a list of all nodes providing
the target service; the job of the load balance policy is to pick a node from this list for each request.
Each policy has two implementation classes, one meant for use by legacy services like EJB2 that use
the legacy detached invoker architecture, and the other meant for services like EJB3 that use AOP-
based invocations.

• Round-Robin: each call is dispatched to a new node, proceeding sequentially

through the list of nodes. The first target node is randomly selected from the list.
Implemented by org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin (legacy) and
org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.RoundRobin (EJB3).

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External load balancer architecture

• Random-Robin: for each call the target node is randomly selected from the list.
Implemented by org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin (legacy) and
org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.RoundRobin (EJB3).

• First Available: one of the available target nodes is elected as the main target and is thereafter
used for every call; this elected member is randomly chosen from the list of members in
the cluster. When the list of target nodes changes (because a node starts or dies), the
policy will choose a new target node unless the currently elected node is still available.
Each client-side proxy elects its own target node independently of the other proxies, so if a
particular client downloads two proxies for the same target service (for example, an EJB),
each proxy will independently pick its target. This is an example of a policy that provides
“session affinity” or “sticky sessions”, since the target node does not change once established.
Implemented by org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.FirstAvailable (legacy) and
org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.aop.FirstAvailable (EJB3).

• First Available Identical All Proxies: has the same behaviour as the "First Available" policy
but the elected target node is shared by all proxies in the same client-side VM that are
associated with the same target service. So if a particular client downloads two proxies for
the same target service (e.g. an EJB), each proxy will use the same target. Implemented by
org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.FirstAvailableIdenticalAllProxies (legacy)
and org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.aop.FirstAvailableIdenticalAllProxies
(EJB3).

Each of the above is an implementation of the org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.LoadBalancePolicy

interface; users are free to write their own implementation of this simple interface if they need some
special behavior. In later sections we'll see how to configure the load balance policies used by different
services.

14.3.2. External load balancer architecture

New in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 are a set of "TransactionSticky" load balance policies.
These extend the standard policies above to add behavior such that all invocations that occur within
the scope of a transaction are routed to the same node (if that node still exists). These are based on
the legacy detached invoker architecture, so they are not available for AOP-based services like EJB3.

• Transaction-Sticky Round-Robin: Transaction-sticky variant of Round-Robin. Implemented by

org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.TransactionStickyRoundRobin.

• Transaction-Sticky Random-Robin: Transaction-sticky variant of Random-Robin. Implemented by

org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.TransactionStickyRandomRobin.

• Transaction-Sticky First Available: Transaction-sticky variant of First Available. Implemented by

org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.TransactionStickyFirstAvailable.

• Transaction-Sticky First Available Identical All Proxies: Transaction-sticky variant of First

Available Identical All Proxies. Implemented by org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.
TransactionStickyFirstAvailableIdenticalAllProxies.

Each of the above is an implementation of a simple interface; users are free to write their own
implementations if they need some special behavior. In later sections we'll see how to configure the
load balance policies used by different services.

141
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Chapter 15.

Clustering Building Blocks

The clustering features in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform are built on top of lower level libraries
that provide much of the core functionality. Figure 15.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
clustering architecture” shows the main pieces:

Figure 15.1. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clustering architecture

JGroups is a toolkit for reliable point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication. JGroups is used
for all clustering-related communications between nodes in a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
cluster.

JBoss Cache is a highly flexible clustered transactional caching library. Many Enterprise Application
Platform clustering services need to cache some state in memory while 1) ensuring for high availability
purposes that a backup copy of that state is available on another node if it can't otherwise be
recreated (e.g. the contents of a web session) and 2) ensuring that the data cached on each node in
the cluster is consistent. JBoss Cache handles these concerns for most JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform clustered services. JBoss Cache uses JGroups to handle its group communication
requirements. POJO Cache is an extension of the core JBoss Cache that JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform uses to support fine-grained replication of clustered web session state. See
Section 15.2, “Distributed Caching with JBoss Cache” for more on how JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform uses JBoss Cache and POJO Cache.

HAPartition is an adapter on top of a JGroups channel that allows multiple services to use the
channel. HAPartition also supports a distributed registry of which HAPartition-based services are
running on which cluster members. It provides notifications to interested listeners when the cluster
membership changes or the clustered service registry changes. See Section 15.3, “The HAPartition
Service” for more details on HAPartition.

The other higher level clustering services make use of JBoss Cache or HAPartition, or, in the case
of HA-JNDI, both. The exception to this is JBoss Messaging's clustering features, which interact with
JGroups directly.

15.1. Group Communication with JGroups

JGroups provides the underlying group communication support for JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform clusters. Services deployed on JBoss Enterprise Application Platform which need group
communication with their peers will obtain a JGroups Channel and use it to communicate. The
Channel handles such tasks as managing which nodes are members of the group, detecting node
failures, ensuring lossless, first-in-first-out delivery of messages to all group members, and providing
flow control to ensure fast message senders cannot overwhelm slow message receivers.

The characteristics of a JGroups Channel are determined by the set of protocols that compose it.
Each protocol handles a single aspect of the overall group communication task; for example the UDP
protocol handles the details of sending and receiving UDP datagrams. A Channel that uses the UDP
protocol is capable of communicating with UDP unicast and multicast; alternatively one that uses
the TCP protocol uses TCP unicast for all messages. JGroups supports a wide variety of different
protocols (see Section 22.1, “Configuring a JGroups Channel's Protocol Stack” for details), but the
Enterprise Application Platform ships with a default set of channel configurations that should meet
most needs.

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By default, UDP multicast is used by all JGroups channels used by the Enterprise Application Platform
(except for one TCP-based channel used by JBoss Messaging).

15.1.1. The Channel Factory Service

A significant difference in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 versus previous releases is that
JGroups Channels needed by clustering services (for example, a channel used by a distributed
HttpSession cache) are no longer configured in detail as part of the consuming service's configuration,
and are no longer directly instantiated by the consuming service. Instead, a new ChannelFactory
service is used as a registry for named channel configurations and as a factory for Channel
instances. A service that needs a channel requests the channel from the ChannelFactory, passing
in the name of the desired configuration.

The ChannelFactory service is deployed in the server/all/deploy/cluster/jgroups-

channelfactory.sar. On startup the ChannelFactory service parses the server/all/
deploy/cluster/jgroups-channelfactory.sar/META-INF/jgroups-channelfactory-
stacks.xml file, which includes various standard JGroups configurations identified by name (for
example, UDP or TCP). Services needing a channel access the channel factory and ask for a channel
with a particular named configuration.

Note
If several services request a channel with the same configuration name from the
ChannelFactory, they are not handed a reference to the same underlying Channel.
Each receives its own Channel, but the channels will have an identical configuration.
A logical question is how those channels avoid forming a group with each other if
each, for example, is using the same multicast address and port. The answer is that
when a consuming service connects its Channel, it passes a unique-to-that-service
cluster_name argument to the Channel.connect(String cluster_name)
method. The Channel uses that cluster_name as one of the factors that determine
whether a particular message received over the network is intended for it.

15.1.1.1. Standard Protocol Stack Configurations

The standard protocol stack configurations that ship with Enterprise Application Platform 5 are
described below. Note that not all of these are actually used; many are included as a convenience
to users who may wish to alter the default server configuration. The configurations actually used in
a stock Enterprise Application Platform 5 all config are udp, jbm-control and jbm-data, with all
clustering services other than JBoss Messaging using udp.

You can add a new stack configuration by adding a new stack element to the server/all/
deploy/cluster/jgroups-channelfactory.sar/META-INF/jgroups-channelfactory-
stacks.xml file. You can alter the behavior of an existing configuration by editing this file. Before
doing this though, have a look at the other standard configurations the Enterprise Application Platform
ships; perhaps one of those meets your needs. Also, please note that before editing a configuration
you should understand what services are using that configuration; make sure the change you
are making is appropriate for all affected services. If the change isn't appropriate for a particular
service, perhaps its better to create a new configuration and change some services to use that new
configuration.

• udp

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The JGroups Shared Transport

UDP multicast based stack meant to be shared between different channels.Message bundling is
disabled, as it can add latency to synchronous group RPCs. Services that only make asynchronous
RPCs (for example, JBoss Cache configured for REPL_Enterprise Application PlatformYNC) and
do so in high volume may be able to improve performance by configuring their cache to use the
udp-async stack below. Services that only make synchronous RPCs (for example JBoss Cache
configured for REPL_SYNC or INVALIDATION_SYNC) may be able to improve performance by
using the udp-sync stack below, which does not include flow control.

• udp-async

Same as the default udp stack above, except message bundling is enabled in the transport protocol
(enable_bundling=true). Useful for services that make high-volume asynchronous RPCs (e.g.
high volume JBoss Cache instances configured for REPL_Enterprise Application PlatformYNC)
where message bundling may improve performance.

• udp-sync

UDP multicast based stack, without flow control and without message bundling. This can be used
instead of udp if (1) synchronous calls are used and (2) the message volume (rate and size) is not
that large. Don't use this configuration if you send messages at a high sustained rate, or you might
run out of memory.

• tcp

TCP based stack, with flow control and message bundling. TCP stacks are usually used when IP
multicasting cannot be used in a network (e.g. routers discard multicast).

• tcp-sync

TCP based stack, without flow control and without message bundling. TCP stacks are usually used
when IP multicasting cannot be used in a network (e.g.routers discard multicast). This configuration
should be used instead of tcp above when (1) synchronous calls are used and (2) the message
volume (rate and size) is not that large. Don't use this configuration if you send messages at a high
sustained rate, or you might run out of memory.

• jbm-control

Stack optimized for the JBoss Messaging Control Channel. By default uses the same UDP
transport protocol config as is used for the default 'udp' stack defined above. This allows the JBoss
Messaging Control Channel to use the same sockets, network buffers and thread pools as are used
by the other standard JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clustered services (see Section 15.1.2,
“The JGroups Shared Transport”

• jbm-data

Stack optimized for the JBoss Messaging Data Channel. TCP-based

15.1.2. The JGroups Shared Transport

As the number of JGroups-based clustering services running in the Enterprise Application Platform
has risen over the years, the need to share the resources (particularly sockets and threads) used by
these channels became a glaring problem. A stock Enterprise Application Platform 5 all config will
connect 4 JGroups channels during startup, and a total of 7 or 8 will be connected if distributable web

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apps, clustered EJB3 SFSBs and a clustered JPA/Hibernate second level cache are all used. So many
channels can consume a lot of resources, and can be a real configuration nightmare if the network
environment requires configuration to ensure cluster isolation.

Beginning with Enterprise Application Platform 5, JGroups supports sharing of transport protocol
instances between channels. A JGroups channel is composed of a stack of individual protocols, each
of which is responsible for one aspect of the channel's behavior. A transport protocol is a protocol that
is responsible for actually sending messages on the network and receiving them from the network.
The resources that are most desirable for sharing (sockets and thread pools) are managed by the
transport protocol, so sharing a transport protocol between channels efficiently accomplishes JGroups
resource sharing.

To configure a transport protocol for sharing, simply add a singleton_name="someName"

attribute to the protocol's configuration. All channels whose transport protocol config uses the same
singleton_name value will share their transport. All other protocols in the stack will not be shared.
The following illustrates 4 services running in a VM, each with its own channel. Three of the services
are sharing a transport; the fourth is using its own transport.

Figure 15.2. Services using a Shared Transport

The protocol stack configurations used by the Enterprise Application Platform 5 ChannelFactory all
have a singleton_name configured. In fact, if you add a stack to the ChannelFactory that doesn't
include a singleton_name, before creating any channels for that stack, the ChannelFactory will
synthetically create a singleton_name by concatenating the stack name to the string "unnamed_",
e.g. unnamed_customStack.

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Distributed Caching with JBoss Cache

15.2. Distributed Caching with JBoss Cache

JBoss Cache is a fully featured distributed cache framework that can be used in any application server
environment or standalone. JBoss Cache provides the underlying distributed caching support used by
many of the standard clustered services in a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform cluster, including:
• Replication of clustered webapp sessions.

• Replication of clustered EJB3 Stateful Session beans.

• Clustered caching of JPA and Hibernate entities.

• Clustered Single Sign-On.

• The HA-JNDI replicated tree.

• DistributedStateService

Users can also create their own JBoss Cache and POJO Cache instances for custom use by their
applications, see Chapter 23, JBoss Cache Configuration and Deployment for more on this.

15.2.1. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform CacheManager

Service
Many of the standard clustered services in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform use JBoss Cache
to maintain consistent state across the cluster. Different services (e.g. web session clustering or
second level caching of JPA/Hibernate entities) use different JBoss Cache instances, with each
cache configured to meet the needs of the service that uses it. In Enterprise Application Platform 4,
each of these caches was independently deployed in the deploy/ directory, which had a number of
disadvantages:
• Caches that end user applications didn't need were deployed anyway, with each creating an
expensive JGroups channel. For example, even if there were no clustered EJB3 SFSBs, a cache to
store them was started.

• Caches are internal details of the services that use them. They shouldn't be first-class deployments.

• Services would find their cache via JMX lookups. Using JMX for purposes other exposing
management interfaces is just not the JBoss 5 way.

In JBoss 5, the scattered cache deployments have been replaced with a new CacheManager service,
deployed via the JBOSS_HOME/server/all/deploy/cluster/jboss-cache-manager.sar.
The CacheManager is a factory and registry for JBoss Cache instances. It is configured with a set of
named JBoss Cache configurations. Services that need a cache ask the cache manager for the cache
by name; the cache manager creates the cache (if not already created) and returns it. The cache
manager keeps a reference to each cache it has created, so all services that request the same cache
configuration name will share the same cache. When a service is done with the cache, it releases it to
the cache manager. The cache manager keeps track of how many services are using each cache, and
will stop and destroy the cache when all services have released it.

15.2.1.1. Standard Cache Configurations

The following standard JBoss Cache configurations ship with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.
You can add others to suit your needs, or edit these configurations to adjust cache behavior. Additions
or changes are done by editing the deploy/cluster/jboss-cache-manager.sar/META-

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INF/jboss-cache-manager-jboss-beans.xml file (see Section 23.2.1, “Deployment Via the

CacheManager Service” for details). Note however that these configurations are specifically optimized
for their intended use, and except as specifically noted in the documentation chapters for each service
in this guide, it is not advisable to change them.

• standard-session-cache

Standard cache used for web sessions.

• field-granularity-session-cache

Standard cache used for FIELD granularity web sessions.

• sfsb-cache

Standard cache used for EJB3 SFSB caching.

• ha-partition

Used by web tier Clustered Single Sign-On, HA-JNDI, Distributed State.

• mvcc-entity

A config appropriate for JPA/Hibernate entity/collection caching that uses JBC's MVCC locking (see
notes below).

• optimistic-entity

A config appropriate for JPA/Hibernate entity/collection caching that uses JBC's optimistic locking
(see notes below).

• pessimistic-entity

A config appropriate for JPA/Hibernate entity/collection caching that uses JBC's pessimistic locking
(see notes below).

• mvcc-entity-repeatable

Same as "mvcc-entity" but uses JBC's REPEATABLE_READ isolation level instead of

READ_COMMITTED (see notes below).

• pessimistic-entity-repeatable

Same as "pessimistic-entity" but uses JBC's REPEATABLE_READ isolation level instead of

READ_COMMITTED (see notes below).

• local-query

A config appropriate for JPA/Hibernate query result caching. Does not replicate query results. DO
NOT store the timestamp data Hibernate uses to verify validity of query results in this cache.

• replicated-query

A config appropriate for JPA/Hibernate query result caching. Replicates query results. DO NOT
store the timestamp data Hibernate uses to verify validity of query result in this cache.

• timestamps-cache

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A config appropriate for the timestamp data cached as part of JPA/Hibernate query result caching.
A replicated timestamp cache is required if query result caching is used, even if the query results
themselves use a non-replicating cache like local-query.

• mvcc-shared

A config appropriate for a cache that's shared for JPA/Hibernate entity, collection, query result and
timestamp caching. Not an advised configuration, since it requires cache mode REPL_SYNC, which
is the least efficient mode. Also requires a full state transfer at startup, which can be expensive.
Maintained for backwards compatibility reasons, as a shared cache was the only option in JBoss 4.
Uses JBC's MVCC locking.

• optimistic-shared

• pessimistic-shared

• mvcc-shared-repeatable

Same as "mvcc-shared" but uses JBC's REPEATABLE_READ isolation level instead of

READ_COMMITTED (see notes below).

• pessimistic-shared-repeatable

Same as "pessimistic-shared" but uses JBC's REPEATABLE_READ isolation level instead of

READ_COMMITTED. (see notes below).

Note
For more on JBoss Cache's locking schemes, see Section 23.1.4, “Concurrent Access”)

Note
For JPA/Hibernate second level caching, REPEATABLE_READ is only useful if the
application evicts/clears entities from the EntityManager/Hibernate Session and then
expects to repeatably re-read them in the same transaction. Otherwise, the Session's
internal cache provides a repeatable-read semantic.

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15.2.1.2. Cache Configuration Aliases

The CacheManager also supports aliasing of caches; i.e. allowing caches registered under one name
to be looked up under a different name. Aliasing is useful for sharing caches between services whose
configuration may specify different cache config names. It's also useful for supporting legacy EJB3
application configurations ported over from Enterprise Application Platform 4.

Aliases can be configured by editing the "CacheManager" bean in the jboss-cache-manager-

jboss-beans.xml file. The following redacted config shows the standard aliases in Enterprise
Application Platform 5:

<bean name="CacheManager" class="org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.CacheManager">

. . .

<!-- Aliases for cache names. Allows caches to be shared across

services that may expect different cache config names. -->
<property name="configAliases">
<map keyClass="java.lang.String" valueClass="java.lang.String">

<entry>
<key>clustered-sso</key>
<value>ha-partition</value>
</entry>

<entry>
<key>jboss.cache:service=EJB3SFSBClusteredCache</key>
<value>sfsb-cache</value>
</entry>

<entry>
<key>jboss.cache:service=EJB3EntityTreeCache</key>
<value>mvcc-shared</value>
</entry>
</map>
</property>

. . .

</bean>

15.3. The HAPartition Service

HAPartition is a general purpose service used for a variety of tasks in Enterprise Application Platform
clustering. At its core, it is an abstraction built on top of a JGroups Channel that provides support
for making/receiving RPC invocations on/from one or more cluster members. HAPartition allows
services that use it to share a single Channel and multiplex RPC invocations over it, eliminating
the configuration complexity and runtime overhead of having each service create its own Channel.
HAPartition also supports a distributed registry of which clustering services are running on which
cluster members. It provides notifications to interested listeners when the cluster membership changes
or the clustered service registry changes. HAPartition forms the core of many of the clustering services

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The HAPartition Service

we'll be discussing in the rest of this guide, including smart client-side clustered proxies, EJB 2 SFSB
replication and entity cache management, farming, HA-JNDI and HA singletons. Custom services can
also make use of HAPartition.

The following snippet shows the HAPartition service definition packaged with the standard JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform distribution. This configuration can be found in the server/all/
deploy/cluster/hapartition-jboss-beans.xml file.

<bean name="HAPartitionCacheHandler"
class="org.jboss.ha.framework.server.HAPartitionCacheHandlerImpl">
<property name="cacheManager"><inject bean="CacheManager"/></property>
<property name="cacheConfigName">ha-partition</property>
</bean>
<bean name="HAPartition"
class="org.jboss.ha.framework.server.ClusterPartition">
<depends>jboss:service=Naming</depends>
<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=HAPartition,partition=
${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}",
exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.framework.server.ClusterPartitionMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)</annotation>

<property name="cacheHandler"><inject bean="HAPartitionCacheHandler"/></

property>

<property name="partitionName">${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}</
property>

<property name="nodeAddress">${jboss.bind.address}</property>

<!-- Optionally provide a thread source to allow async connect of our

channel -->

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<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=DistributedState,partitionName=
${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}",
exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.framework.server.DistributedStateImplMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)</annotation>

<property name="cacheHandler"><inject bean="HAPartitionCacheHandler"/></

property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

Much of the above is boilerplate; below we'll touch on the key points relevant to end users. There are
two beans defined above, the HAPartitionCacheHandler and the HAPartition itself.

The HAPartition bean itself exposes the following configuration properties:

• partitionName is an optional attribute to specify the name of the cluster. Its default value is
DefaultPartition. Use the -g (a.k.a. --partition) command line switch to set this value at
JBoss startup.

• nodeAddress is unused and can be ignored.

• stateTransferTimeout specifies the timeout (in milliseconds) for initial application state transfer.
State transfer refers to the process of obtaining a serialized copy of initial application state from
other already-running cluster members at service startup. Its default value is 30000.

• methodCallTimeout specifies the timeout (in milliseconds) for obtaining responses to group RPCs
from the other cluster members. Its default value is 60000.

The HAPartitionCacheHandler is a small utility service that helps the HAPartition integrate
with JBoss Cache (see Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform CacheManager
Service”). HAPartition exposes a child service called DistributedState (see Section 15.3.2,
“DistributedState Service”) that uses JBoss Cache; the HAPartitionCacheHandler helps ensure
consistent configuration between the JGroups Channel used by Distributed State's cache and the
one used directly by HAPartition.

• cacheConfigName the name of the JBoss Cache configuration to use for the HAPartition-
related cache. Indirectly, this also specifies the name of the JGroups protocol stack configuration
HAPartition should use. See Section 23.1.5, “JGroups Integration” for more on how the JGroups
protocol stack is configured.

In order for nodes to form a cluster, they must have the exact same partitionName and the
HAPartitionCacheHandler's cacheConfigName must specify an identical JBoss Cache
configuration. Changes in either element on some but not all nodes would prevent proper clustering
behavior.

You can view the current cluster information by pointing your browser to the JMX console of any JBoss
instance in the cluster (i.e., http://hostname:8080/jmx-console/) and then clicking on the
jboss:service=HAPartition,partition=DefaultPartition MBean (change the MBean

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DistributedReplicantManager Service

name to reflect your partitionr name if you use the -g startup switch). A list of IP addresses for the
current cluster members is shown in the CurrentView field.

Note
While it is technically possible to put a JBoss server instance into multiple HAPartitions at
the same time, this practice is generally not recommended, as it increases management
complexity.

15.3.1. DistributedReplicantManager Service

The DistributedReplicantManager (DRM) service is a component
of the HAPartition service made available to HAPartition users via the
HAPartition.getDistributedReplicantManager() method. Generally speaking, JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform users will not directly make use of the DRM; we discuss it here as
an aid to those who want a deeper understanding of how Enterprise Application Platform clustering
internals work.

The DRM is a distributed registry that allows HAPartition users to register objects under a given key,
making available to callersthe set of objects registered under that key by the various members of t he
cluster. The DRM also provides a notification mechanism so interested listeners can be notified when
the contents of the registry changes.

There are two main usages for the DRM in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform:

• Clustered Smart Proxies

Here the keys are the names of the various services that need a clustered smart proxy (see
Section 14.2.1, “Client-side interceptor architecture”, e.g. the name of a clustered EJB. The
value object each node stores in the DRM is known as a "target". It's something a smart proxy's
transport layer can use to contact the node (e.g. an RMI stub, an HTTP URL or a JBoss Remoting
InvokerLocator). The factory that builds clustered smart proxies accesses the DRM to get the
set of "targets" that should be injected into the proxy to allow it to communicate with all the nodes in
a cluster.

• HEnterprise Application Platformingleton

Here the keys are the names of the various services that need to function as High Availablity
Singletons (see the HEnterprise Application Platformingleton chapter). The value object each node
stores in the DRM is simply a String that acts as a token to indicate that the node has the service
deployed, and thus is a candidate to become the "master" node for the HA singleton service.

In both cases, the key under which objects are registered identifies a particular clustered service. It is
useful to understand that every node in a cluster doesn't have to register an object under every key.
Only services that are deployed on a particular node will register something under that service's key,
and services don't have to be deployed homogeneously across the cluster. The DRM is thus useful
as a mechanism for understanding a service's "topology" around the cluster -- which nodes have the
service deployed.

15.3.2. DistributedState Service

The DistributedState service is a legacy component of the HAPartition service made available
to HAPartition users via the HAPartition.getDistributedState() method. This service

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provides coordinated management of arbitary application state around the cluster. It is supported for
backwards compatibility reasons, but new applications should not use it; they should use the much
more sophisticated JBoss Cache instead.

In JBoss 5 the DistributedState service actually delegates to an underlying JBoss Cache

instance.

15.3.3. Custom Use of HAPartition

Custom services can also use make use of HAPartition to handle interactions
with the cluster. Generally the easiest way to do this is to extend the
org.jboss.ha.framework.server.HEnterprise Application PlatformerviceImpl
base class, or the org.jboss.ha.jxm.HEnterprise Application
PlatformerviceMBeanSupport class if JMX registration and notification support are desired.

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Chapter 16.

Clustered JNDI Services

JNDI is one of the most important services provided by the application server. The JBoss HA-JNDI
(High Availability JNDI) service brings the following features to JNDI:

• Transparent failover of naming operations. If an HA-JNDI naming Context is connected to the HA-
JNDI service on a particular JBoss Enterprise Application Platform instance, and that service fails
or is shut down, the HA-JNDI client can transparently fail over to another Enterprise Application
Platform instance.

• Load balancing of naming operations. A HA-JNDI naming Context will automatically load balance its
requests across all the HA-JNDI servers in the cluster.

• Automatic client discovery of HA-JNDI servers (using multicast).

• Unified view of JNDI trees cluster-wide. A client can connect to the HA-JNDI service running on any
node in the cluster and find objects bound in JNDI on any other node. This is accomplished via two
mechanisms:
• Cross-cluster lookups. A client can perform a lookup and the server side HA-JNDI service has the
ability to find things bound in regular JNDI on any node in the cluster.

• A replicated cluster-wide context tree. An object bound into the HA-JNDI service will be replicated
around the cluster, and a copy of that object will be available in-VM on each node in the cluster.

JNDI is a key component for many other interceptor-based clustering services: those services register
themselves with JNDI so the client can look up their proxies and make use of their services. HA-JNDI
completes the picture by ensuring that clients have a highly-available means to look up those proxies.
However, it is important to understand that using HA-JNDI (or not) has no effect whatsoever on the
clustering behavior of the objects that are looked up. To illustrate:

• If an EJB is not configured as clustered, looking up the EJB via HA-JNDI does not somehow result
in the addition of clustering capabilities (load balancing of EJB calls, transparent failover, state
replication) to the EJB.

• If an EJB is configured as clustered, looking up the EJB via regular JNDI instead of HA-JNDI does
not somehow result in the removal of the bean proxy's clustering capabilities.

16.1. How it works

The JBoss client-side HA-JNDI naming Context is based on the client-side interceptor architecture
(see the Introduction and Quick Start chapter). The client obtains an HA-JNDI proxy object (via the
InitialContext object) and invokes JNDI lookup services on the remote server through the proxy.
The client specifies that it wants an HA-JNDI proxy by configuring the naming properties used by the
InitialContext object. This is covered in detail in Section 16.2, “Client configuration”. Other than
the need to ensure the appropriate naming properties are provided to the InitialContext, the fact
that the naming Context is using HA-JNDI is completely transparent to the client.

On the server side, the HA-JNDI service maintains a cluster-wide context tree. The cluster wide
tree is always available as long as there is one node left in the cluster. Each node in the cluster also
maintains its own local JNDI context tree. The HA-JNDI service on each node is able to find objects
bound into the local JNDI context tree, and is also able to make a cluster-wide RPC to find objects
bound in the local tree on any other node. An application can bind its objects to either tree, although

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in practice most objects are bound into the local JNDI context tree. The design rationale for this
architecture is as follows:

• It avoids migration issues with applications that assume that their JNDI implementation is local. This
allows clustering to work out-of-the-box with just a few tweaks of configuration files.

• In a homogeneous cluster, this configuration actually cuts down on the amount of network traffic. A
homogenous cluster is one where the same types of objects are bound under the same names on
each node.

• Designing it in this way makes the HA-JNDI service an optional service since all underlying cluster
code uses a straight new InitialContext to lookup or create bindings.

On the server side, a naming Context obtained via a call to new InitialContext() will be bound
to the local-only, non-cluster-wide JNDI Context. So, all EJB homes and such will not be bound to the
cluster-wide JNDI Context, but rather, each home will be bound into the local JNDI.

When a remote client does a lookup through HA-JNDI, HA-JNDI will delegate to the local JNDI service
when it cannot find the object within the global cluster-wide Context. The detailed lookup rule is as
follows.

• If the binding is available in the cluster-wide JNDI tree, return it.

• If the binding is not in the cluster-wide tree, delegate the lookup query to the local JNDI service and
return the received answer if available.

• If not available, the HA-JNDI service asks all other nodes in the cluster if their local JNDI service
owns such a binding and returns the answer from the set it receives.

• If no local JNDI service owns such a binding, a NameNotFoundException is finally raised.

In practice, objects are rarely bound in the cluster-wide JNDI tree; rather they are bound in the local
JNDI tree. For example, when EJBs are deployed, their proxies are always bound in local JNDI, not
HA-JNDI. So, an EJB home lookup done through HA-JNDI will always be delegated to the local JNDI
instance.

Note
If different beans (even of the same type, but participating in different clusters) use the
same JNDI name, this means that each JNDI server will have a logically different "target"
bound under the same name. (JNDI on node 1 will have a binding for bean A and JNDI
on node 2 will have a binding, under the same name, for bean B). Consequently, if a client
performs a HA-JNDI query for this name, the query will be invoked on any JNDI server of
the cluster and will return the locally bound stub. Nevertheless, it may not be the correct
stub that the client is expecting to receive! So, it is always best practice to ensure that
across the cluster different names are used for logically different bindings.

Note
If a binding is only made available on a few nodes in the cluster (for example because a
bean is only deployed on a small subset of nodes in the cluster), the probability is higher
that a lookup will hit a HA-JNDI server that does not own this binding and thus the lookup
will need to be forwarded to all nodes in the cluster. Consequently, the query time will be

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Client configuration

longer than if the binding would have been available locally. Moral of the story: as much as
possible, cache the result of your JNDI queries in your client.

Note
You cannot currently use a non-JNP JNDI implementation (i.e. LDAP) for your local
JNDI implementation if you want to use HA-JNDI. However, you can use JNDI federation
using the ExternalContext MBean to bind non-JBoss JNDI trees into the JBoss JNDI
namespace. Furthermore, nothing prevents you using one centralized JNDI server for
your whole cluster and scrapping HA-JNDI and JNP.

16.2. Client configuration

Configuring a client to use HA-JNDI is a matter of ensuring the correct set of naming environment
properties are available when a new InitialContext is created. How this is done varies depending
on whether the client is running inside JBoss Enterprise Application Platform itself or is in another VM.

16.2.1. For clients running inside the Enterprise Application

Platform
If you want to access HA-JNDI from inside the Enterprise Application Platform, you must explicitly
configure your InitialContext by passing in JNDI properties to the constructor. The following code
shows how to create a naming Context bound to HA-JNDI:

Properties p = new Properties();

p.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
"org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory");
p.put(Context.URL_PKG_PREFIXES, "jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces");
// HA-JNDI is listening on the address passed to JBoss via -b
String bindAddress = System.getProperty("jboss.bind.address", "localhost");
p.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, bindAddress + ":1100"); // HA-JNDI address and
port.
return new InitialContext(p);

The Context.PROVIDER_URL property points to the HA-JNDI service configured in the deploy/
cluster/hajndi-jboss-beans.xml file (see Section 16.3, “JBoss configuration”). By default this
service listens on the interface named via the jboss.bind.address system property, which itself
is set to whatever value you assign to the -b command line option when you start JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform (or localhost if not specified). The above code shows an example of accessing
this property.

However, this does not work in all cases, especially when running several JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform instances on the same machine and bound to the same IP address, but
configured to use different ports. A safer method is to not specify the Context.PROVIDER_URL
but instead allow the InitialContext to statically find the in-VM HA-JNDI by specifying the
jnp.partitionName property:

Properties p = new Properties();

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p.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
"org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory");
p.put(Context.URL_PKG_PREFIXES, "jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces");
// HA-JNDI is registered under the partition name passed to JBoss via -g
String partitionName = System.getProperty("jboss.partition.name",
"DefaultPartition");
p.put("jnp.partitionName", partitionName);
return new InitialContext(p);

This example uses the jboss.partition.name system property to identify the partition with which
the HA-JNDI service works. This system property is set to whatever value you assign to the -g
command line option when you start JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (or DefaultPartition if
not specified).

Do not attempt to simplify things by placing a jndi.properties file in your deployment or by editing
the Enterprise Application Platform's conf/jndi.properties file. Doing either will almost certainly
break things for your application and quite possibly across the server. If you want to externalize your
client configuration, one approach is to deploy a properties file not named jndi.properties, and
then programatically create a Properties object that loads that file's contents.

16.2.1.1. Accessing HA-JNDI Resources from EJBs and WARs --

Environment Naming Context
If your HA-JNDI client is an EJB or servlet, the least intrusive way to configure the lookup of resources
is to bind the resources to the environment naming context of the bean or webapp performing the
lookup. The binding can then be configured to use HA-JNDI instead of a local mapping. Following is
an example of doing this for a JMS connection factory and queue (the most common use case for this
kind of thing).

Within the bean definition in the ejb-jar.xml or in the war's web.xml you will need to define two
resource-ref mappings, one for the connection factory and one for the destination.

<resource-ref>
<res-ref-name>jms/ConnectionFactory</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.jms.QueueConnectionFactory</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

<resource-ref>
<res-ref-name>jms/Queue</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.jms.Queue</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Using these examples the bean performing the lookup can obtain the connection factory by looking up
'java:comp/env/jms/ConnectionFactory' and can obtain the queue by looking up 'java:comp/env/jms/
Queue'.

Within the JBoss-specific deployment descriptor (jboss.xml for EJBs, jboss-web.xml for a WAR) these
references need to be mapped to a URL that makes use of HA-JNDI.

<resource-ref>

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For clients running outside the Enterprise Application Platform

<res-ref-name>jms/ConnectionFactory</res-ref-name>
<jndi-name>jnp://${jboss.bind.address}:1100/ConnectionFactory</jndi-name>
</resource-ref>

<resource-ref>
<res-ref-name>jms/Queue</res-ref-name>
<jndi-name>jnp://${jboss.bind.address}:1100/queue/A</jndi-name>
</resource-ref>

The URL should be the URL to the HA-JNDI server running on the same node as the bean; if the
bean is available the local HA-JNDI server should also be available. The lookup will then automatically
query all of the nodes in the cluster to identify which node has the JMS resources available.

The ${jboss.bind.address} syntax used above tells JBoss to use the value of the
jboss.bind.address system property when determining the URL. That system property is itself
set to whatever value you assign to the -b command line option when you start JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform.

16.2.1.2. Why do this programmatically and not just put this in a

jndi.properties file?
The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform's internal naming environment is controlled by the conf/
jndi.properties file, which should not be edited.

No other jndi.properties file should be deployed inside the Enterprise Application Platform because
of the possibility of its being found on the classpath when it shouldn't and thus disrupting the internal
operation of the server. For example, if an EJB deployment included a jndi.properties configured for
HA-JNDI, when the server binds the EJB proxies into JNDI it will likely bind them into the replicated
HA-JNDI tree and not into the local JNDI tree where they belong.

16.2.1.3. How can I tell if things are being bound into HA-JNDI that
shouldn't be?
Go into the the jmx-console and execute the list operation on the jboss:service=JNDIView
mbean. Towards the bottom of the results, the contents of the "HA-JNDI Namespace" are listed.
Typically this will be empty; if any of your own deployments are shown there and you didn't explicitly
bind them there, there's probably an improper jndi.properties file on the classpath. Please visit the
1
following link for an example: Problem with removing a Node from Cluster

16.2.2. For clients running outside the Enterprise Application

Platform
The JNDI client needs to be aware of the HA-JNDI cluster. You can pass a list of JNDI servers
(i.e., the nodes in the HA-JNDI cluster) to the java.naming.provider.url JNDI setting in the
jndi.properties file. Each server node is identified by its IP address and the JNDI port number.
The server nodes are separated by commas (see Section 16.3, “JBoss configuration” for how to
configure the servers and ports).

java.naming.provider.url=server1:1100,server2:1100,server3:1100,server4:1100

1
http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=104715

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When initialising, the JNP client code will try to get in touch with each server node from the list, one
after the other, stopping as soon as one server has been reached. It will then download the HA-JNDI
stub from this node.

Note
There is no load balancing behavior in the JNP client lookup process itself. It just goes
through the provider lists and uses the first available server to obtain the stub. The HA-
JNDI provider list only needs to contain a subset of HA-JNDI nodes in the cluster; once
the HA-JNDI stub is downloaded, the stub will include information on all the available
servers. A good practice is to include a set of servers such that you are certain that at
least one of those in the list will be available.

The downloaded smart proxy contains the list of currently running nodes and the logic to load balance
naming requests and to fail-over to another node if necessary. Furthermore, each time a JNDI
invocation is made to the server, the list of targets in the proxy interceptor is updated (only if the list
has changed since the last call).

If the property string java.naming.provider.url is empty or if all servers it mentions are not
reachable, the JNP client will try to discover a HA-JNDI server through a multicast call on the network
(auto-discovery). See Section 16.3, “JBoss configuration” for how to configure auto-discovery on
the JNDI server nodes. Through auto-discovery, the client might be able to get a valid HA-JNDI
server node without any configuration. Of course, for auto-discovery to work, the network segment(s)
between the client and the server cluster must be configured to propagate such multicast datagrams.

Note
By default the auto-discovery feature uses multicast group address 230.0.0.4 and port
1102.

In addition to the java.naming.provider.url property, you can specify a set of other properties.
The following list shows all clustering-related client side properties you can specify when creating a
new InitialContext. (All of the standard, non-clustering-related environment properties used with
regular JNDI are also available.)

• java.naming.provider.url: Provides a list of IP addresses and port numbers for HA-JNDI

provider nodes in the cluster. The client tries those providers one by one and uses the first one that
responds.

• jnp.disableDiscovery: When set to true, this property disables the automatic discovery
feature. Default is false.

• jnp.partitionName: In an environment where multiple HA-JNDI services bound to distinct

clusters (a.k.a. partitions), are running, this property allows you to ensure that your client only
accepts automatic-discovery responses from servers in the desired partition. If you do not use the
automatic discovery feature (i.e. jnp.disableDiscovery is true), this property is not used. By default,
this property is not set and the automatic discovery selects the first HA-JNDI server that responds,
regardless of the cluster partition name.

• jnp.discoveryTimeout: Determines how many milliseconds the context will wait for a response
to its automatic discovery packet. Default is 5000 ms.

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• jnp.discoveryGroup: Determines which multicast group address is used for the automatic
discovery. Default is 230.0.0.4. Must match the value of the AutoDiscoveryAddress configured on
the server side HA-JNDI service. Note that the server side HA-JNDI service by default listens on the
address specified via the -u startup switch, so if -u is used on the server side (as is recommended),
jnp.discoveryGroup will need to be configured on the client side.

• jnp.discoveryPort: Determines which multicast port is used for the automatic discovery. Default
is 1102. Must match the value of the AutoDiscoveryPort configured on the server side HA-JNDI
service.

• jnp.discoveryTTL: specifies the TTL (time-to-live) f or autodiscovery IP multicast packets. This

value represents the number of network hops a multicast packet can be allowed to propagate before
networking equipment should drop the packet. Despite its name, it does not represent a unit of time.

16.3. JBoss configuration

The hajndi-jboss-beans.xml file in the JBOSS_HOME/server/all/deploy/cluster
directory includes the following bean to enable HA-JNDI services.

<bean name="HAJNDI" class="org.jboss.ha.jndi.HANamingService">

<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=HAJNDI",
exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.jndi.HANamingServiceMBean.class)</
annotation>

<property name="HAPartition"><inject bean="HAPartition"/></property>

<property name="lookupPool"><inject
bean="jboss.system:service=ThreadPool"/></property>

<property name="bindAddress">${jboss.bind.address}</property>

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<property name="port">

<value-factory bean="ServiceBindingManager"
method="getIntBinding">
<parameter>jboss:service=HAJNDI</parameter>
<parameter>Port</parameter>
</value-factory>
</property>

<property name="rmiBindAddress">${jboss.bind.address}</property>

<!-- RmiPort to be used by the HA-JNDI service once bound. 0 =

ephemeral. -->
<property name="rmiPort">

<value-factory bean="ServiceBindingManager"
method="getIntBinding">
<parameter>jboss:service=HAJNDI</parameter>
<parameter>RmiPort</parameter>
</value-factory>
</property>

<property name="discoveryDisabled">false</property>

<property name="autoDiscoveryBindAddress">${jboss.bind.address}</
property>

<property name="autoDiscoveryAddress">
${jboss.partition.udpGroup:230.0.0.4}</property>
<property name="autoDiscoveryGroup">1102</property>
<!-- The TTL (time-to-live) for autodiscovery IP multicast packets --
>
<property name="autoDiscoveryTTL">16</property>

<property
name="loadBalancePolicy">org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin</
property>

<!-- Client socket factory to be used for client-server

RMI invocations during JNDI queries
<property name="clientSocketFactory">custom</property>
-->
<!-- Server socket factory to be used for client-server

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RMI invocations during JNDI queries

<property name="serverSocketFactory">custom</property>
-->
</bean>

You can see that this bean has a number of other services injected into different properties:
• HAPartition accepts the core clustering service used manage HA-JNDI's clustered proxies and
to make the group RPCs that find locally bound objects on other nodes. See Section 15.3, “The
HAPartition Service” for more.

• distributedTreeManager accepts a handler for the replicated tree. The standard handler uses
JBoss Cache to manage the replicated tree. The JBoss Cache instance is retrieved using the
injected HAPartitionCacheHandler bean. See Section 15.3, “The HAPartition Service” for more
details.

• localNamingInstance accepts the reference to the local JNDI service.

• lookupPool accepts the thread pool used to provide threads to handle the bootstrap and auto
discovery lookups.

Besides the above dependency injected services, the available configuration attributes for the HAJNDI
bean are as follows:

• bindAddress specifies the address to which the HA-JNDI server will bind to listen for naming proxy
download requests from JNP clients. The default value is the value of the jboss.bind.address
system property, or localhost if that property is not set. The jboss.bind.address system
property is set if the -b command line switch is used when JBoss is started.

• port specifies the port to which the HA-JNDI server will bind to listen for naming proxy download
requests from JNP clients. The value is obtained from the ServiceBindingManager bean configured
in conf/bootstrap/bindings.xml. The default value is 1100.

• Backlog specifies the maximum queue length for incoming connection indications for the TCP
server socket on which the service listens for naming proxy download requests from JNP clients.
The default value is 50.

• rmiBindAddress specifies the address to which the HA-JNDI server will bind to listen for
RMI requests (e.g. for JNDI lookups) from naming proxies. The default value is the value of
the jboss.bind.address system property, or localhost if that property is not set. The
jboss.bind.address system property is set if the -b command line switch is used when JBoss
is started.

• rmiPort specifies the port to which the server will bind to communicate with the downloaded stub.
The value is obtained from the ServiceBindingManager bean configured in conf/bootstrap/
bindings.xml. The default value is 1101. If no value is set, the operating system automatically
assigns a port.

• discoveryDisabled is a boolean flag that disables configuration of the auto discovery multicast
listener. The default is false.

• autoDiscoveryAddress specifies the multicast address to listen to for JNDI automatic discovery.
The default value is the value of the jboss.partition.udpGroup system property, or 230.0.0.4
if that is not set. The jboss.partition.udpGroup system property is set if the -u command line
switch is used when JBoss is started.

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• autoDiscoveryGroup specifies the port to listen on for multicast JNDI automatic discovery packets.
The default value is 1102.

• autoDiscoveryBindAddress sets the interface on which HA-JNDI should listen for auto-
discovery request packets. If this attribute is not specified and a bindAddress is specified, the
bindAddress will be used.

• autoDiscoveryTTL specifies the TTL (time-to-live) for autodiscovery IP multicast packets. This
value represents the number of network hops a multicast packet can be allowed to propagate before
networking equipment should drop the packet. Despite its name, it does not represent a unit of time.

• loadBalancePolicy specifies the class name of the LoadBalancePolicyimplementation that should

be included in the client proxy. See the Introduction and Quick Start chapter for details.

• clientSocketFactory is an optional attribute that specifies the fully qualified classname of the
java.rmi.server.RMIClientSocketFactory that should be used to create client sockets.
The default is null.

• serverSocketFactory is an optional attribute that specifies the fully qualified classname of the
java.rmi.server.RMIServerSocketFactory that should be used to create server sockets.
The default is null.

16.3.1. Adding a Second HA-JNDI Service

It is possible to start several HA-JNDI services that use different HAPartitions. This can be used, for
example, if a node is part of many logical clusters. In this case, make sure that you set a different port
or IP address for each service. For instance, if you wanted to hook up HA-JNDI to the example cluster
you set up and change the binding port, the bean descriptor would look as follows (properties that do
not vary from the standard deployments are omitted):

<-- Cache Handler for secondary HAPartition -->

<bean name="SecondaryHAPartitionCacheHandler"
class="org.jboss.ha.framework.server.HAPartitionCacheHandlerImpl">
<property name="cacheManager"><inject bean="CacheManager"/></
property>
<property name="cacheConfigName">secondary-ha-partition</property>
</bean>

<-- The secondary HAPartition -->

<depends>jboss:service=Naming</depends>

<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=HAPartition,partition=SecondaryPartition",

exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.framework.server.ClusterPartitionMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)</annotation>

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Adding a Second HA-JNDI Service

<property name="partitionName">SecondaryPartition</property>

....
</bean>

<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=HAJNDI,partitionName=SecondaryPartition",
exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.jndi.HANamingServiceMBean.class)</
annotation>

<property name="HAPartition"><inject bean="SecondaryHAPartition"/></

property>

.....
</bean>

165
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Chapter 17.

Clustered Session EJBs

Session EJBs provide remote invocation services. They are clustered based on the client-side
interceptor architecture. The client application for a clustered session bean is the same as the client
for the non-clustered version of the session bean, except for some minor changes. No code change
or re-compilation is needed on the client side. Now, let's check out how to configure clustered session
beans in EJB 3.0 and EJB 2.x server applications respectively.

17.1. Stateless Session Bean in EJB 3.0

Clustering stateless session beans is probably the easiest case since no state is involved. Calls can
be load balanced to any participating node (i.e. any node that has this specific bean deployed) of the
cluster.

To cluster a stateless session bean in EJB 3.0, simply annotate the bean class with the @Clustered
annotation. This annotation contains optional parameters for overriding both the load balance policy
and partition to use.

public @interface Clustered

{
String partition() default "${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}";
String loadBalancePolicy() default "LoadBalancePolicy";
}

• partition specifies the name of the cluster the bean participates in. While the @Clustered
annotation lets you override the default partition, DefaultPartition, for an individual bean, you
can override this for all beans using the jboss.partition.name system property.

• loadBalancePolicy defines the name of a class implementing

org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.LoadBalancePolicy, indicating how the bean stub
should balance calls made on the nodes of the cluster. The default value, LoadBalancePolicy is
a special token indicating the default policy for the session bean type. For stateless session beans,
the default policy is org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.RoundRobin. You can override the
default value using your own implementation, or choose one from the list of available policies:

org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.RoundRobin
Starting with a random target, always favors the next available target in the list, ensuring
maximum load balancing always occurs.

org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.RandomRobin
Randomly selects its target without any consideration to previously selected targets.

org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.aop.FirstAvailable
Once a target is chosen, always favors that same target; i.e. no further load balancing occurs.
Useful in cases where "sticky session" behavior is desired, e.g. stateful session beans.

org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.aop.FirstAvailableIdenticalAllProxies
Similar to FirstAvailable, except that the favored target is shared across all proxies.

Here is an example of a clustered EJB 3.0 stateless session bean implementation.

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@Stateless
@Clustered
public class MyBean implements MySessionInt
{
public void test()
{
// Do something cool
}
}

Rather than using the @Clustered annotation, you can also enable clustering for a session bean in
jboss.xml:

<jboss>
<enterprise-beans>
<session>
<ejb-name>NonAnnotationStateful</ejb-name>
<clustered>true</clustered>
<cluster-config>
<partition-name>FooPartition</partition-name>
<load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RandomRobin</load-balance-policy>
</cluster-config>
</session>
</enterprise-beans>
</jboss>

Note
The <clustered>true</clustered> element is really just an alias for the
<container-name>Clustered Stateless SessionBean</container-name>
element in the conf/standardjboss.xml file.

In the bean configuration, only the <clustered> element is necessary to indicate that the bean needs to
support clustering features. The default values for the optional <cluster-config> elements match those
of the corresponding properties from the @Clustered annotation.

17.2. Stateful Session Beans in EJB 3.0

17.2.1. The EJB application configuration

To cluster stateful session beans in EJB 3.0, you need to tag the bean implementation class with the
@Clustered annotation, just as we did with the EJB 3.0 stateless session bean earlier. In contrast
to stateless session beans, stateful session bean method invocations are load balanced using

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The EJB application configuration

org.jboss.ha.client.loadbalance.aop.FirstAvailable policy, by default. Using this

policy, methods invocations will stick to a randomly chosen node.

The @org.jboss.ejb3.annotation.CacheConfig annotation can also be applied to the bean to

override the default caching behavior. Below is the definition of the @CacheConfig annotation:

public @interface CacheConfig

{
String name() default "";
int maxSize() default 10000;
long idleTimeoutSeconds() default 300;
boolean replicationIsPassivation() default true;
long removalTimeoutSeconds() default 0;
}

• name specifies the name of a cache configuration registered with the CacheManager service
discussed in Section 17.2.3, “CacheManager service configuration”. By default, the sfsb-cache
configuration will be used.

• maxSize specifies the maximum number of beans that can cached before the cache should start
passivating beans, using an LRU algorithm.

• idleTimeoutSeconds specifies the max period of time a bean can go unused before the cache
should passivate it (irregardless of whether maxSize beans are cached.)

• removalTimeoutSeconds specifies the max period of time a bean can go unused before the
cache should remove it altogether.

• replicationIsPassivation specifies whether the cache should consider a replication as

being equivalent to a passivation, and invoke any @PrePassivate and @PostActivate callbacks
on the bean. By default true, since replication involves serializing the bean, and preparing for and
recovering from serialization is a common reason for implementing the callback methods.

Here is an example of a clustered EJB 3.0 stateful session bean implementation.

@Stateful
@Clustered
@CacheConfig(maxSize=5000, removalTimeoutSeconds=18000)
public class MyBean implements MySessionInt
{
private int state = 0;

public void increment()

{
System.out.println("counter: " + (state++));
}
}

As with stateless beans, the @Clustered annotation can alternatively be omitted and the clustering
configuration instead applied to jboss.xml:

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Chapter 17. Clustered Session EJBs

<jboss>
<enterprise-beans>
<session>
<ejb-name>NonAnnotationStateful</ejb-name>
<clustered>true</clustered>
<cache-config>
<cache-max-size>5000</cache-max-size>
<remove-timeout-seconds>18000</remove-timeout-seconds>
</cache-config>
</session>
</enterprise-beans>
</jboss>

17.2.2. Optimize state replication

As the replication process is a costly operation, you can optimise this behaviour by optionally
implementing the org.jboss.ejb3.cache.Optimized interface in your bean class:

public interface Optimized

{
boolean isModified();
}

Before replicating your bean, the container will check if your bean implements the Optimized
interface. If this is the case, the container calls the isModified() method and will only replicate
the bean when the method returns true. If the bean has not been modified (or not enough to require
replication, depending on your own preferences), you can return false and the replication would not
occur.

17.2.3. CacheManager service configuration

JBoss Cache provides the session state replication service for EJB 3.0 stateful session beans. The
CacheManager service, described in Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
CacheManager Service” is both a factory and registry of JBoss Cache instances. By default, stateful
session beans use the sfsb-cache configuration from the CacheManager, defined as follows:

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CacheManager service configuration

-->
<property name="multiplexerStack">${jboss.default.jgroups.stack:udp}</
property>
<property name="fetchInMemoryState">true</property>

<property name="nodeLockingScheme">PESSIMISTIC</property>
<property name="isolationLevel">REPEATABLE_READ</property>
<property name="useLockStriping">false</property>
<property name="cacheMode">REPL_ASYNC</property>

<property name="syncReplTimeout">17500</property>

<property name="lockAcquisitionTimeout">15000</property>

<property name="stateRetrievalTimeout">60000</property>

<property name="useRegionBasedMarshalling">false</property>

<property name="inactiveOnStartup">false</property>

<property name="enabled">false</property>

<property name="buddyPoolName">default</property>

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<property name="autoDataGravitation">false</property>
<property name="dataGravitationRemoveOnFind">true</property>
<property name="dataGravitationSearchBackupTrees">true</property>

<property name="buddyLocatorConfig">
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.buddyreplication.NextMemberBuddyLocatorConfig">

<property name="numBuddies">1</property>

<property name="ignoreColocatedBuddies">true</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="cacheLoaderConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.CacheLoaderConfig">

<property name="passivation">true</property>
<property name="shared">false</property>

<property name="individualCacheLoaderConfigs">
<list>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.loader.FileCacheLoaderConfig">

<property name="location">${jboss.server.data.dir}${/}sfsb</
property>

<property name="async">false</property>
<property name="fetchPersistentState">true</property>
<property name="purgeOnStartup">true</property>
<property name="ignoreModifications">false</property>
<property name="checkCharacterPortability">false</property>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>

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Stateless Session Bean in EJB 2.x

Eviction
The default SFSB cache is configured to support eviction. The EJB3 SFSB container uses the
JBoss Cache eviction mechanism to manage SFSB passivation. When beans are deployed, the EJB
container will programatically add eviction regions to the cache, one region per bean type.

CacheLoader
A JBoss Cache CacheLoader is also configured; again to support SFSB passivation. When beans
are evicted from the cache, the cache loader passivates them to a persistent store; in this case
to the filesystem in the $JBOSS_HOME/server/all/data/sfsb directory. JBoss Cache supports
a variety of different CacheLoader implementations that know how to store data to different
persistent store types; see the JBoss Cache documentation for details. However, if you change the
CacheLoaderConfiguration, be sure that you do not use a shared store, e.g. a single schema in a
shared database. Each node in the cluster must have its own persistent store, otherwise as nodes
independently passivate and activate clustered beans, they will corrupt each other's data.

Buddy Replication
Using buddy replication, state is replicated to a configurable number of backup servers in the cluster
(aka buddies), rather than to all servers in the cluster. To enable buddy replication, adjust the following
properties in the buddyReplicationConfig property bean:
• Set enabled to true.

• Use the buddyPoolName to form logical subgroups of nodes within the cluster. If possible, buddies
will be chosen from nodes in the same buddy pool.

• Adjust the buddyLocatorConfig.numBuddies property to reflect the number of backup nodes to

which each node should replicate its state.

17.3. Stateless Session Bean in EJB 2.x

To make an EJB 2.x bean clustered, you need to modify its jboss.xml descriptor to contain a
<clustered> tag.

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<ejb-name>nextgen.StatelessSession</ejb-name>
<jndi-name>nextgen.StatelessSession</jndi-name>
<clustered>true</clustered>
<cluster-config>
<partition-name>DefaultPartition</partition-name>
<home-load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin</home-load-balance-
policy>
<bean-load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin</bean-load-balance-
policy>
</cluster-config>
</session>
</enterprise-beans>
</jboss>

• partition-name specifies the name of the cluster the bean participates in. The default value
is DefaultPartition. The default partition name can also be set system-wide using the
jboss.partition.name system property.

• home-load-balance-policy indicates the class to be used by the home stub to balance calls made
on the nodes of the cluster. By default, the proxy will load-balance calls in a RoundRobin fashion.

• bean-load-balance-policy Indicates the class to be used by the bean stub to balance calls made
on the nodes of the cluster. By default, the proxy will load-balance calls in a RoundRobin fashion.

17.4. Stateful Session Bean in EJB 2.x

Clustering stateful session beans is more complex than clustering their stateless counterparts since
JBoss needs to manage the state information. The state of all stateful session beans are replicated
and synchronized across the cluster each time the state of a bean changes. The JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform uses the HASessionStateService bean to manage distributed session
states for clustered EJB 2.x stateful session beans. In this section, we cover both the session bean
configuration and the HASessionStateService bean configuration.

17.4.1. The EJB application configuration

In the EJB application, you need to modify the jboss.xml descriptor file for each stateful session
bean and add the <clustered> tag.

<jboss>
<enterprise-beans>
<session>
<ejb-name>nextgen.StatefulSession</ejb-name>
<jndi-name>nextgen.StatefulSession</jndi-name>
<clustered>True</clustered>
<cluster-config>
<partition-name>DefaultPartition</partition-nam>
<home-load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin</home-load-balance-
policy>

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Optimize state replication

<bean-load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.FirstAvailable</bean-load-balance-
policy>
<session-state-manager-jndi-name>/HASessionState/Default</session-
state-manager-jndi-name>
</cluster-config>
</session>
</enterprise-beans>
</jboss>

In the bean configuration, only the <clustered> tag is mandatory to indicate that the bean works in
a cluster. The <cluster-config> element is optional and its default attribute values are indicated in
the sample configuration above.

The <session-state-manager-jndi-name> tag is used to give the JNDI name of the

HASessionStateService to be used by this bean.

The description of the remaining tags is identical to the one for stateless session bean. Actions on the
clustered stateful session bean's home interface are by default load-balanced, round-robin. Once the
bean's remote stub is available to the client, calls will not be load-balanced round-robin any more and
will stay "sticky" to the first node in the list.

17.4.2. Optimize state replication

As the replication process is a costly operation, you can optimise this behaviour by optionally
implementing in your bean class a method with the following signature:

public boolean isModified();

Before replicating your bean, the container will detect if your bean implements this method. If your
bean does, the container calls the isModified() method and it only replicates the bean when
the method returns true. If the bean has not been modified (or not enough to require replication,
depending on your own preferences), you can return false and the replication would not occur. This
feature is available on JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 3.0.1+ only.

17.4.3. The HASessionStateService configuration

The HASessionStateService bean is defined in the all/deploy/cluster/ha-legacy-
jboss-beans.xml file.

<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=HASessionState",
exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.hasessionstate.server.
HASessionStateServiceMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)</annotation>

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<property name="HAPartition"><inject bean="HAPartition"/></property>

<property name="jndiName">/HASessionState/Default</property>

<property name="beanCleaningDelay">0</property>

</bean>

The configuration attributes in the HASessionStateService bean are listed below.

• HAPartition is a required attribute to inject the HAPartition service that HA-JNDI uses for intra-
cluster communication.

• jndiName is an optional attribute to specify the JNDI name under which this
HASessionStateService bean is bound. The default value is /HAPartition/Default.

• beanCleaningDelay is an optional attribute to specify the number of miliseconds after which the
HASessionStateService can clean a state that has not been modified. If a node, owning a bean,
crashes, its brother node will take ownership of this bean. Nevertheless, the container cache of
the brother node will not know about it (because it has never seen it before) and will never delete
according to the cleaning settings of the bean. That is why the HASessionStateService needs
to do this cleanup sometimes. The default value is 30*60*1000 milliseconds (i.e., 30 minutes).

17.4.4. Handling Cluster Restart

We have covered the HA smart client architecture in the section called “Client-side interceptor
architecture”. The default HA smart proxy client can only failover as long as one node in the cluster
exists. If there is a complete cluster shutdown, the proxy becomes orphaned and loses knowledge of
the available nodes in the cluster. There is no way for the proxy to recover from this. The proxy needs
to look up a fresh set of targets out of JNDI/HAJNDI when the nodes are restarted.

The 3.2.7+/4.0.2+ releases contain a RetryInterceptor that can be added to the proxy client side
interceptor stack to allow for a transparent recovery from such a restart failure. To enable it for an
EJB, setup an invoker-proxy-binding that includes the RetryInterceptor. Below is an example jboss.xml
configuration.

<jboss>
<session>
<ejb-name>nextgen_RetryInterceptorStatelessSession</ejb-name>
<invoker-bindings>
<invoker>
<invoker-proxy-binding-name>clustered-retry-stateless-rmi-invoker</
invoker-proxy-binding-name>
<jndi-name>nextgen_RetryInterceptorStatelessSession</jndi-name>
</invoker>
</invoker-bindings>
<clustered>true</clustered>
</session>
<invoker-proxy-binding>

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JNDI Lookup Process

<name>clustered-retry-stateless-rmi-invoker</name>
<invoker-mbean>jboss:service=invoker,type=jrmpha</invoker-mbean>
<proxy-factory>org.jboss.proxy.ejb.ProxyFactoryHA</proxy-factory>
<proxy-factory-config>
<client-interceptors>
<home>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.ejb.HomeInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.SecurityInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.TransactionInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.ejb.RetryInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.invocation.InvokerInterceptor</
interceptor>
</home>
<bean>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.ejb.StatelessSessionInterceptor</
interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.SecurityInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.TransactionInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.proxy.ejb.RetryInterceptor</interceptor>
<interceptor>org.jboss.invocation.InvokerInterceptor</
interceptor>
</bean>
</client-interceptors>
</proxy-factory-config>
</invoker-proxy-binding>
</jboss>

17.4.5. JNDI Lookup Process

In order to recover the HA proxy, the RetryInterceptor does a lookup in JNDI. This means that
internally it creates a new InitialContext and does a JNDI lookup. But, for that lookup to succeed, the
InitialContext needs to be configured properly to find your naming server. The RetryInterceptor will go
through the following steps in attempting to determine the proper naming environment properties:

1. It will check its own static retryEnv field. This field can be set by client code via a call to
RetryInterceptor.setRetryEnv(Properties). This approach to configuration has two downsides: first,
it reduces portability by introducing JBoss-specific calls to the client code; and second, since a
static field is used only a single configuration per JVM is possible.

2. If the retryEnv field is null, it will check for any environment properties bound to
a ThreadLocal by the org.jboss.naming.NamingContextFactory class. To use
this class as your naming context factory, in your jndi.properties set property
java.naming.factory.initial=org.jboss.naming.NamingContextFactory. The advantage of this
approach is use of org.jboss.naming.NamingContextFactory is simply a configuration option
in your jndi.properties file, and thus your java code is unaffected. The downside is the naming
properties are stored in a ThreadLocal and thus are only visible to the thread that originally
created an InitialContext.

3. If neither of the above approaches yield a set of naming environment properties, a default
InitialContext is used. If the attempt to contact a naming server is unsuccessful, by default the
InitialContext will attempt to fall back on multicast discovery to find an HA-JNDI naming server.
See the section on “ClusteredJNDI Services” for more on multicast discovery of HA-JNDI.

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17.4.6. SingleRetryInterceptor
The RetryInterceptor is useful in many use cases, but a disadvantage it has is that it will continue
attempting to re-lookup the HA proxy in JNDI until it succeeds. If for some reason it cannot succeed,
this process could go on forever, and thus the EJB call that triggered the RetryInterceptor will never
return. For many client applications, this possibility is unacceptable. As a result, JBoss doesn't make
the RetryInterceptor part of its default client interceptor stacks for clustered EJBs.

In the 4.0.4.RC1 release, a new flavor of retry interceptor was introduced, the
org.jboss.proxy.ejb.SingleRetryInterceptor. This version works like the RetryInterceptor, but only
makes a single attempt to re-lookup the HA proxy in JNDI. If this attempt fails, the EJB call will fail just
as if no retry interceptor was used. Beginning with 4.0.4.CR2, the SingleRetryInterceptor is part of the
default client interceptor stacks for clustered EJBs.

The downside of the SingleRetryInterceptor is that if the retry attempt is made during a portion of a
cluster restart where no servers are available, the retry will fail and no further attempts will be made.

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Chapter 18.

Clustered Entity EJBs

In a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform cluster, entity bean instance caches need to be kept in sync
across all nodes. If an entity bean provides remote services, the service methods need to be load
balanced as well.

18.1. Entity Bean in EJB 3.0

In EJB 3.0, entity beans primarily serve as a persistence data model. They do not provide remote
services. Hence, the entity bean clustering service in EJB 3.0 primarily deals with distributed caching
and replication, instead of load balancing.

18.1.1. Configure the distributed cache

To avoid round trips to the database, you can use a cache for your entities. JBoss EJB 3.0 entity
beans are implemented by Hibernate, which has support for a second-level cache. The second-level
cache provides the following functionalities:

• If you persist a cache-enabled entity bean instance to the database via the entity manager, the entity
will be inserted into the cache.

• If you update an entity bean instance, and save the changes to the database via the entity manager,
the entity will be updated in the cache.

• If you remove an entity bean instance from the database via the entity manager, the entity will be
removed from the cache.

• If loading a cached entity from the database via the entity manager, and that entity does not exist in
the database, it will be inserted into the cache.

As well as a region for caching entities, the second-level cache also contains regions for caching
collections, queries, and timestamps. The Hibernate setup used for the JBoss EJB 3.0 implementation
uses JBoss Cache as its underlying second-level cache implementation.

Configuration of a the second-level cache is done via your EJB3 deployment's persistence.xml.

e.g.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<persistence xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://
java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd">
<persistence-unit name="tempdb" transaction-type="JTA">
<jta-data-source>java:/DefaultDS</jta-data-source>
<properties>
<property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache" value="true"/
>
<property name="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache" value="true"/>
<property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class"
value="org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.JndiMultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory"/>

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hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache
Enables second-level caching of entities and collections.

hibernate.cache.use_query_cache
Enables second-level caching of queries.

hibernate.cache.region.factory_class
Defines the RegionFactory implementation that dictates region-specific caching behavior.
Hibernate ships with 2 types of JBoss Cache-based second-level caches: shared and multiplexed.

A shared region factory uses the same Cache for all cache regions - much like the legacy
CacheProvider implementation in older Hibernate versions.

Hibernate ships with 2 shared region factory implementations:

org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.SharedJBossCacheRegionFactory
Uses a single JBoss Cache configuration, from a newly instantiated CacheManager, for all
cache regions.

Property Default Description

hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.shared
treecache.xml The classpath or filesystem
resource containing the
JBoss Cache configuration
settings.
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.jgroups.stacks
org/hibernate/cache/jbc2/ The classpath or filesystem
builder/jgroups-stacks.xml resource containing the
JGroups protocol stack
configurations.
Table 18.1. Additional properties for SharedJBossCacheRegionFactory

org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.JndiSharedJBossCacheRegionFactory
Uses a single JBoss Cache configuration, from an existing CacheManager bound to JNDI, for
all cache regions.

Property Default Description

Required
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.shared JNDI name to which the
shared Cache instance is
bound.
Table 18.2. Additional properties for JndiSharedJBossCacheRegionFactory

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Configure the distributed cache

A multiplexed region factory uses separate Cache instances, using optimized configurations for
each cache region.

Property Default Description

hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.entity
optimistic-entity The JBoss Cache configuration
used for the entity cache
region. Alternative
configurations: mvcc-entity,
pessimistic-entity, mvcc-entity-
repeatable, optimistic-entity-
repeatable, pessimistic-entity-
repeatable
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.collection
optimistic-entity The JBoss Cache configuration
used for the collection cache
region. The collection cache
region typically uses the same
configuration as the entity
cache region.
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.query
local-query The JBoss Cache configuration
used for the query cache
region. By default, cached
query results are not
replicated. Alternative
configurations: replicated-query
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.ts
timestamps-cache The JBoss Cache configuration
used for the timestamp cache
region. If query caching is
used, the corresponding
timestamp cache must be
replicating, even if the query
cache is non-replicating. The
timestamp cache region must
never share the same cache as
the query cache.
Table 18.3. Common properties for multiplexed region factory implementations

Hibernate ships with 2 shared region factory implementations:

org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.MultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory
Uses separate JBoss Cache configurations, from a newly instantiated CacheManager, per
cache region.

Property Default Description

hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.configs
org/hibernate/cache/jbc2/ The classpath or filesystem
builder/jbc2-configs.xml resource containing the
JBoss Cache configuration
settings.
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.jgroups.stacks
org/hibernate/cache/jbc2/ The classpath or filesystem
builder/jgroups-stacks.xml resource containing the

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Property Default Description

JGroups protocol stack
configurations.
Table 18.4. Additional properties for MultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory

org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.JndiMultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory
Uses separate JBoss Cache configurations, from a JNDI-bound CacheManager, see
Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform CacheManager Service”, per
cache region.

Property Default Description

Required
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cachefactory JNDI name to which the
CacheManager instance is
bound.
Table 18.5. Additional properties for JndiMultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory

Now, we have JBoss Cache configured to support distributed caching of EJB 3.0 entity beans. We still
have to configure individual entity beans to use the cache service.

18.1.2. Configure the entity beans for cache

Next we need to configure which entities to cache. The default is to not cache anything, even with the
settings shown above. We use the @org.hibernate.annotations.Cache annotation to tag entity
beans that needs to be cached.

@Entity
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL)
public class Account implements Serializable
{
// ... ...
}

A very simplified rule of thumb is that you will typically want to do caching for objects that rarely
change, and which are frequently read. You can fine tune the cache for each entity bean in the
appropriate JBoss Cache configuration file, e.g. jboss-cache-manager-jboss-beans.xml. For instance,
you can specify the size of the cache. If there are too many objects in the cache, the cache can evict
the oldest or least used objects, depending on configuration, to make room for new objects. Assuming
the region_prefix specified in persistence.xml was myprefix, the default name of the cache
region for the com.mycompany.entities.Account entity bean would be /myprefix/com/
mycompany/entities/Account.

<bean name="..." class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

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<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">

<property name="maxNodes">10000</property>

<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">1000</property>

<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="evictionRegionConfigs">
<list>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/myprefix/com/mycompany/entities/
Account</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">10000</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">5000</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
... ...
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

If you do not specify a cache region for an entity bean class, all instances of this class will be cached
using the defaultEvictionRegionConfig as defined above. The @Cache annotation exposes an
optional attribute “region” that lets you specify the cache region where an entity is to be stored, rather
than having it be automatically be created from the fully-qualified class name of the entity class.

@Entity
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL, region = ”Account”)
public class Account implements Serializable
{
// ... ...
}

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The eviction configuration would then become:

<bean name="..." class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

... ...
<property name="evictionConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionConfig">
<property name="wakeupInterval">5000</property>

<property name="defaultEvictionRegionConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">5000</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">1000</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="evictionRegionConfigs">
<list>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/myprefix/Account</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">10000</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">5000</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
... ...
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

18.1.3. Query result caching

The EJB3 Query API also provides means for you to save the results (i.e., collections of primary keys
of entity beans, or collections of scalar values) of specified queries in the second-level cache. Here
we show a simple example of annotating a bean with a named query, also providing the Hibernate-
specific hints that tells Hibernate to cache the query.

First, in persistence.xml you need to tell Hibernate to enable query caching:

<property name="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache" value="true"/>

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Query result caching

Next, you create a named query associated with an entity, and tell Hibernate you want to cache the
results of that query:

@Entity
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL, region = ”Account”)
@NamedQueries(
{
@NamedQuery(
name = "account.bybranch",
query = "select acct from Account as acct where acct.branch = ?1",
hints = { @QueryHint(name = "org.hibernate.cacheable", value =
"true") }
)
})
public class Account implements Serializable
{
// ... ...
}

The @NamedQueries, @NamedQuery and @QueryHint annotations are all in the javax.persistence
package. See the Hibernate and EJB3 documentation for more on how to use EJB3 queries and on
how to instruct EJB3 to cache queries.

By default, Hibernate stores query results in JBoss Cache in a region named {region_prefix}/org/
hibernate/cache/StandardQueryCache. Based on this, you can set up separate eviction handling for
your query results. So, if the region prefix were set to myprefix in persistence.xml, you could, for
example, create this sort of eviction handling:

<bean name="..." class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

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<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/myprefix/Account</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">10000</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">5000</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</
property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/myprefix/org/hibernate/
cache/StandardQueryCache</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">100</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">600</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</
property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

The @NamedQuery.hints attribute shown above takes an array of vendor-specific @QueryHints as a

value. Hibernate accepts the “org.hibernate.cacheRegion” query hint, where the value is the name of a
cache region to use instead ofthe default /org/hibernate/cache/StandardQueryCache. For example:

@Entity
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL, region = ”Account”)
@NamedQueries(
{
@NamedQuery(
name = "account.bybranch",
query = "select acct from Account as acct where acct.branch = ?1",
hints =
{
@QueryHint(name = "org.hibernate.cacheable", value = "true"),
@QueryHint(name = ”org.hibernate.cacheRegion, value = ”Queries”)
}
)
})
public class Account implements Serializable

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Query result caching

{
// ... ...
}

The related eviction configuration:

<bean name="..." class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

... ...
<property name="evictionConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionConfig">
<property name="wakeupInterval">5000</property>

<property name="defaultEvictionRegionConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">5000</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">1000</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
<property name="evictionRegionConfigs">
<list>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/myprefix/Account</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">10000</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">5000</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</
property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
<property name="regionName">/myprefix/Queries</property>
<property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
<property name="maxNodes">100</property>
<property name="timeToLiveSeconds">600</property>
<property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</
property>
</bean>
</property>

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</bean>
... ...
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>
</bean>

18.2. Entity Bean in EJB 2.x

First of all, it is worth noting that clustering 2.x entity beans is a bad thing to do. Its exposes elements
that generally are too fine grained for use as remote objects to clustered remote objects and
introduces data synchronization problems that are non-trivial. Do NOT use EJB 2.x entity bean
clustering unless you fit into the sepecial case situation of read-only, or one read-write node with read-
only nodes synched with the cache invalidation services.

To use a clustered entity bean, the application does not need to do anything special, except for looking
up EJB 2.x remote bean references from the clustered HA-JNDI.

To cluster EJB 2.x entity beans, you need to add the <clustered> element to the application's
jboss.xml descriptor file. Below is a typical jboss.xml file.

<jboss>
<enterprise-beans>
<entity>
<ejb-name>nextgen.EnterpriseEntity</ejb-name>
<jndi-name>nextgen.EnterpriseEntity</jndi-name>
<clustered>True</clustered>
<cluster-config>
<partition-name>DefaultPartition</partition-name>
<home-load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.RoundRobin</home-load-balance-
policy>
<bean-load-balance-
policy>org.jboss.ha.framework.interfaces.FirstAvailable</bean-load-balance-
policy>
</cluster-config>
</entity>
</enterprise-beans>
</jboss>

The EJB 2.x entity beans are clustered for load balanced remote invocations. All the bean instances
are synchronized to have the same contents on all nodes.

However, clustered EJB 2.x Entity Beans do not have a distributed locking mechanism or a distributed
cache. They can only be synchronized by using row-level locking at the database level (see <row-
lock> in the CMP specification) or by setting the Transaction Isolation Level of your JDBC driver to
be TRANSACTION_SERIALIZABLE. Because there is no supported distributed locking mechanism
or distributed cache Entity Beans use Commit Option "B" by default (See standardjboss.xml
and the container configurations Clustered CMP 2.x EntityBean, Clustered CMP EntityBean, or

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Entity Bean in EJB 2.x

Clustered BMP EntityBean). It is not recommended that you use Commit Option "A" unless your
Entity Bean is read-only. (There are some design patterns that allow you to use Commit Option "A"
with read-mostly beans. You can also take a look at the Seppuku pattern http://dima.dhs.org/misc/
readOnlyUpdates.html. JBoss may incorporate this pattern into later versions.)

Note
If you are using Bean Managed Persistence (BMP), you are going to have to implement
synchronization on your own. The MVCSoft CMP 2.0 persistence engine (see http://
www.jboss.org/jbossgroup/partners.jsp) provides different kinds of optimistic locking
strategies that can work in a JBoss cluster.

189
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Chapter 19.

HTTP Services
HTTP session replication is used to replicate the state associated with web client sessions to other
nodes in a cluster. Thus, in the event one of your nodes crashes, another node in the cluster will be
able to recover. Two distinct functions must be performed:

• Session state replication

• Load-balancing of incoming invocations

State replication is directly handled by JBoss. When you run JBoss in the all configuration, session
state replication is enabled by default. Just configure your web application as <distributable>
in its web.xml (see Section 19.2, “Configuring HTTP session state replication”), deploy it, and its
session state is automtically replicated across all JBoss instances in the cluster.

However, load-balancing is a different story; it is not handled by JBoss itself and requires an external
load balancer. This function could be provided by specialized hardware switches or routers (Cisco
LoadDirector for example) or by specialized software running on commodity hardware. As a very
common scenario, we will demonstrate how to set up a software load balancer using Apache httpd
and mod_jk.

Note
A load-balancer tracks HTTP requests and, depending on the session to which the
request is linked, it dispatches the request to the appropriate node. This is called load-
balancing with sticky-sessions or session affinity: once a session is created on a node,
every future request will also be processed by that same node. Using a load-balancer that
supports sticky-sessions but not configuring your web application for session replication
allows you to scale very well by avoiding the cost of session state replication: each
request for a session will always be handled by the same node. But in case a node dies,
the state of all client sessions hosted by this node (the shopping carts, for example) will
be lost and the clients will most probably need to login on another node and restart with a
new session. In many situations, it is acceptable not to replicate HTTP sessions because
all critical state is stored in a database or on the client. In other situations, losing a client
session is not acceptable and, in this case, session state replication is the price one has to
pay.

19.1. Configuring load balancing using Apache and mod_jk

Apache is a well-known web server which can be extended by plugging in modules. One of these
modules, mod_jk has been specifically designed to allow the forwarding of requests from Apache to a
Servlet container. Furthermore, it is also able to load-balance HTTP calls to a set of Servlet containers
while maintaining sticky sessions, which is what is most interesting for us in this section.

19.1.1. Download the software

First of all, make sure that you have Apache installed. You can download Apache directly from Apache
web site at http://httpd.apache.org/. Its installation is pretty straightforward and requires no
specific configuration. As several versions of Apache exist, we advise you to use the latest stable 2.2.x
version. We will consider, for the next sections, that you have installed Apache in the APACHE_HOME
directory.

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Next, download mod_jk binaries. Several versions of mod_jk exist as well. We strongly advise you
to use mod_jk 1.2.x, as both mod_jk and mod_jk2 are deprecated, unsupported and no further
development is going on in the community. The mod_jk 1.2.x binary can be downloaded from
http://www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/tomcat-connectors/jk/binaries/. Rename the
downloaded file to mod_jk.so and copy it under APACHE_HOME/modules/.

19.1.2. Configure Apache to load mod_jk

Modify APACHE_HOME/conf/httpd.conf and add a single line at the end of the file:

# Include mod_jk's specific configuration file

Include conf/mod-jk.conf

Next, create a new file named APACHE_HOME/conf/mod-jk.conf:

# Load mod_jk module

# Specify the filename of the mod_jk lib
LoadModule jk_module modules/mod_jk.so

# Where to find workers.properties

JkWorkersFile conf/workers.properties

# Where to put jk logs

JkLogFile logs/mod_jk.log

# Set the jk log level [debug/error/info]

JkLogLevel info

# Select the log format

JkLogStampFormat "[%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y]"

# JkOptions indicates to send SSK KEY SIZE

JkOptions +ForwardKeySize +ForwardURICompat -ForwardDirectories

# JkRequestLogFormat
JkRequestLogFormat "%w %V %T"

# Mount your applications

JkMount /application/* loadbalancer

# You can use external file for mount points.

# It will be checked for updates each 60 seconds.
# The format of the file is: /url=worker
# /examples/*=loadbalancer
JkMountFile conf/uriworkermap.properties

# Add shared memory.

# This directive is present with 1.2.10 and
# later versions of mod_jk, and is needed for

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Configure worker nodes in mod_jk

# for load balancing to work properly

JkShmFile logs/jk.shm

# Add jkstatus for managing runtime data

<Location /jkstatus/>
JkMount status
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Location>

Please note that two settings are very important:

• The LoadModule directive must reference the mod_jk library you have downloaded in the previous
section. You must indicate the exact same name with the "modules" file path prefix.

• The JkMount directive tells Apache which URLs it should forward to the mod_jk module (and, in
turn, to the Servlet containers). In the above file, all requests with URL path /application/* are
sent to the mod_jk load-balancer. This way, you can configure Apache to serve static contents (or
PHP contents) directly and only use the loadbalancer for Java applications. If you only use mod_jk
as a loadbalancer, you can also forward all URLs (i.e., /*) to mod_jk.

In addition to the JkMount directive, you can also use the JkMountFile directive to specify a mount
points configuration file, which contains multiple Tomcat forwarding URL mappings. You just need
to create a uriworkermap.properties file in the APACHE_HOME/conf directory. The format of
the file is /url=worker_name. To get things started, paste the following example into the file you
created:

# Simple worker configuration file

# Mount the Servlet context to the ajp13 worker

/jmx-console=loadbalancer
/jmx-console/*=loadbalancer
/web-console=loadbalancer
/web-console/*=loadbalancer

This will configure mod_jk to forward requests to /jmx-console and /web-console to Tomcat.

You will most probably not change the other settings in mod_jk.conf. They are used to tell mod_jk
where to put its logging file, which logging level to use and so on.

19.1.3. Configure worker nodes in mod_jk

Next, you need to configure mod_jk workers file conf/workers.properties. This file specifies
where the different Servlet containers are located and how calls should be load-balanced across them.
The configuration file contains one section for each target servlet container and one global section. For
a two nodes setup, the file could look like this:

# Define list of workers that will be used

# for mapping requests

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worker.list=loadbalancer,status

# Define Node1
# modify the host as your host IP or DNS name.
worker.node1.port=8009
worker.node1.host=node1.mydomain.com
worker.node1.type=ajp13
worker.node1.lbfactor=1
worker.node1.cachesize=10

# Define Node2
# modify the host as your host IP or DNS name.
worker.node2.port=8009
worker.node2.host= node2.mydomain.com
worker.node2.type=ajp13
worker.node2.lbfactor=1
worker.node2.cachesize=10

# Load-balancing behaviour
worker.loadbalancer.type=lb
worker.loadbalancer.balance_workers=node1,node2
worker.loadbalancer.sticky_session=1
#worker.list=loadbalancer

# Status worker for managing load balancer

worker.status.type=status

Basically, the above file configures mod_jk to perform weighted round-robin load balancing with sticky
sessions between two servlet containers (that is, JBoss AS instances) node1 and node2 listening on
port 8009.

In the workers.properties file, each node is defined using the worker.XXX naming convention
where XXX represents an arbitrary name you choose for each of the target Servlet containers. For
each worker, you must specify the host name (or IP address) and the port number of the AJP13
connector running in the Servlet container.

The lbfactor attribute is the load-balancing factor for this specific worker. It is used to define the
priority (or weight) a node should have over other nodes. The higher this number is for a given worker
relative to the other workers, the more HTTP requests the worker will receive. This setting can be used
to differentiate servers with different processing power.

The cachesize attribute defines the size of the thread pools associated to the Servlet container
(i.e. the number of concurrent requests it will forward to the Servlet container). Make sure this
number does not outnumber the number of threads configured on the AJP13 connector of the Servlet
container. Please review http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/connectors-doc/config/
workers.html for comments on cachesize for Apache 1.3.x.

The last part of the conf/workers.properties file defines the loadbalancer worker. The only thing
you must change is the worker.loadbalancer.balanced_workers line: it must list all workers
previously defined in the same file: load-balancing will happen over these workers.

The sticky_session property specifies the cluster behavior for HTTP sessions. If you specify
worker.loadbalancer.sticky_session=0, each request will be load balanced between node1

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Configuring JBoss to work with mod_jk

and node2; i.e., different requests for the same session will go to different servers. But when a user
opens a session on one server, it is always necessary to always forward this user's requests to the
same server, as long as that server is available. This is called a "sticky session", as the client is always
using the same server he reached on his first request. To enable session stickiness, you need to set
worker.loadbalancer.sticky_session to 1.

Note
A non-loadbalanced setup with a single node requires a worker.list=node1 entry.

19.1.4. Configuring JBoss to work with mod_jk

Finally, we must configure the JBoss AS instances on all clustered nodes so that they can expect
requests forwarded from the mod_jk loadbalancer.

On each clustered JBoss node, we have to name the node according to the name specified in
workers.properties. For instance, on JBoss instance node1, edit the JBOSS_HOME/server/
all/deploy/jbossweb.sar/server.xml file (replace /all with your own server name if
necessary). Locate the <Engine> element and add an attribute jvmRoute:

<Engine name="jboss.web" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="node1">

... ...
</Engine>

You also need to be sure the AJP connector in server.xml is enabled (i.e., uncommented). It is enabled
by default.

+<Connector protocol="AJP/1.3" port="8009" address="${jboss.bind.address}"
+ redirectPort="8443" />

At this point, you have a fully working Apache+mod_jk load-balancer setup that will balance call to the
Servlet containers of your cluster while taking care of session stickiness (clients will always use the
same Servlet container).

Note
For more updated information on using mod_jk 1.2 with JBoss AS, please refer
to the JBoss wiki page at http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/
UsingModjk12WithJBoss.

19.2. Configuring HTTP session state replication

The preceding discussion has been focused on using mod_jk as a load balancer. The content of the
remainder our discussion of clustering HTTP services in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform applies
no matter what load balancer is used.

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In Section 19.1.3, “Configure worker nodes in mod_jk”, we covered how to use sticky sessions to
make sure that a client in a session always hits the same server node in order to maintain the session
state. However, sticky sessions by themselves are not an ideal solution. If a node goes down, all its
session data is lost. A better and more reliable solution is to replicate session data across the nodes
in the cluster. This way, if a server node fails or is shut down, the load balancer can fail over the next
client request to any server node and obtain the same session state.

19.2.1. Enabling session replication in your application

To enable replication of your web application you must tag the application as distributable in the
web.xml descriptor. Here's an example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-
app_2_4.xsd"
version="2.4">

</web-app>

You can futher configure session replication using the replication-config element in the jboss-
web.xml file. However, the replication-config element only needs to be set if one or more of
the default values described below is unacceptable. Here is an example:

<![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE jboss-web PUBLIC

-//JBoss//DTD Web Application 5.0//EN
http://www.jboss.org/j2ee/dtd/jboss-web_5_0.dtd>

<jboss-web>

<replication-config>
<cache-name>custom-session-cache</cache-name>
<replication-trigger>SET</replication-trigger>
<replication-granularity>ATTRIBUTE</replication-granularity>
<replication-field-batch-mode>true</replication-field-batch-mode>
<use-jk>false</use-jk>
<max-unreplicated-interval>30</max-unreplicated-interval>
<snapshot-mode>instant</snapshot-mode>
<snapshot-interval>1000</snapshot-interval>
<session-notification-
policy>com.example.CustomSessionNotificationPolicy</session-notification-
policy>
</replication-config>

</jboss-web>]]>

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All of the above configuration elements are optional and can be ommitted if the default value is
acceptable. A couple are commonly used; the rest are very infrequently changed from the defaults.
We'll cover the commonly used ones first.

The replication-trigger element determines when the container should consider that session
data must be replicated across the cluster. The rationale for this setting is that after a mutable object
stored as a session attribute is accessed from the session, in the absence of a setAttribute call
the container has no clear way to know if the object (and hence the session state) has been modified
and needs to be replicated. This element has 3 valid values:

• SET_AND_GET is conservative but not optimal (performance-wise): it will always replicate session
data even if its content has not been modified but simply accessed. This setting made (a little) sense
in AS 4 since using it was a way to ensure that every request triggered replication of the session's
timestamp. Since setting max_unreplicated_interval to 0 accomplishes the same thing at
much lower cost, using SET_AND_GET makes no sense with AS 5.

• SET_AND_NON_PRIMITIVE_GET is conservative but will only replicate if an object of a non-

primitive type has been accessed (i.e. the object is not of a well-known immutable JDK type such as
Integer, Long, String, etc.) This is the default value.

• SET assumes that the developer will explicitly call setAttribute on the session if the data needs
to be replicated. This setting prevents unnecessary replication and can have a major beneficial
impact on performance, but requires very good coding practices to ensure setAttribute is
always called whenever a mutable object stored in the session is modified.

In all cases, calling setAttribute marks the session as needing replication.

The replication-granularity element determines the granularity of what gets replicated if the
container determines session replication is needed. The supported values are:

• SESSION indicates that the entire session attribute map should be replicated when any attribute
is considered modified. Replication occurs at request end. This option replicates the most data
and thus incurs the highest replication cost, but since all attributes values are always replicated
together it ensures that any references between attribute values will not be broken when the session
is deserialized. For this reason it is the default setting.

• ATTRIBUTE indicates that only attributes that the session considers to be potentially modified are
replicated. Replication occurs at request end. For sessions carrying large amounts of data, parts
of which are infrequently updated, this option can significantly increase replication performance.
However, it is not suitable for applications that store objects in different attributes that share
references with each other (e.g. a Person object in the "husband" attribute sharing with another
Person in the "wife" attribute a reference to an Address object). This is because if the attributes
are separately replicated, when the session is deserialized on remote nodes the shared references
will be broken.

• FIELD is useful if the classes stored in the session have been bytecode enhanced for use by POJO
Cache. If they have been, the session management layer will detect field level changes within
objects stored to the session, and will replicate only those changes. This is the most performant
setting. Replication is only for individual changed data fields inside session attribute objects. Shared
object references will be preserved across the cluster. Potentially most performant, but requires
changes to your application (this will be discussed later).

The other elements under the replication-config element are much less frequently used.

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The cacheName element indicates the name of the JBoss Cache configuration that should be used
for storing distributable sessions and replicating them around the cluster. This element lets web
applications that require different caching characteristics specify the use of separate, differently
configured, JBoss Cache instances. In JBoss AS 4 the cache to use was a server-wide configuration
that could not be changed per web application. The default value is standard-session-cache if
the replication-granularity is not FIELD, field-granularity-session-cache if it is.
See Section 19.2.3, “Configuring the JBoss Cache instance used for session state replication” for
more details on JBoss Cache configuration for web tier clustering.

The replication-field-batch-mode element indicates whether all replication messages

associated with a request will be batched into one message. This is applicable only if replication-
granularity is FIELD. If replication-field-batch-mode is set to true, fine-grained changes
made to objects stored in the session attribute map will replicate only when the HTTP request is
finished; otherwise they replicate as they occur. Setting this to false is not advised. Default is true.

The useJK element indicates whether the container should assume that a JK-based software
load balancer (e.g. mod_jk, mod_proxy, mod_cluster) is being used for load balancing for this web
application. If set to true, the container will examine the session ID associated with every request and
replace the jvmRoute portion of the session ID if it detects a failover.

The default value is null (i.e. unspecified). In this case the session manager will use the presence
or absence of a jvmRoute configuration on its enclosing JBoss Web Engine (see Section 19.1.4,
“Configuring JBoss to work with mod_jk”) to determine whether JK is used.

You need only set this to false for web applications whose URL cannot be handled by the JK load
balancer.

The max-unreplicated-interval element configures the maximum interval between requests,

in seconds, after which a request will trigger replication of the session's timestamp regardless
of whether the request has otherwise made the session dirty. Such replication ensures that
other nodes in the cluster are aware of the most recent value for the session's timestamp and
won't incorrectly expire an unreplicated session upon failover. It also results in correct values for
HttpSession.getLastAccessedTime() calls following failover.

A value of 0 means the timestamp will be replicated whenever the session is accessed. A value of -1
means the timestamp will be replicated only if some other activity during the request (e.g. modifying an
attribute) has resulted in other replication work involving the session. A positive value greater than the
HttpSession.getMaxInactiveInterval() value will be treated as probable misconfiguration
and converted to 0; i.e. replicate the metadata on every request. Default value is 60.

The snapshot-mode element configures when sessions are replicated to the other nodes. Possible
values are instant (the default) and interval.

The typical value, instant, replicates changes to the other nodes at the end of requests, using the
request processing thread to perform the replication. In this case, the snapshot-interval property
is ignored.

With interval mode, a background task is created that runs every snapshot-interval
milliseconds, checking for modified sessions and replicating them.

Note that this property has no effect if replication-granularity is set to FIELD. If it is FIELD,
instant mode will be used.

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The snapshot-interval element defines how often (in milliseconds) the background task that
replicates modified sessions should be started for this web application. Only meaningful if snapshot-
mode is set to interval.

The session-notification-policy element specifies the fully qualified class name

of the implementation of the ClusteredSessionNotificationPolicy interface that
should be used to govern whether servlet specification notifications should be emitted to
any registered HttpSessionListener, HttpSessionAttributeListener and/or
HttpSessionBindingListener.

Event notifications that may make sense in a non-clustered environment may or may not
make sense in a clustered environment; see https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBAS-5778
for an example of why a notification may not be desired. Configuring an appropriate
ClusteredSessionNotificationPolicy gives the application author fine-grained control over
what notifications are issued.

In JBoss AS 5.0.0.GA the default value if not explicitly set is the

LegacyClusteredSessionNotificationPolicy, which implements the
behavior in previous JBoss versions. In JBoss AS 5.1.0, this was changed to
IgnoreUndeployLegacyClusteredSessionNotificationPolicy, which implements
the same behavior except during undeployment, during which no HttpSessionListener and
HttpSessionAttributeListener notifications are sent.

19.2.2. HttpSession Passivation and Activation

Passivation is the process of controlling memory usage by removing relatively unused sessions from
memory while storing them in persistent storage. If a passivated session is requested by a client, it
can be "activated" back into memory and removed from the persistent store. JBoss AS 5 supports
passivation of HttpSessions from web applications whose web.xml includes the distributable tag
(i.e. clustered web applications).

Passivation occurs at three points during the lifecycle of a web application:

• When the container requests the creation of a new session. If the number of currently active
sessions exceeds a configurable limit, an attempt is made to passivate sessions to make room in
memory.

• Periodically (by default every ten seconds) as the JBoss Web background task thread runs.

• When the web application is deployed and a backup copy of sessions active on other servers is
acquired by the newly deploying web application's session manager.

A session will be passivated if one of the following holds true:

• The session has not been in use for longer than a configurable maximum idle time.

• The number of active sessions exceeds a configurable maximum and the session has not been in
use for longer than a configurable minimum idle time.

In both cases, sessions are passivated on a Least Recently Used (LRU) basis.

19.2.2.1. Configuring HttpSession Passivation

Session passivation behavior is configured via the jboss-web.xml deployment descriptor in your
web application's WEB-INF directory.

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<!DOCTYPE jboss-web PUBLIC

-//JBoss//DTD Web Application 5.0//EN
http://www.jboss.org/j2ee/dtd/jboss-web_5_0.dtd>

<jboss-web>

<max-active-sessions>20</max-active-sessions>
<passivation-config>
<use-session-passivation>true</use-session-passivation>
<passivation-min-idle-time>60</passivation-min-idle-time>
<passivation-max-idle-time>600</passivation-max-idle-time>
</passivation-config>

</jboss-web>

• max-active-session

Determines the maximum number of active sessions allowed. If the number of sessions managed
by the the session manager exceeds this value and passivation is enabled, the excess will be
passivated based on the configured passivation-min-idle-time. If after passivation is
completed (or if passivation is disabled), the number of active sessions still exceeds this limit,
attempts to create new sessions will be rejected. If set to -1 (the default), there is no limit.

• use-session-passivation

Determines whether session passivation will be enabled for the web application. Default is false.

• passivation-min-idle-time

Determines the minimum time (in seconds) that a session must have been inactive before the
container will consider passivating it in order to reduce the active session count to obey the value
defined by max-active-sessions. A value of -1 (the default) disables passivating sessions
before passivation-max-idle-time. Neither a value of -1 nor a high value are recommended
if max-active-sessions is set.

• passivation-max-idle-time

Determines the maximum time (in seconds) that a session can be inactive before the container
should attempt to passivate it to save memory. Passivation of such sessions will take place
regardless of whether the active session count exceeds max-active-sessions. Should be less
than the web.xml session-timeout setting. A value of -1 (the default) disables passivation
based on maximum inactivity.

The total number of sessions in memory includes sessions replicated from other cluster nodes that
are not being accessed on this node. Take this into account when setting max-active-sessions.
The number of sessions replicated from other nodes will also depend on whether buddy replication is
enabled.

Say, for example, that you have an eight node cluster, and each node handles requests from 100
users. With total replication, each node would store 800 sessions in memory. With buddy replication
enabled, and the default numBuddies setting (1), each node will store 200 sessions in memory.

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19.2.3. Configuring the JBoss Cache instance used for session

state replication
The container for a distributable web application makes use of JBoss Cache to provide HTTP session
replication services around the cluster. The container integrates with the CacheManager service to
obtain a reference to a JBoss Cache instance (see Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform CacheManager Service”).

The name of the JBoss Cache configuration to use is controlled by the cacheName element in the
application's jboss-web.xml (see Section 19.2.1, “Enabling session replication in your application”).
In most cases, though, this does not need to be set as the default values of standard-session-
cache and field-granularity-session-cache (for applications configured for FIELD
granularity) are appropriate.

The JBoss Cache configurations in the CacheManager service expose a number of options. See
Chapter 23, JBoss Cache Configuration and Deployment and the JBoss Cache documentation for a
more complete discussion. The standard-session-cache and field-granularity-session-
cache configurations are already optimized for the web session replication use case, and most of the
settings should not be altered. Administrators may be interested in altering the following settings:

• cacheMode

The default is REPL_ASYNC, which specifies that a session replication message sent to the cluster
does not wait for responses from other cluster nodes confirming that the message has been
received and processed. The alternative mode, REPL_SYNC, offers a greater degree of confirmation
that session state has been received, but reduces performance significantly. See Section 23.1.2,
“Cache Mode” for further details.

• enabled property in the buddyReplicationConfig section

Set to true to enable buddy replication. See Section 23.1.8, “Buddy Replication”. Default is false.

• numBuddies property in the buddyReplicationConfig section

Set to a value greater than the default (1) to increase the number of backup nodes onto which
sessions are replicated. Only relevant if buddy replication is enabled. See Section 23.1.8, “Buddy
Replication”.

• buddyPoolName property in the buddyReplicationConfig section

A way to specify a preferred replication group when buddy replication is enabled. JBoss Cache tries
to pick a buddy who shares the same pool name (falling back to other buddies if not available). Only
relevant if buddy replication is enabled. See Section 23.1.8, “Buddy Replication”.

• multiplexerStack

Name of the JGroups protocol stack the cache should use. See Section 15.1.1, “The Channel
Factory Service”.

• clusterName

Identifying name JGroups will use for this cache's channel. Only change this if you create a new
cache configuration, in which case this property should have a different value from all other cache
configurations.

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If you wish to use a completely new JBoss Cache configuration rather than editing one of the existing
ones, please see Section 23.2.1, “Deployment Via the CacheManager Service”.

19.3. Using FIELD level replication

FIELD-level replication only replicates modified data fields inside objects stored in the session. It can
reduce the data traffic between clustered nodes, and hence improve the performance of the whole
cluster. To use FIELD-level replication, you must first prepare (that is, bytecode enhance) your Java
class to allow the session cache to detect when fields in cached objects have been changed and need
to be replicated.

First, you need to identify the classes that you need to prepare. You can identify these classes by
using annotations, like so:

@@org.jboss.cache.pojo.annotation.Replicable
public class Address
{
...
}

If you annotate a class with @Replicable, then all of its subclasses will be automatically annotated
as well. Similarly, you can annotate an interface with @Replicable and all of its implementing
classes will be annotated. For example:

@org.jboss.cache.aop.InstanceOfAopMarker
public class Person
{
...
}

public class Student extends Person

{
...
}

There is no need to annotate Student. POJO Cache will recognize it as @Replicable because it is a
sub-class of Person.

JBoss AS 5 requires JDK 5 at runtime, but some users may still need to build their projects using
JDK 1.4. In this case, annotating classes can be done via JDK 1.4 style annotations embedded in
JavaDocs. For example:

/**
* Represents a street address.
* @@org.jboss.cache.pojo.annotation.Replicable
*/
public class Address
{

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...
}

Once you have annotated your classes, you will need to perform a pre-processing step to bytecode
enhance your classes for use by POJO Cache. You need to use the JBoss AOP pre-compiler
annotationc and post-compiler aopc to process the above source code before and after they are
compiled by the Java compiler. The annotationc step is only need if the JDK 1.4 style annotations
are used; if JDK 5 annotations are used it is not necessary. Here is an example of how to invoke those
commands from command line.

$ annotationc [classpath] [source files or directories]

$ javac -cp [classpath] [source files or directories]
$ aopc [classpath] [class files or directories]

Please see the JBoss AOP documentation for the usage of the pre- and post-compiler. The JBoss
AOP project also provides easy to use ANT tasks to help integrate those steps into your application
build process.

Note
You can see a complete example of how to build, deploy, and validate a FIELD-
level replicated web application from this page: http://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/
httpsessionfieldlevelexample. The example bundles the pre- and post-compile tools so
you do not need to download JBoss AOP separately.

Finally, let's see an example on how to use FIELD-level replication on those data classes. First, we
see some servlet code that reads some data from the request parameters, creates a couple of objects
and stores them in the session:

Person husband = new Person(getHusbandName(request),

getHusbandAge(request));
Person wife = new Person(getWifeName(request), getWifeAge(request));
Address addr = new Address();
addr.setPostalCode(getPostalCode(request));

husband.setAddress(addr);
wife.setAddress(addr); // husband and wife share the same address!

session.setAttribute("husband", husband); // that's it.

session.setAttribute("wife", wife); // that's it.

Later, a different servlet could update the family's postal code:

Person wife = (Person)session.getAttribute("wife");

wife.getAddress().setPostalCode(getPostalCode(request)); // this will
update and replicate the postal code.

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Notice that in there is no need to call session.setAttribute() after you make changes to the
data object, and all changes to the fields are automatically replicated across the cluster.

Besides plain objects, you can also use regular Java collections of those objects as session attributes.
POJO Cache automatically figures out how to handle those collections and replicate field changes in
their member objects.

19.4. Using Clustered Single Sign On

JBoss supports clustered single sign-on, allowing a user to authenticate to one web application and
to be recognized on all web applications that are deployed on the same virtual host, whether or not
they are deployed on that same machine or on another node in the cluster. Authentication replication
is handled by JBoss Cache. Clustered single sign-on support is a JBoss-specific extension of the non-
clustered org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SingleSignOn valve that is a standard part
of Tomcat and JBoss Web. Both the non-clustered and clustered versions allow users to sign on to
any one of the web apps associated with a virtual host and have their identity recognized by all other
web apps on the same virtual host. The clustered version brings the added benefits of enabling SSO
failover and allowing a load balancer to direct requests for different webapps to different servers, while
maintaining the SSO.

19.4.1. Configuration
To enable clustered single sign-on, you must add the ClusteredSingleSignOn valve to the
appropriate Host elements of the JBOSS_HOME/server/all/deploy/jbossweb.sar/
server.xml file. The valve element is already included in the standard file; you just need to
uncomment it. The valve configuration is shown here:

The element supports the following attributes:

• className is a required attribute to set the Java class name of the valve implementation to use.
This must be set to org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.sso.ClusteredSingleSign.

• cacheConfig is the name of the cache configuration (see Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform CacheManager Service”) to use for the clustered SSO cache. Default is
clustered-sso.

• treeCacheName is deprecated; use cacheConfig. Specifies a JMX ObjectName of

the JBoss Cache MBean to use for the clustered SSO cache. If no cache can be located
from the CacheManager service using the value of cacheConfig, an attempt to locate
an mbean registered in JMX under this ObjectName will be made. Default value is
jboss.cache:service=TomcatClusteringCache.

• cookieDomain is used to set the host domain to be used for sso cookies. See Section 19.4.4,
“Configuring the Cookie Domain” for more. Default is "/".

• maxEmptyLife is the maximum number of seconds an SSO with no active sessions will be usable
by a request. The clustered SSO valve tracks what cluster nodes are managing sessions related to
an SSO. A positive value for this attribute allows proper handling of shutdown of a node that is the
only one that had handled any of the sessions associated with an SSO. The shutdown invalidates
the local copy of the sessions, eliminating all sessions from the SSO. If maxEmptyLife were zero,

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SSO Behavior

the SSO would terminate along with the local session copies. But, backup copies of the sessions
(if they are from clustered webapps) are available on other cluster nodes. Allowing the SSO to live
beyond the life of its managed sessions gives the user time to make another request which can fail
over to a different cluster node, where it activates the the backup copy of the session. Default is
1800, i.e. 30 minutes.

• processExpiresInterval is the minimum number of seconds between efforts by the valve to find
and invalidate SSO's that have exceeded their 'maxEmptyLife'. Does not imply effort will be spent
on such cleanup every 'processExpiresInterval', just that it won't occur more frequently than that.
Default is 60.

• requireReauthentication is a flag to determine whether each request needs to be reauthenticated

to the security Realm. If "true", this Valve uses cached security credentials (username and
password) to reauthenticate to the JBoss Web security Realm each request associated with an SSO
session. If false, the valve can itself authenticate requests based on the presence of a valid SSO
cookie, without rechecking with the Realm. Setting to true can allow web applications with different
security-domain configurations to share an SSO. Default is false.

19.4.2. SSO Behavior

The user will not be challenged as long as he accesses only unprotected resources in any of the web
applications on the virtual host.

Upon access to a protected resource in any web app, the user will be challenged to authenticate,
using the login method defined for the web app.

Once authenticated, the roles associated with this user will be utilized for access control decisions
across all of the associated web applications, without challenging the user to authenticate themselves
to each application individually.

If the web application invalidates a session (by invoking the

javax.servlet.http.HttpSession.invalidate() method), the user's sessions in all web
applications will be invalidated.

A session timeout does not invalidate the SSO if other sessions are still valid.

19.4.3. Limitations
There are a number of known limitations to this Tomcat valve-based SSO implementation:
• Only useful within a cluster of JBoss servers; SSO does not propagate to other resources.

• Requires use of container managed authentication (via <login-config> element in web.xml)

• Requires cookies. SSO is maintained via a cookie and URL rewriting is not supported.

• Unless requireReauthentication is set to true, all web applications configured for the same
SSO valve must share the same JBoss Web Realm and JBoss Security security-domain. This
means:
• In server.xml you can nest the Realm element inside the Host element (or the surrounding
Engine element), but not inside a context.xml packaged with one of the involved web
applications.

• The security-domain configured in jboss-web.xml or jboss-app.xml must be consistent

for all of the web applications.

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• Even if you set requireReauthentication to true and use a different security-domain

(or, less likely, a different Realm) for different webapps, the varying security integrations must all
accept the same credentials (e.g. username and password).

19.4.4. Configuring the Cookie Domain

As noted above the SSO valve supports a cookieDomain configuration attribute. This attribute allows
configuration of the SSO cookie's domain (i.e. the set of hosts to which the browser will present the
cookie). By default the domain is "/", meaning the browser will only present the cookie to the host
that issued it. The cookieDomain attribute allows the cookie to be scoped to a wider domain.

For example, suppose we have a case where two apps, with URLs http://app1.xyz.com and
http://app2.xyz.com, that wish to share an SSO context. These apps could be running on
different servers in a cluster or the virtual host with which they are associated could have multiple
aliases. This can be supported with the following configuration:

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JBoss Messaging Clustering Notes

20.1. Unique server peer id
JBoss Messaging clustering should work out of the box in the all configuration with no configuration
changes. It is however crucial that every node is assigned a unique server id.

Every node deployed must have a unique id, including those in a particular LAN cluster, and also
those only linked by message bridges.

20.2. Clustered destinations

JBoss Messaging clusters JMS queues and topics transparently across the cluster. Messages sent
to a distributed queue or topic on one node are consumable on other nodes. To designate that a
particular destination is clustered simply set the clustered attribute in the destination deployment
descriptor to true.

JBoss Messaging balances messages between nodes, catering for faster or slower consumers to
efficiently balance processing load across the cluster.

If you do not want message redistribution between nodes, but still want to retain
the other characteristics of clustered destinations, you can specify the attribute
ClusterPullConnectionFactoryName on the server peer.

20.3. Clustered durable subs

JBoss Messaging durable subscriptions can also be clustered. This means multiple subscribers
can consume from the same durable subscription from different nodes of the cluster. A durable
subscription will be clustered if it's topic is clustered.

20.4. Clustered temporary destinations

JBoss Messaging also supports clustered temporary topics and queues. All temporary topics and
queues will be clustered if the post office is clustered.

20.5. Non clustered servers

If you don't want your nodes to participate in a cluster, or only have one non clustered server you can
set the clustered attribute on the postoffice to false.

20.6. Message ordering in the cluster

If you wish to apply strict JMS ordering to messages, such that a particular JMS consumer consumes
messages in the same order as they were produced by a particular producer, you can set the
DefaultPreserveOrdering attribute in the server peer to true. By default this is false.

Note
The side effect of setting this to true is that messages cannot be distributed as freely
around the cluster.

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20.7. Idempotent operations

If the call to send a persistent message to a persistent destination returns successfully with no
exception, then you can be sure that the message was persisted. However if the call doesn't return
successfully e.g. if an exception is thrown, then you can't be sure the message wasn't persisted.
This is because the failure might have occurred after persisting the message but before writing the
response to the caller. This is a common attribute of any RPC type call: You can't tell by the call not
returning that the call didn't actually succeed. Whether it's a web services call, a HTTP get request,
an EJB invocation the same applies. The trick is to code your application so your operations are
idempotent i.e. they can be repeated without getting the system into an inconsistent state. With a
message system you can do this on the application level, by checking for duplicate messages, and
discarding them if they arrive. Duplicate checking is a very powerful technique that can remove the
need for XA transactions in many cases.

20.7.1. Clustered connection factories

If the supportsLoadBalancing attribute of the connection factory is set to true then consecutive
create connection attempts will round robin between available servers. The first node to try is chosen
randomly.

If the supportsFailover attribute of the connection factory is set to true then automatic failover is
enabled. This will automatically failover from one server to another, transparently to the user, in case
of failure.

If automatic failover is not required or you wish to do manual failover (JBoss MQ style) this can be set
to false, and you can supply a standard JMS ExceptionListener on the connection which will be called
in case of connection failure. You would then need to manually close the connection, lookup a new
connection factory from HA JNDI and recreate the connection.

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Chapter 21.

Clustered Deployment Options

21.1. Clustered Singleton Services
A clustered singleton service (also known as a HA singleton) is a service that is deployed on multiple
nodes in a cluster, but is providing its service on only one of the nodes. The node running the singleton
service is typically called the master node.

Figure 21.1. Topology before the Master Node fails

When the master fails or is shut down, another master is selected from the remaining nodes and the
service is restarted on the new master. Thus, other than a brief interval when one master has stopped
and another has yet to take over, the service is always being provided by one but only one node.

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Figure 21.2. Topology after the Master Node fails

21.1.1. HASingleton Deployment Options

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform provides support for a number of strategies for helping you
deploy clustered singleton services. In this section we will explore the different strategies. All of the
strategies are built on top of the HAPartition service described in the introduction. They rely on the
HAPartition to provide notifications when different nodes in the cluster start and stop; based on
those notifications each node in the cluster can independently (but consistently) determine if it is now
the master node and needs to begin providing a service.

21.1.1.1. HASingletonDeployer service

The simplest and most commonly used strategy for deploying an HA singleton is to take an
ordinary deployment (war, ear, jar, whatever you would normally put in deploy) and deploy it in the
$JBOSS_HOME/server/all/deploy-hasingleton directory instead of in deploy. The deploy-
hasingleton directory does not lie under deploy nor farm directories, so its contents are not
automatically deployed when an Enterprise Application Platform instance starts. Instead, deploying
the contents of this directory is the responsibility of a special service, the HASingletonDeployer
bean (which itself is deployed via the deploy/deploy-hasingleton-jboss-beans.xml file.) The
HASingletonDeployer service is itself an HA Singleton, one whose provided service, when it becomes
master, is to deploy the contents of deploy-hasingleton; and whose service, when it stops being the
master (typically at server shutdown), is to undeploy the contents of deploy-hasingleton.

So, by placing your deployments in deploy-hasingleton you know that they will be deployed
only on the master node in the cluster. If the master node cleanly shuts down, they will be cleanly
undeployed as part of shutdown. If the master node fails or is shut down, they will be deployed on
whatever node takes over as master.

Using deploy-hasingleton is very simple, but it does have two drawbacks:

• There is no hot-deployment feature for services in deploy-hasingleton . Redeploying a service

that has been deployed to deploy-hasingleton requires a server restart.

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HASingleton Deployment Options

• If the master node fails and another node takes over as master, your singleton service needs to
go through the entire deployment process before it will be providing services. Depending on the
complexity of your service's deployment, and the extent of startup activity in which it engages, this
could take a while, during which time the service is not being provided.

21.1.1.2. POJO deployments using HASingletonController

If your service is a POJO (i.e., not a J2EE deployment like an ear or war or jar), you can deploy it
along with a service called an HASingletonController in order to turn it into an HA singleton. It is
the job of the HASingletonController to work with the HAPartition service to monitor the cluster and
determine if it is now the master node for its service. If it determines it has become the master node, it
invokes a method on your service telling it to begin providing service. If it determines it is no longer the
master node, it invokes a method on your service telling it to stop providing service. Let's walk through
an illustration.

First, we have a POJO that we want to make an HA singleton. The only thing special about it is it
needs to expose a public method that can be called when it should begin providing service, and
another that can be called when it should stop providing service:

public interface HASingletonExampleMBean

{
boolean isMasterNode();
}

public class HASingletonExample implements HASingletonExampleMBean

{
private boolean isMasterNode = false;

public boolean isMasterNode()

{
return isMasterNode;
}

public void startSingleton()

{
isMasterNode = true;
}

public void stopSingleton()

{
isMasterNode = false;
}
}

We used startSingleton and stopSingleton in the above example, but you could name the
methods anything.

Next, we deploy our service, along with an HASingletonController to control it, most likely packaged in
a .sar file, with the following META-INF/jboss-beans.xml:

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<deployment xmlns="urn:jboss:bean-deployer:2.0">

<bean name="HASingletonExample"
class="org.jboss.ha.examples.HASingletonExample">
<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=HASingletonExample",

exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.examples.HASingletonExampleMBean.class)</
annotation>
</bean>

<bean name="ExampleHASingletonController"
class="org.jboss.ha.singleton.HASingletonController">
<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="jboss:service=ExampleHASingletonController",

exposedInterface=org.jboss.ha.singleton.HASingletonControllerMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)</annotation>
<property name="HAPartition"><inject bean="HAPartition"/></property>
<property name="target"><inject bean="HASingletonExample"/></property>
<property name="targetStartMethod">startSingleton</property>
<property name="targetStopMethod">stopSingleton</property>
</bean>
</deployment>

Voila! A clustered singleton service.

The primary advantage of this approach over deploy-ha-singleton. is that the above example can be
placed in deploy or farm and thus can be hot deployed and farmed deployed. Also, if our example
service had complex, time-consuming startup requirements, those could potentially be implemented in
create() or start() methods. JBoss will invoke create() and start() as soon as the service is deployed;
it doesn't wait until the node becomes the master node. So, the service could be primed and ready
to go, just waiting for the controller to implement startSingleton() at which point it can immediately
provide service.

Although not demonstrated in the example above, the HASingletonController can support an
optional argument for either or both of the target start and stop methods. These are specified using
the targetStartMethodArgument and TargetStopMethodArgument properties, respectively.
Currently, only string values are supported.

21.1.1.3. HASingleton deployments using a Barrier

Services deployed normally inside deploy or farm that want to be started/stopped whenever the
content of deploy-hasingleton gets deployed/undeployed, (i.e., whenever the current node becomes
the master), need only specify a dependency on the Barrier service:

<depends>HASingletonDeployerBarrierController</depends>

The way it works is that a BarrierController is deployed along with the HASingletonDeployer and
listens for JMX notifications from it. A BarrierController is a relatively simple Mbean that can subscribe
to receive any JMX notification in the system. It uses the received notifications to control the lifecycle

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of a dynamically created Mbean called the Barrier. The Barrier is instantiated, registered and brought
to the CREATE state when the BarrierController is deployed. After that, the BarrierController starts
and stops the Barrier when matching JMX notifications are received. Thus, other services need only
depend on the Barrier bean using the usual <depends> tag, and they will be started and stopped in
tandem with the Barrier. When the BarrierController is undeployed the Barrier is also destroyed.

This provides an alternative to the deploy-hasingleton approach in that we can use farming to
distribute the service, while content in deploy-hasingleton must be copied manually on all nodes.

On the other hand, the barrier-dependent service will be instantiated/created (i.e., any create()
method invoked) on all nodes, but only started on the master node. This is different with the deploy-
hasingleton approach that will only deploy (instantiate/create/start) the contents of the deploy-
hasingleton directory on one of the nodes.

So services depending on the barrier will need to make sure they do minimal or no work inside their
create() step, rather they should use start() to do the work.

Note
The Barrier controls the start/stop of dependent services, but not their destruction, which
happens only when the BarrierController is itself destroyed/undeployed. Thus
using the Barrier to control services that need to be "destroyed" as part of their normal
“undeploy” operation (like, for example, an EJBContainer) will not have the desired
effect.

21.1.2. Determining the master node

The various clustered singleton management strategies all depend on the fact that each node in the
cluster can independently react to changes in cluster membership and correctly decide whether it is
now the “master node”. How is this done?

For each member of the cluster, the HAPartition service maintains an attribute called the CurrentView,
which is basically an ordered list of the current members of the cluster. As nodes join and leave the
cluster, JGroups ensures that each surviving member of the cluster gets an updated view. You can
see the current view by going into the JMX console, and looking at the CurrentView attribute in the
jboss:service=DefaultPartition mbean. Every member of the cluster will have the same
view, with the members in the same order.

Let's say, for example, that we have a 4 node cluster, nodes A through D, and the current view can be
expressed as {A, B, C, D}. Generally speaking, the order of nodes in the view will reflect the order in
which they joined the cluster (although this is not always the case, and should not be assumed to be
the case).

To further our example, let's say there is a singleton service (i.e. an HASingletonController)
named Foo that's deployed around the cluster, except, for whatever reason, on B. The HAPartition
service maintains across the cluster a registry of what services are deployed where, in view order. So,
on every node in the cluster, the HAPartition service knows that the view with respect to the Foo
service is {A, C, D} (no B).

Whenever there is a change in the cluster topology of the Foo service, the HAPartition service
invokes a callback on Foo notifying it of the new topology. So, for example, when Foo started on D, the
Foo service running on A, C and D all got callbacks telling them the new view for Foo was {A, C, D}.

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That callback gives each node enough information to independently decide if it is now the master. The
Foo service on each node uses the HAPartition's HASingletonElectionPolicy to determine if
they are the master, as explained in the Section 21.1.2.1, “HA singleton election policy”.

If A were to fail or shutdown, Foo on C and D would get a callback with a new view for Foo of {C, D}. C
would then become the master. If A restarted, A, C and D would get a callback with a new view for Foo
of {C, D, A}. C would remain the master – there's nothing magic about A that would cause it to become
the master again just because it was before.

21.1.2.1. HA singleton election policy

The HASingletonElectionPolicy object is responsible for electing a master node from a list of
available nodes, on behalf of an HA singleton, following a change in cluster topology.

public interface HASingletonElectionPolicy

{
ClusterNode elect(List<ClusterNode> nodes);
}

JBoss ships with 2 election policies:

HASingletonElectionPolicySimple
This policy selects a master node based relative age. The desired age is configured via the
position property, which corresponds to the index in the list of available nodes. position =
0, the default, refers to the oldest node; position = 1, refers to the 2nd oldest; etc. position
can also be negative to indicate youngness; imagine the list of available nodes as a circular linked
list. position = -1, refers to the youngest node; position = -2, refers to the 2nd youngest
node; etc.

PreferredMasterElectionPolicy
This policy extends HASingletonElectionPolicySimple, allowing the configuration of a
preferred node. The preferredMaster property, specified as host:port or address:port, identifies
a specific node that should become master, if available. If the preferred node is not available, the
election policy will behave as described above.

<bean class="org.jboss.ha.singleton.PreferredMasterElectionPolicy">
<property name="preferredMaster">server1:12345</property>
</bean>

21.2. Farming Deployment

The easiest way to deploy an application into the cluster is to use the farming service. Using the
farming service, you can deploy an application (e.g. EAR, WAR, or SAR; either an archive file or

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in exploded form) to the all/farm/ directory of any cluster member and the application will be
automatically duplicate across all nodes in the same cluster. If a node joins the cluster later, it will
pull in all farm deployed applications in the cluster and deploy them locally at start-up time. If you
delete the application from a running clustered server node's farm/ directory, the application will
be undeployed locally and then removed from all other clustered server nodes' farm/ directories
(triggering undeployment).

Farming is enabled by default in the all configuration in JBoss AS and thus requires no manual
setup. The required farm-deployment-jboss-beans.xml and timestamps-jboss-
beans.xml configuration files are located in the deploy/cluster directory. If you want to enable
farming in a custom configuration, simply copy these files to the corresponding JBoss deploy directory
$JBOSS_HOME/server/your_own_config/deploy/cluster. Make sure that your custom
configuration has clustering enabled.

While there is little need to customize the farming service, it can be customized via the
FarmProfileRepositoryClusteringHandler bean, whose properties and default values are
listed below:

<property name="partition"><inject bean="HAPartition"/></property>

<property name="profileDomain">default</property>
<property name="profileServer">default</property>
<property name="profileName">farm</property>
<property name="immutable">false</property>
<property name="lockTimeout">60000</property>
<property name="methodCallTimeout">60000</property>
<property name="synchronizationPolicy"><inject
bean="FarmProfileSynchronizationPolicy"/></property>
</bean>

• partition is a required attribute to inject the HAPartition service that the farm service uses for intra-
cluster communication.

• profile[Domain|Server|Name] are all used to identify the profile for which this handler is intended.

• immutable indicates whether or not this handler allows a node to push content changes
to the cluster. A value of true is equivalent to setting synchronizationPolicy to
org.jboss.system.server.profileservice.repository.clustered.sync.
ImmutableSynchronizationPolicy.

• lockTimeout defines the number of milliseconds to wait for cluster-wide lock acquisition.

• methodCallTimeout defines the number of milliseconds to wait for invocations on remote cluster
nodes.

• synchronizationPolicy decides how to handle content additions, reincarnations, updates, or

removals from nodes attempting to join the cluster or from cluster merges. The policy is consulted
on the "authoritative" node, i.e. the master node for the service on the cluster. Reincarnation refers
to the phenomenon where a newly started node may contain an application in its farm directory that

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was previously removed by the farming service but might still exist on the starting node if it was not
running when the removal took place. The default synchronization policy is defined as follows:

<bean name="FarmProfileSynchronizationPolicy"
class="org.jboss.profileservice.cluster.repository.
DefaultSynchronizationPolicy">
<property name="allowJoinAdditions"><null/></property>
<property name="allowJoinReincarnations"><null/></property>
<property name="allowJoinUpdates"><null/></property>
<property name="allowJoinRemovals"><null/></property>
<property name="allowMergeAdditions"><null/></property>
<property name="allowMergeReincarnations"><null/></property>
<property name="allowMergeUpdates"><null/></property>
<property name="allowMergeRemovals"><null/></property>
<property name="developerMode">false</property>
<property name="removalTrackingTime">2592000000</property>
<property name="timestampService"><inject
bean="TimestampDiscrepancyService"/></property>
</bean>

• allow[Join|Merge][Additions|Reincarnations|Updates|Removals] define fixed responses to

requests to allow additions, reincarnations, updates, or removals from joined or merged nodes.

• developerMode enables a lenient synchronization policy that allows all changes. Enabling
developer mode is equivalent to setting each of the above properties to true and is intended for
development environments.

• removalTrackingTime defines the number of milliseconds for which this policy should
remembered removed items, for use in detecting reincarnations.

• timestampService estimates and tracks discrepancies in system clocks for current and past
members of the cluster. Default implementation is defined in timestamps-jboss-beans.xml.

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Chapter 22.

JGroups Services
JGroups provides the underlying group communication support for JBoss Enterprise Application
Platform clusters. The interaction of clustered services with JGroups was covered in Section 15.1,
“Group Communication with JGroups”. This chapter focuses on the details of this interaction, with
particular attention to configuration details and troubleshooting tips.

This chapter is not intended as complete JGroups documentation. If you want to know more about
JGroups, you can consult:

• The JGroups project documentation at http://jgroups.org/ug.html

• The JGroups wiki pages at jboss.org, rooted at https://www.jboss.org/community/wiki/JGroups

The first section of this chapter covers the many JGroups configuration options in detail. JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform ships with a set of default JGroups configurations. Most applications
will work with the default configurations out of the box. You will only need to edit these configurations
when you deploy an application with special network or performance requirements.

22.1. Configuring a JGroups Channel's Protocol Stack

The JGroups framework provides services to enable peer-to-peer communications between nodes in
a cluster. Communication occurs over a communication channel. The channel built up from a stack
of network communication protocols, each of which is responsible for adding a particular capability to
the overall behavior of the channel. Key capabilities provided by various protocols include transport,
cluster discovery, message ordering, lossless message delivery, detection of failed peers, and cluster
membership management services.

Figure 22.1, “Protocol stack in JGroups” shows a conceptual cluster with each member's channel
composed of a stack of JGroups protocols.

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Figure 22.1. Protocol stack in JGroups

This section of the chapter covers some of the most commonly used protocols, according to the
type of behaviour they add to the channel. We discuss a few key configuration attributes exposed by
each protocol, but since these attributes should be altered only by experts, this chapter focuses on
familiarizing users with the purpose of various protocols.

The JGroups configurations used in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform appear as nested elements
in the $JBOSS_HOME/server/all/cluster/jgroups-channelfactory.sar/META-INF/
jgroups-channelfactory-stacks.xml file. This file is parsed by the ChannelFactory service,
which uses the contents to provide correctly configured channels to the clustered services that require
them. See Section 15.1.1, “The Channel Factory Service” for more on the ChannelFactory service.

The following is an example protocol stack configuration from jgroups-channelfactory-

stacks.xml:

<![CDATA[<stack name="udp-async"
description="Same as the default 'udp' stack above, except
message bundling
is enabled in the transport protocol
(enable_bundling=true).
Useful for services that make high-volume
asynchronous
RPCs (e.g. high volume JBoss Cache instances
configured
for REPL_ASYNC) where message bundling may improve
performance.">
<config>
<UDP

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singleton_name="udp-async"
mcast_port="${jboss.jgroups.udp_async.mcast_port:45689}"
mcast_addr="${jboss.partition.udpGroup:228.11.11.11}"
tos="8"
ucast_recv_buf_size="20000000"
ucast_send_buf_size="640000"
mcast_recv_buf_size="25000000"
mcast_send_buf_size="640000"
loopback="true"
discard_incompatible_packets="true"
enable_bundling="true"
max_bundle_size="64000"
max_bundle_timeout="30"
ip_ttl="${jgroups.udp.ip_ttl:2}"
thread_naming_pattern="cl"
timer.num_threads="12"
enable_diagnostics="${jboss.jgroups.enable_diagnostics:true}"

diagnostics_addr="${jboss.jgroups.diagnostics_addr:224.0.0.75}"
diagnostics_port="${jboss.jgroups.diagnostics_port:7500}"

thread_pool.enabled="true"
thread_pool.min_threads="8"
thread_pool.max_threads="200"
thread_pool.keep_alive_time="5000"
thread_pool.queue_enabled="true"
thread_pool.queue_max_size="1000"
thread_pool.rejection_policy="discard"

oob_thread_pool.enabled="true"
oob_thread_pool.min_threads="8"
oob_thread_pool.max_threads="200"
oob_thread_pool.keep_alive_time="1000"
oob_thread_pool.queue_enabled="false"
oob_thread_pool.rejection_policy="discard"/>
<PING timeout="2000" num_initial_members="3"/>
<MERGE2 max_interval="100000" min_interval="20000"/>
<FD_SOCK/>
<FD timeout="6000" max_tries="5" shun="true"/>
<VERIFY_SUSPECT timeout="1500"/>
<BARRIER/>
<pbcast.NAKACK use_mcast_xmit="true" gc_lag="0"
retransmit_timeout="300,600,1200,2400,4800"
discard_delivered_msgs="true"/>
<UNICAST timeout="300,600,1200,2400,3600"/>
<pbcast.STABLE stability_delay="1000" desired_avg_gossip="50000"
max_bytes="400000"/>
<VIEW_SYNC avg_send_interval="10000"/>
<pbcast.GMS print_local_addr="true" join_timeout="3000"
shun="true"
view_bundling="true"

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view_ack_collection_timeout="5000"
resume_task_timeout="7500"/>
<FC max_credits="2000000" min_threshold="0.10"
ignore_synchronous_response="true"/>
<FRAG2 frag_size="60000"/>

<pbcast.STATE_TRANSFER/>
<pbcast.FLUSH timeout="0" start_flush_timeout="10000"/>
</config>
</stack> ]]>

The <config> element contains all the configuration data for JGroups. This information is used to
configure a JGroups channel, which is conceptually similar to a socket, and manages communication
between peers in a cluster. Each element within the <config> element defines a particular JGroups
protocol. Each protocol performs one function. The combination of these functions defines the
characteristics of the channel as a whole. The next few sections describe common protocols and
explain the options available to each.

22.1.1. Common Configuration Properties

The following property is exposed by all of the JGroups protocols discussed below:

• stats whether the protocol should gather runtime statistics on its operations that can be exposed
via tools like the AS's administration console or the JGroups Probe utility. What, if any, statistics are
gathered depends on the protocol. Default is true.

Note
All of the protocols in the versions of JGroups used in JBoss Application Server 3.x and
4.x exposed down_thread and up_thread attributes. The JGroups version included
in JBoss Application Server 5 and later no longer uses those attributes, and a WARN
message will be written to the server log if they are configured for any protocol.

22.1.2. Transport Protocols

The transport protocols send and receive messages to and from the network. They also manage the
thread pools used to deliver incoming messages to addresses higher in the protocol stack. JGroups
supports UDP, TCP and TUNNEL as transport protocols.

Note
The UDP, TCP, and TUNNEL protocols are mutually exclusive. You can only have one
transport protocol in each JGroups Config element

22.1.2.1. UDP configuration

UDP is the preferred protocol for JGroups. UDP uses multicast (or, in an unusual configuration,
multiple unicasts) to send and receive messages. If you choose UDP as the transport protocol for your
cluster service, you need to configure it in the UDP sub-element in the JGroups config element. Here
is an example.

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Transport Protocols

<![CDATA[ <UDP
singleton_name="udp-async"
mcast_port="${jboss.jgroups.udp_async.mcast_port:45689}"
mcast_addr="${jboss.partition.udpGroup:228.11.11.11}"
tos="8"
ucast_recv_buf_size="20000000"
ucast_send_buf_size="640000"
mcast_recv_buf_size="25000000"
mcast_send_buf_size="640000"
loopback="true"
discard_incompatible_packets="true"
enable_bundling="true"
max_bundle_size="64000"
max_bundle_timeout="30"
ip_ttl="${jgroups.udp.ip_ttl:2}"
thread_naming_pattern="cl"
timer.num_threads="12"
enable_diagnostics="${jboss.jgroups.enable_diagnostics:true}"

diagnostics_addr="${jboss.jgroups.diagnostics_addr:224.0.0.75}"
diagnostics_port="${jboss.jgroups.diagnostics_port:7500}"

This JGroups configuration has a number of attributes available. First we look at the attributes
available to the UDP protocol, followed by the attributes that are also used by the TCP and TUNNEL
transport protocols.

The attributes particular to the UDP protocol are:

• ip_mcast specifies whether or not to use IP multicasting. The default is true. If set to false,
multiple unicast packets will be sent instead of one multicast packet. Any packet sent via UDP
protocol are UDP datagrams.

• mcast_addr specifies the multicast address (class D) for communicating with the group (i.e., the
cluster). The standard protocol stack configurations in JBoss AS use the value of system property
jboss.partition.udpGroup, if set, as the value for this attribute. Using the -u command
line switch when starting JBoss Application Server sets that value. See Section 22.6.2, “Isolating
JGroups Channels” for information about using this configuration attribute to ensure that JGroups

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channels are properly isolated from one another. If this attribute is omitted, the default value is
228.8.8.8.

• mcast_port specifies the port to use for multicast communication with the group. See
Section 22.6.2, “Isolating JGroups Channels” for how to use this configuration attribute to ensure
JGroups channels are properly isolated from one another. If this attribute is omitted, the default is
45566.

• mcast_send_buf_size, mcast_recv_buf_size, ucast_send_buf_size and

ucast_recv_buf_size define the socket send and receive buffer sizes that JGroups will request
from the operating system. A large buffer size helps to ensure that packets are not dropped due to
buffer overflow. However, socket buffer sizes are limited at the operating system level, so obtaining
the desired buffer may require configuration at the operating system level. See Section 22.6.2.3,
“Improving UDP Performance by Configuring OS UDP Buffer Limits” for further details.

• bind_port specifies the port to which the unicast receive socket should be bound. The default is 0;
i.e. use an ephemeral port.

• port_range specifies the number of ports to try if the port identified by bind_port is not available.
The default is 1, which specifies that only bind_port will be tried.

• ip_ttl specifies time-to-live (TTL) for IP Multicast packets. TTL is the commonly used term in
multicast networking, but is actually something of a misnomer, since the value here refers to how
many network hops a packet will be allowed to travel before networking equipment will drop it.

• tos specifies the traffic class for sending unicast and multicast datagrams.

The attributes that are common to all transport protocols, and thus have the same meanings when
used with TCP or TUNNEL, are:

• singleton_name provides a unique name for this transport protocol configuration. Used by the
application server's ChannelFactory to support sharing of a transport protocol instance by
different channels that use the same transport protocol configuration. See Section 15.1.2, “The
JGroups Shared Transport”.

• bind_addr specifies the interface on which to receive and send messages. By default, JGroups
uses the value of system property jgroups.bind_addr. This can also be set with the -b
command line switch. See Section 22.6, “Other Configuration Issues” for more on binding JGroups
sockets.

• receive_on_all_interfaces specifies whether this node should listen on all interfaces for multicasts.
The default is false. It overrides the bind_addr property for receiving multicasts. However,
bind_addr (if set) is still used to send multicasts.

• send_on_all_interfaces specifies whether this node sends UDP packets via all available network
interface controllers, if your machine has multiple network interface controllers available. This
means that the same multicast message is sent N times, so use with care.

• receive_interfaces specifies a list of of interfaces on which to receive multicasts. The multicast

receive socket will listen on all of these interfaces. This is a comma-separated list of IP addresses or
interface names, for example, 192.168.5.1,eth1,127.0.0.1.

• send_interfaces specifies a list of of interfaces via which to send multicasts. The multicast sender
socket will send on all of these interfaces. This is a comma-separated list of IP addresses or

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Transport Protocols

interface names, for example, 192.168.5.1,eth1,127.0.0.1.This means that the same

multicast message is sent N times, so use with care.

• enable_bundling specifies whether to enable message bundling. If true, the tranpsort

protocol queues outgoing messages until max_bundle_size bytes have accumulated, or
max_bundle_time milliseconds have elapsed, whichever occurs first. Then the transport protocol
bundles queued messages into one large message and sends it. The messages are unbundled at
the receiver. The default is false.

Message bundling can have significant performance benefits for channels that are used for
high volume sending of messages where the sender does not block waiting for a response
from recipients (for example, a JBoss Cache instance configured for REPL_ASYNC.) It can add
considerable latency to applications where senders need to block waiting for responses, so it is
not recommended for certain situations, such as where a JBoss Cache instance is configured for
REPL_SYNC.

• loopback specifies whether the thread sending a message to the group should itself carry the
message back up the stack for delivery. (Messages sent to the group are always delivered to the
sending node as well.) If false, the sending thread does not carry the message; the transport
protocol waits to read the message off the network and uses one of the message delivery pool
threads for delivery. The default is false, but true is recommended to ensure that the channel
receives its own messages, in case the network interface goes down.

• discard_incompatible_packets specifies whether to discard packets sent by peers that use a

different version of JGroups. Each message in the cluster is tagged with a JGroups version. If
discard_incompatible_packets is set to true, messages received from different versions of
JGroups will be silently discarded. Otherwise, a warning will be logged. In no case will the message
be delivered. The default value is false.

• enable_diagnostics specifies that the transport should open a multicast socket on address
diagnostics_addr and port diagnostics_port to listen for diagnostic requests sent by the
1
JGroups Probe utility .

• The various thread_pool attributes configure the behavior of the pool of threads JGroups uses
to carry ordinary incoming messages up the stack. The various attributes provide the constructor
arguments for an instance of java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutorService. In the
example above, the pool will have a minimum or core size of 8 threads, and a maximum size of 200.
If more than 8 pool threads have been created, a thread returning from carrying a message will wait
for up to 5000 milliseconds to be assigned a new message to carry, after which it will terminate. If no
threads are available to carry a message, the (separate) thread reading messages off the socket will
place messages in a queue; the queue will hold up to 1000 messages. If the queue is full, the thread
reading messages off the socket will discard the message.

• The various oob_thread_pool attributes are similar to the thread_pool attributes in that they
configure a java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutorService used to carry incoming
messages up the protocol stack. In this case, the pool is used to carry a special type of message
known as an Out-Of-Band (OOB) message. OOB messages are exempt from the ordered-delivery
requirements of protocols like NAKACK and UNICAST and thus can be delivered up the stack even
if NAKACK or UNICAST are queueing up messages from a particular sender. OOB messages are
often used internally by JGroups protocols and can be used by applications as well. For example,
when JBoss Cache is in REPL_SYNC mode, it uses OOB messages for the second phase of its two-
phase-commit protocol.

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22.1.2.2. TCP configuration

Alternatively, a JGroups-based cluster can also work over TCP connections. Compared with UDP,
TCP generates more network traffic when the cluster size increases. TCP is fundamentally a unicast
protocol. To send multicast messages, JGroups uses multiple TCP unicasts. To use TCP as a
transport protocol, you should define a TCP element in the JGroups config element. Here is an
example of the TCP element.

The following attributes are specific to the TCP element:

• start_port and end_port define the range of TCP ports to which the server should bind. The
server socket is bound to the first available port beginning with start_port. If no available port
is found (for example, because the ports are in use by other sockets) before the end_port, the
server throws an exception. If no end_port is provided, or end_port is lower than start_port,
no upper limit is applied to the port range. If start_port is equal to end_port, JGroups is forced
to use the specified port, since start_port fails if the specified port in not available. The default
value is 7800. If set to 0, the operating system will select a port. (This will only work for MPING or
TCPGOSSIP discovery protocols. TCCPING requires that nodes and their required ports are listed.)

• bind_port in TCP acts as an alias for start_port. If configured internally, it sets start_port.

• recv_buf_size, send_buf_size define receive and send buffer sizes. It is good to have a large
receiver buffer size, so packets are less likely to get dropped due to buffer overflow.

• conn_expire_time specifies the time (in milliseconds) after which a connection can be closed by
the reaper if no traffic has been received.

• reaper_interval specifies interval (in milliseconds) to run the reaper. If both values are 0, no reaping
will be done. If either value is > 0, reaping will be enabled. By default, reaper_interval is 0, which
means no reaper.

• sock_conn_timeout specifies max time in millis for a socket creation. When doing the initial
discovery, and a peer hangs, don't wait forever but go on after the timeout to ping other members.
Reduces chances of *not* finding any members at all. The default is 2000.

• use_send_queues specifies whether to use separate send queues for each connection. This
prevents blocking on write if the peer hangs. The default is true.

• external_addr specifies external IP address to broadcast to other group members (if different to
local address). This is useful when you have use (Network Address Translation) NAT, e.g. a node
on a private network, behind a firewall, but you can only route to it via an externally visible address,
which is different from the local address it is bound to. Therefore, the node can be configured to
broadcast its external address, while still able to bind to the local one. This avoids having to use the
TUNNEL protocol, (and hence a requirement for a central gossip router) because nodes outside the
firewall can still route to the node inside the firewall, but only on its external address. Without setting
the external_addr, the node behind the firewall will broadcast its private address to the other nodes
which will not be able to route to it.

• skip_suspected_members specifies whether unicast messages should not be sent to suspected

members. The default is true.

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• tcp_nodelay specifies TCP_NODELAY. TCP by default nagles messages, that is, conceptually,
smaller messages are bundled into larger ones. If we want to invoke synchronous cluster method
calls, then we need to disable nagling in addition to disabling message bundling (by setting
enable_bundling to false). Nagling is disabled by setting tcp_nodelay to true. The default is
false.

Note
All of the attributes common to all protocols discussed in the UDP protocol section also
apply to TCP.

22.1.2.3. TUNNEL configuration

The TUNNEL protocol uses an external router process to send messages. The external router is a
Java process that runs the org.jgroups.stack.GossipRouter main class. Each node has to
register with the router. All messages are sent to the router and forwarded on to their destinations.
The TUNNEL approach can be used to set up communication with nodes behind firewalls. A node can
establish a TCP connection to the GossipRouter through the firewall (you can use port 80). This
connection is also used by the router to send messages to nodes behind the firewall, as most firewalls
do not permit outside hosts to initiate a TCP connection to a host inside the firewall. The TUNNEL
configuration is defined in the TUNNEL element within the JGroups <config> element, like so:

The available attributes in the TUNNEL element are listed below.

• router_host specifies the host on which the GossipRouter is running.

• router_port specifies the port on which the GossipRouter is listening.

• reconnect_interval specifies the interval of time (in milliseconds) for which TUNNEL will attempt to
connect to the GossipRouter if the connection is not established. The default value is 5000.

Note
All of the attributes common to all protocols discussed in the UDP protocol section also
apply to TUNNEL.

22.1.3. Discovery Protocols

When a channel on a node first connects, it must determine which other nodes are running compatible
channels, and which of these nodes is currently acting as the coordinator (the node responsible for
letting new nodes join the group). Discovery protocols are used to find active nodes in the cluster
and to determine which is the coordinator. This information is then provided to the group membership
protocol (GMS), which communicates with the coordinator's GMS to add the newly-connecting node
to the group. (For more information about group membership protocols, see Section 22.1.6, “Group
Membership (GMS)”.)

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Discovery protocols also assist merge protocols (see Section 22.5, “Merging (MERGE2)”) to detect
cluster-split situations.

The discovery protocols sit on top of the transport protocol, so you can choose to use different
discovery protocols depending on your transport protocol. These are also configured as sub-elements
in the JGroups <config> element.

22.1.3.1. PING
PING is a discovery protocol that works by either multicasting PING requests to an IP multicast
address or connecting to a gossip router. As such, PING normally sits on top of the UDP or TUNNEL
transport protocols. Each node responds with a packet {C, A}, where C=coordinator's address and
A=own address. After timeout milliseconds or num_initial_members replies, the joiner determines the
coordinator from the responses, and sends a JOIN request to it (handled by). If nobody responds, we
assume we are the first member of a group.

Here is an example PING configuration for IP multicast.

Here is another example PING configuration for contacting a Gossip Router.

The available attributes in the PING element are listed below.

• timeout specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait for any responses. The default is
3000.

• num_initial_members specifies the maximum number of responses to wait for unless timeout has
expired. The default is 2.

• gossip_host specifies the host on which the GossipRouter is running.

• gossip_port specifies the port on which the GossipRouter is listening on.

• gossip_refresh specifies the interval (in milliseconds) for the lease from the GossipRouter. The
default is 20000.

• initial_hosts is a comma-separated list of addresses or ports (for example,

host1[12345],host2[23456]) which are pinged for discovery. Default is null, meaning
multicast discovery should be used. If initial_hosts is specified, you must list all possible
cluster members, not just a few well-known hosts, or MERGE2 cluster split discovery will not work
reliably.

If both gossip_host and gossip_port are defined, the cluster uses the GossipRouter for the
initial discovery. If the initial_hosts is specified, the cluster pings that static list of addresses for
discovery. Otherwise, the cluster uses IP multicasting for discovery.

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Note
The discovery phase returns when the timeout ms have elapsed or the
num_initial_members responses have been received.

22.1.3.2. TCPGOSSIP
The TCPGOSSIP protocol only works with a GossipRouter. It works essentially the same way as the
PING protocol configuration with valid gossip_host and gossip_port attributes. It works on top of
both UDP and TCP transport protocols. Here is an example.

The available attributes in the TCPGOSSIP element are listed below.

• timeout specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait for any responses. The default is
3000.

• num_initial_members specifies the maximum number of responses to wait for unless timeout has
expired. The default is 2.

• initial_hosts is a comma-separated list of addresses/ports (for example,

host1[12345],host2[23456]) of GossipRouters to register

22.1.3.3. TCPPING
The TCPPING protocol takes a set of known members and pings them for discovery. This is
essentially a static configuration. It works on top of TCP. Here is an example of the TCPPING
configuration element in the JGroups config element.

The available attributes in the TCPPING element are listed below.

• timeout specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait for any responses. The default is
3000.

• num_initial_members specifies the maximum number of responses to wait for unless timeout has
expired. The default is 2.

• initial_hosts is a comma-seperated list of addresses (for example,

host1[12345],host2[23456]) for pinging.

• port_range specifies the number of consecutive ports to be probed when getting the initial
membership, starting with the port specified in the initial_hosts parameter. Given the current
values of port_range and initial_hosts above, the TCPPING layer will try to connect to

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hosta[2300], hosta[2301], hosta[2302], hostb[3400], hostb[3401], hostb[3402],

hostc[4500], hostc[4501], and hostc[4502]. This configuration option allows for multiple
possible ports on the same host to be pinged without having to spell out all possible combinations.
If in your TCP protocol configuration your end_port is greater than your start_port, we
recommend using a TCPPING port_range equal to the difference, to ensure a node is pinged no
matter which port it is bound to within the allowed range.

22.1.3.4. MPING
MPING uses IP multicast to discover the initial membership. Unlike the other discovery protocols,
which delegate the sending and receiving of discovery messages on the network to the transport
protocol, MPING opens its own sockets to send and receive multicast discovery messages. As a result
it can be used with all transports, but it is most often used with TCP. TCP usually requires TCPPING,
which must explicitly list all possible group members. MPING does not have this requirement, and is
typically used where TCP is required for regular message transport, and UDP multicasting is allowed
for discovery.

The available attributes in the MPING element are listed below.

• timeout specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait for any responses. The default is
3000.

• num_initial_members specifies the maximum number of responses to wait for unless timeout has
expired. The default is 2..

• bind_addr specifies the interface on which to send and receive multicast packets. By default
JGroups uses the value of the system property jgroups.bind_addr, which can be set with the -b
command line switch. See Section 22.6, “Other Configuration Issues” for more on binding JGroups
sockets.

• bind_to_all_interfaces overrides the bind_addr and uses all interfaces in multihome nodes.

• mcast_addr, mcast_port, ip_ttl attributes are the same as related attributes in the UDP protocol
configuration.

22.1.4. Failure Detection Protocols

The failure detection protocols are used to detect failed nodes. Once a failed node is detected, a
suspect verification phase can occur. If the node is still considered dead after this phase is complete,
the cluster updates its membership view so that further messages are not sent to the failed node.
The service using JGroups is informed that the node is no longer part of the cluster. Failure detection
protocols are configured as sub-elements in the JGroups <config> element.

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22.1.4.1. FD
FD is a failure detection protocol based on 'heartbeat' messages. This protocol requires that eat node
periodically ping its neighbour. If the neighbour fails to respond, the calling node sends a SUSPECT
message to the cluster. The current group coordinator can optionally verify that the suspected node
is dead (VERIFY_SUSPECT). If the node is still considered dead after this verification step, the
coordinator updates the cluster's membership view. The following is an example of FD configuration:

The available attributes in the FD element are listed below.

• timeout specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait for the responses to the are-you-
alive messages. The default is 3000.

• max_tries specifies the number of missed are-you-alive messages from a node before the node is
suspected. The default is 2.

• shun specifies whether a failed node will be forbidden from sending messages to the group without
formally rejoining. A shunned node would need to rejoin the cluster via the discovery process.
JGroups allows applications to configure a channel such that, when a channel is shunned, the
process of rejoining the cluster and transferring state. (This is default behavior for JBoss Application
Server.)

Note
Regular traffic from a node is proof of life, so heartbeat messages are only sent when no
regular traffic is detected on the node for a long period of time.

22.1.4.2. FD_SOCK
FD_SOCK is a failure detection protocol based on a ring of TCP sockets created between group
members. Each member in a group connects to its neighbor, with the final member connecting to the
first, forming a ring. Node B becomes suspected when its neighbour, Node A, detects an abnormally
closed TCP socket, presumably due to a crash in Node B. (When nodes intend to leave the group,
they inform their neighbours so that they do not become suspected.)

The simplest FD_SOCK configuration does not take any attribute. You can declare an empty FD_SOCK
element in the JGroups <config> element.

<FD_SOCK/>

The attributes available to the FD_SOCK element are listed below.

• bind_addr specifies the interface to which the server socket should be bound. By default, JGroups
uses the value of the system property jgroups.bind_addr. This system property can be set
with the -b command line switch. For more information about binding JGroups sockets, see
Section 22.6, “Other Configuration Issues”.

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22.1.4.3. VERIFY_SUSPECT
This protocol verifies whether a suspected member is really dead by pinging that member once again.
This verification is performed by the coordinator of the cluster. The suspected member is dropped
from the cluster group if confirmed to be dead. The aim of this protocol is to minimize false suspicions.
Here's an example.

<VERIFY_SUSPECT timeout="1500"/>

The available attributes in the VERIFY_SUSPECT element are listed below.

• timeout specifies how long to wait for a response from the suspected member before considering it
dead.

22.1.4.4. FD versus FD_SOCK

FD and FD_SOCK, each taken individually, do not provide a solid failure detection layer. Let's look
at the the differences between these failure detection protocols to understand how they complement
each other:

• FD

• An overloaded machine might be slow in sending are-you-alive responses.

• A member will be suspected when suspended in a debugger/profiler.

• Low timeouts lead to higher probability of false suspicions and higher network traffic.

• High timeouts will not detect and remove crashed members for some time.

• FD_SOCK:

• Suspended in a debugger is no problem because the TCP connection is still open.

• High load no problem either for the same reason.

• Members will only be suspected when TCP connection breaks

• So hung members will not be detected.

• Also, a crashed switch will not be detected until the connection runs into the TCP timeout
(between 2-20 minutes, depending on TCP/IP stack implementation).

A failure detection layer is intended to report real failures promptly, while avoiding false suspicions.
There are two solutions:

1. By default, JGroups configures the FD_SOCK socket with KEEP_ALIVE, which means that TCP
sends a heartbeat on socket on which no traffic has been received in 2 hours. If a host crashed
(or an intermediate switch or router crashed) without closing the TCP connection properly, we
would detect this after 2 hours (plus a few minutes). This is of course better than never closing the
connection (if KEEP_ALIVE is off), but may not be of much help. So, the first solution would be
to lower the timeout value for KEEP_ALIVE. This can only be done for the entire kernel in most
operating systems, so if this is lowered to 15 minutes, this will affect all TCP sockets.

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2. The second solution is to combine FD_SOCK and FD; the timeout in FD can be set such that it is
much lower than the TCP timeout, and this can be configured individually per process. FD_SOCK
will already generate a suspect message if the socket was closed abnormally. However, in the
case of a crashed switch or host, FD will make sure the socket is eventually closed and the
suspect message generated. Example:

<FD_SOCK/>
<FD timeout="6000" max_tries="5" shun="true"/>
<VERIFY_SUSPECT timeout="1500"/>

In this example, a member becomes suspected when the neighbouring socket has been closed
abnormally, in a process crash, for instance, since the operating system closes all sockets. However,
if a host or switch crashes, the sockets will not be closed. FD will suspect the neighbour after thirty
seconds (6000 milliseconds). Note that if this example system were stopped in a breakpoint in the
debugger, the node being debugged will be suspected once the timeout has elapsed.

A combination of FD and FD_SOCK provides a solid failure detection layer, which is why this technique
is used across the JGroups configurations included with JBoss Application Server.

22.1.5. Reliable Delivery Protocols

Reliable delivery protocols within the JGroups stack ensure that messages are actually delivered, and
delivered in the correct order (First In, First Out, or FIFO) to the destination node. The basis for reliable
message delivery is positive and negative delivery acknowledgments (ACK and NAK). In ACK mode,
the sender resends the message until acknowledgment is received from the receiver. In NAK mode,
the receiver requests retransmission when it discovers a gap.

22.1.5.1. UNICAST
The UNICAST protocol is used for unicast messages. It uses positive acknowlegements (ACK). It is
configured as a sub-element under the JGroups config element. If the JGroups stack is configured
with the TCP transport protocol, UNICAST is not necessary because TCP itself guarantees FIFO
delivery of unicast messages. Here is an example configuration for the UNICAST protocol:

There is only one configurable attribute in the UNICAST element.

• timeout specifies the retransmission timeout (in milliseconds). For instance, if the timeout is
100,200,400,800, the sender resends the message if it has not received an ACK after 100
milliseconds the first time, and the second time it waits for 200 milliseconds before resending, and
so on. A low value for the first timeout allows for prompt retransmission of dropped messages, but
means that messages may be transmitted more than once if they have not actually been lost (that
is, the message has been sent, but the ACK has not been received before the timeout). High values
(1000,2000,3000) can improve performance if the network is tuned such that UDP datagram loss
is infrequent. High values on networks with frequent losses will be harmful to performance, since
later messages will not be delivered until lost messages have been retransmitted.

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22.1.5.2. NAKACK
The NAKACK protocol is used for multicast messages. It uses negative acknowlegements (NAK).
Under this protocol, each message is tagged with a sequence number. The receiver keeps track of
the received sequence numbers and delivers the messages in order. When a gap in the series of
received sequence numbers is detected, the receiver schedules a task to periodically ask the sender
to retransmit the missing message. The task is cancelled if the missing message is received. NAKACK
protocol is configured as the pbcast.NAKACK sub-element under the JGroups <config> element.
Here is an example configuration:

<pbcast.NAKACK max_xmit_size="60000" use_mcast_xmit="false"

retransmit_timeout="300,600,1200,2400,4800" gc_lag="0"
discard_delivered_msgs="true"/>

The configurable attributes in the pbcast.NAKACK element are as follows.

• retransmit_timeout specifies the series of timeouts (in milliseconds) after which retransmission is
requested if a missing message has not yet been received.

• use_mcast_xmit determines whether the sender should send the retransmission to the entire
cluster rather than just to the node requesting it. This is useful when the sender's network layer
tends to drop packets, avoiding the need to individually retransmit to each node.

• max_xmit_size specifies the maximum size (in bytes) for a bundled retransmission, if multiple
messages are reported missing.

• discard_delivered_msgs specifies whether to discard delivered messages on the receiver nodes.

By default, nodes save delivered messages so any node can retransmit a lost message in case
the original sender has crashed or left the group. However, if we only ask the sender to resend its
messages, we can enable this option and discard delivered messages.

• gc_lag specifies the number of messages to keep in memory for retransmission, even after the
periodic cleanup protocol (see Section 22.4, “Distributed Garbage Collection (STABLE)”) indicates
all peers have received the message. The default value is 20.

22.1.6. Group Membership (GMS)

The group membership service (GMS) protocol in the JGroups stack maintains a list of active nodes.
It handles the requests to join and leave the cluster. It also handles the SUSPECT messages sent
by failure detection protocols. All nodes in the cluster, as well as any interested services like JBoss
Cache or HAPartition, are notified if the group membership changes. The group membership service is
configured in the pbcast.GMS sub-element under the JGroups config element. Here is an example
configuration.

<pbcast.GMS print_local_addr="true"
join_timeout="3000"
join_retry_timeout="2000"
shun="true"
view_bundling="true"/>

The configurable attributes in the pbcast.GMS element are as follows.

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• join_timeout specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait for a new node JOIN request to
succeed. Retry afterwards.

• join_retry_timeout specifies the number of milliseconds to wait after a failed JOIN before trying
again.

• print_local_addr specifies whether to dump the node's own address to the standard output when
started.

• shun specifies whether a node should shun (that is, disconnect) itself if it receives a cluster view in
which it is not a member node.

• disable_initial_coord specifies whether to prevent this node from becoming the cluster coordinator
during the initial connection of the channel. This flag does not prevent a node becoming the
coordinator after the initial channel connection, if the current coordinator leaves the group.

• view_bundling specifies whether multiple JOIN or LEAVE requests arriving at the same time are
bundled and handled together at the same time, resulting in only one new view that incorporates all
changes. This is is more efficient than handling each request separately.

22.1.7. Flow Control (FC)

The flow control (FC) protocol tries to adapt the data sending rate to the data receipt rate among
nodes. If a sender node is too fast, it might overwhelm the receiver node and result in out-of-memory
conditions or dropped packets that have to be retransmitted. In JGroups, flow control is implemented
via a credit-based system. The sender and receiver nodes have the same number of credits (bytes)
to start with. The sender subtracts credits by the number of bytes in messages it sends. The receiver
accumulates credits for the bytes in the messages it receives. When the sender's credit drops to a
threshold, the receivers send some credit to the sender. If the sender's credit is used up, the sender
blocks until it receives credits from the receiver. The flow control protocol is configured in the FC sub-
element under the JGroups config element. Here is an example configuration.

The configurable attributes in the FC element are as follows.

• max_credits specifies the maximum number of credits (in bytes). This value should be smaller than
the JVM heap size.

• min_credits specifies the minimum number of bytes that must be received before the receiver will
send more credits to the sender.

• min_threshold specifies the percentage of the max_credits that should be used to calculate
min_credits. Setting this overrides the min_credits attribute.

• ignore_synchronous_response specifies whether threads that have carried messages up to the

application should be allowed to carry outgoing messages back down through FC without blocking
for credits. Synchronous response refers to the fact that these messages are generally responses
to incoming RPC-type messages. Forbidding JGroups threads to carry messages up to block in FC
can help prevent certain deadlock scenarios, so we recommend setting this to true.

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Why is FC needed on top of TCP ? TCP has its own flow control!
FC is required for group communication where group messages must be sent at the
highest speed that the slowest receiver can handle. For example, say we have a cluster
comprised of nodes A, B, C and D. D is slow (perhaps overloaded), while the rest are fast.
When A sends a group message, it does so via TCP connections: A-A (theoretically), A-B,
A-C and A-D.

Say A sends 100 million messages to the cluster. TCP's flow control applies to A-B, A-
C and A-D individually, but not to A-BCD as a group. Therefore, A, B and C will receive
the 100 million messages, but D will receive only 1 million. (This is also why NAKACK is
required, even though TCP handles its own retransmission.)

JGroups must buffer all messages in memory in case an original sender S dies and
a node requests retransmission of a message sent by S. Since all members buffer all
messages that they receive, stable messages (messages seen by every node) must
sometimes be purged. (The purging process is managed by the STABLE protocol. For
more information, see Section 22.4, “Distributed Garbage Collection (STABLE)”.)

In the above case, the slow node D will prevent the group from purging messages above
1M, so every member will buffer 99M messages ! This in most cases leads to OOM
exceptions. Note that - although the sliding window protocol in TCP will cause writes to
block if the window is full - we assume in the above case that this is still much faster for A-
B and A-C than for A-D.

So, in summary, even with TCP we need to FC to ensure we send messages at a rate the
slowest receiver (D) can handle.

So do I always need FC?

This depends on how the application uses the JGroups channel. Referring to the example
above, if there was something about the application that would naturally cause A to slow
down its rate of sending because D wasn't keeping up, then FC would not be needed.

A good example of such an application is one that uses JGroups to make synchronous
group RPC calls. By synchronous, we mean the thread that makes the call blocks waiting
for responses from all the members of the group. In that kind of application, the threads on
A that are making calls would block waiting for responses from D, thus naturally slowing
the overall rate of calls.

A JBoss Cache cluster configured for REPL_SYNC is a good example of an application

that makes synchronous group RPC calls. If a channel is only used for a cache configured
for REPL_SYNC, we recommend you remove FC from its protocol stack.

And, of course, if your cluster only consists of two nodes, including FC in a TCP-
based protocol stack is unnecessary. There is no group beyond the single peer-to-peer
relationship, and TCP's internal flow control will handle that just fine.

Another case where FC may not be needed is for a channel used by a JBoss Cache
configured for buddy replication and a single buddy. Such a channel will in many respects
act like a two node cluster, where messages are only exchanged with one other node, the
buddy. (There may be other messages related to data gravitation that go to all members,

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but in a properly engineered buddy replication use case these should be infrequent. But if
you remove FC be sure to load test your application.)

22.2. Fragmentation (FRAG2)

This protocol fragments messages that are larger than a certain size, and reassembles them at the
receiver's side. It works for both unicast and multicast messages. It is configured with the FRAG2 sub-
element in the JGroups config element. Here is an example configuration:

The configurable attributes in the FRAG2 element are as follows.

• frag_size specifies the maximum message size (in bytes) before fragmentation occurs. Messages
larger than this size are fragmented. For stacks that use the UDP transport, this value must be lower
than 64 kilobytes (the maximum UDP datagram size). For TCP-based stacks, it must be lower than
the value of max_credits in the FC protocol.

Note
TCP protocol already provides fragmentation, but a JGroups fragmentation protocol is
still required if FC is used. The reason for this is that if you send a message larger than
FC.max_credits, the FC protocol will block forever. So, frag_size within FRAG2
must always be set to a value lower than that of FC.max_credits.

22.3. State Transfer

The state transfer service transfers the state from an existing node (i.e., the cluster coordinator) to a
newly joining node. It is configured in the pbcast.STATE_TRANSFER sub-element under the JGroups
Config element. It does not have any configurable attribute. Here is an example configuration.

<pbcast.STATE_TRANSFER down_thread="false" up_thread="false"/>

22.4. Distributed Garbage Collection (STABLE)

In a JGroups cluster, all nodes must store all messages received for potential retransmission in case
of a failure. However, if we store all messages forever, we will run out of memory. The distributed
garbage collection service periodically purges messages that have been seen by all nodes, removing
them from the memory in each node. The distributed garbage collection service is configured in the
pbcast.STABLE sub-element under the JGroups config element. Here is an example configuration.

<pbcast.STABLE stability_delay="1000"
desired_avg_gossip="5000"
max_bytes="400000"/>

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The configurable attributes in the pbcast.STABLE element are as follows.

• desired_avg_gossip specifies intervals (in milliseconds) of garbage collection runs. Set this to 0 to
disable interval-based garbage collection.

• max_bytes specifies the maximum number of bytes received before the cluster triggers a garbage
collection run. Set to 0 to disable garbage collection based on the bytes received.

• stability_delay specifies the maximum time period (in milliseconds) of a random delay introduced
before a node sends its STABILITY message at the end of a garbage collection run. The delay
gives other nodes concurrently running a STABLE task a change to send first. If used together with
max_bytes, this attribute should be set to a small number.

Note
Set the max_bytes attribute when you have a high traffic cluster.

22.5. Merging (MERGE2)

When a network error occurs, the cluster might be partitioned into several different partitions. JGroups
has a MERGE service that allows the coordinators in partitions to communicate with each other and
form a single cluster back again. The flow control service is configured in the MERGE2 sub-element
under the JGroups Config element. Here is an example configuration.

The configurable attributes in the FC element are as follows.

• max_interval specifies the maximum number of milliseconds to wait before sending a MERGE
message.

• min_interval specifies the minimum number of milliseconds to wait before sending a MERGE
message.

JGroups chooses a random value between min_interval and max_interval to periodically send
the MERGE message.

Note
The application state maintained by the application using a channel is not merged by
JGroups during a merge. This must be done by the application.

Note
If MERGE2 is used in conjunction with TCPPING, the initial_hosts attribute must
contain all the nodes that could potentially be merged back, in order for the merge process

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to work properly. Otherwise, the merge process may not detect all sub-groups, and may
miss those comprised solely of unlisted members.

22.6. Other Configuration Issues

22.6.1. Binding JGroups Channels to a Particular Interface

In the Transport Protocols section above, we briefly touched on how the interface to which JGroups
will bind sockets is configured. Let's get into this topic in more depth:

First, it is important to understand that the value set in any bind_addr element in an XML
configuration file will be ignored by JGroups if it finds that the system property jgroups.bind_addr
(or a deprecated earlier name for the same thing, bind.address) has been set. The system property
has a higher priority level than the XML property. If JBoss Application Server is started with the -b (or
--host) switch, the application server will set jgroups.bind_addr to the specified value. If -b is
not set, the application server will bind most services to localhost by default.

So, what are best practices for managing how JGroups binds to interfaces?

• Binding JGroups to the same interface as other services. Simple, just use -b:

./run.sh -b 192.168.1.100 -c all

• Binding services (e.g., JBoss Web) to one interface, but use a different one for JGroups:

./run.sh -b 10.0.0.100 -Djgroups.bind_addr=192.168.1.100 -c all

Specifically setting the system property overrides the -b value. This is a common usage pattern; put
client traffic on one network, with intra-cluster traffic on another.

• Binding services (e.g., JBoss Web) to all interfaces. This can be done like this:

./run.sh -b 0.0.0.0 -c all

However, doing this will not cause JGroups to bind to all interfaces! Instead , JGroups will bind
to the machine's default interface. See the Transport Protocols section for how to tell JGroups to
receive or send on all interfaces, if that is what you really want.

• Binding services (e.g., JBoss Web) to all interfaces, but specify the JGroups interface:

./run.sh -b 0.0.0.0 -Djgroups.bind_addr=192.168.1.100 -c all

Again, specifically setting the system property overrides the -b value.

• Using different interfaces for different channels:

./run.sh -b 10.0.0.100 -Djgroups.ignore.bind_addr=true -c all

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This setting tells JGroups to ignore the jgroups.bind_addr system property, and instead use
whatever is specfied in XML. You would need to edit the various XML configuration files to set the
various bind_addr attributes to the desired interfaces.

22.6.2. Isolating JGroups Channels

Within JBoss Application Server, there are a number of services that independently create JGroups
channels — possibly multiple different JBoss Cache services (used for HttpSession replication,
EJB3 stateful session bean replication and EJB3 entity replication), two JBoss Messaging channels,
and HAPartition, the general purpose clustering service that underlies most other JBossHA services.

It is critical that these channels only communicate with their intended peers; not with the channels
used by other services and not with channels for the same service opened on machines not meant
to be part of the group. Nodes improperly communicating with each other is one of the most common
issues users have with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clustering.

Whom a JGroups channel will communicate with is defined by its group name and, for UDP-based
channels, its multicast address and port. Isolating a JGroups channel means ensuring that different
channels use different values for the group name, the multicast address and, in some cases, the
multicast port.

22.6.2.1. Isolating sets of Application Server instances from each other

This section addresses the issue of having multiple independent clusters running within the same
environment. For example, you might have a production cluster, a staging cluster, and a QA cluster, or
multiple clusters in a QA test lab or development team environment.

To isolate JGroups clusters from other clusters on the network, you must:

• Make sure the channels in the various clusters use different group names. This can be controlled
with the command line arguments used to start JBoss; see Section 22.6.2.2.1, “Changing the Group
Name” for more information.

• Make sure the channels in the various clusters use different multicast addresses. This is also easy
to control with the command line arguments used to start JBoss.

• If you are not running on Linux, Windows, Solaris or HP-UX, you may also need to ensure that
the channels in each cluster use different multicast ports. This is more difficult than using different
group names, although it can still be controlled from the command line. See Section 22.6.2.2.3,
“Changing the Multicast Port”. Note that using different ports should not be necessary if your servers
are running on Linux, Windows, Solaris or HP-UX.

22.6.2.2. Isolating Channels for Different Services on the Same Set of AS

Instances
This section addresses the usual case: a cluster of three machines, each of which has, for example,
an HAPartition deployed alongside JBoss Cache for web session clustering. The HAPartition channels
should not communicate with the JBoss Cache channels. Ensuring proper isolation of these channels
is straightforward, and is usually handled by the application server without any alterations on the part
of the user.

To isolate channels for different services from each other on the same set of application server
instances, each channel must have its own group name. The configurations that ship with JBoss

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Application Server ensure that this is the case. However, if you create a custom service that
uses JGroups directly, you must use a unique group name. If you create a custom JBoss Cache
configuration, ensure that you provide a unique value in the clusterName configuration property.

In releases prior to JBoss Application Server 5, different channels running in the same application
server also had to use unique multicast ports. With the JGroups shared transport introduced in JBoss
AS 5 (see Section 15.1.2, “The JGroups Shared Transport”), it is now common for multiple channels
to use the same tranpsort protocol and its sockets. This makes configuration easier, which is one of
the main benefits of the shared transport. However, if you decide to create your own custom JGroups
protocol stack configuration, be sure to configure its transport protocols with a multicast port that is
different from the ports used in other protocol stacks.

22.6.2.2.1. Changing the Group Name

The group name for a JGroups channel is configured via the service that starts the channel. For all the
standard clustered services, we make it easy for you to create unique groups names by simply using
the -g (or --partition) switch when starting JBoss:

./run.sh -g QAPartition -b 192.168.1.100 -c all

This switch sets the jboss.partition.name system property, which is used as a component in the
configuration of the group name in all the standard clustering configuration files. For example,

<property name="clusterName">${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}-
SFSBCache</property>

22.6.2.2.2. Changing the multicast address and port

The -u (or --udp) command line switch may be used to control the multicast address used by the
JGroups channels opened by all standard AS services.

/run.sh -u 230.1.2.3 -g QAPartition -b 192.168.1.100 -c all

This switch sets the jboss.partition.udpGroup system property, which is referenced in all of the
standard protocol stack configurations in JBoss AS:

<UDP mcast_addr="${jboss.partition.udpGroup:228.1.2.3}" ....

Why is changing the group name insufficient?

If channels with different group names share the same multicast address and port, the
lower level JGroups protocols in each channel will see, process and eventually discard
messages intended for the other group. This will at a minimum hurt performance and can
lead to anomalous behavior.

22.6.2.2.3. Changing the Multicast Port

On some operating systems (Mac OS X for example), using different -g and -u values is not sufficient
to isolate clusters; the channels running in the different clusters must also use different multicast
ports. Unfortunately, setting the multicast ports is not as simple as -g and -u. By default, a JBoss

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AS instance running the all configuration will use up to two different instances of the JGroups UDP
transport protocol, and will therefore open two multicast sockets. You can control the ports those
sockets use by using system properties on the command line. For example,

/run.sh -u 230.1.2.3 -g QAPartition -b 192.168.1.100 -c all \\

-Djboss.jgroups.udp.mcast_port=12345 -
Djboss.messaging.datachanneludpport=23456

The jboss.messaging.datachanneludpport property controls the multicast port used by the

MPING protocol in JBoss Messaging's DATA channel. The jboss.jgroups.udp.mcast_port
property controls the multicast port used by the UDP transport protocol shared by all other clustered
services.

The set of JGroups protocol stack configurations included in the $JBOSS_HOME/server/all/

cluster/jgroups-channelfactory.sar/META-INF/jgroups-channelfactory-
stacks.xml file includes a number of other example protocol stack configurations that the standard
JBoss AS distribution doesn't actually use. Those configurations also use system properties to
set any multicast ports. So, if you reconfigure some AS service to use one of those protocol stack
configurations, use the appropriate system property to control the port from the command line.

Why do I need to change the multicast port if I change the

address?
It should be sufficient to just change the address, but unfortunately the handling of
multicast sockets is one area where the JVM fails to hide operating system behavior
differences from the application. The java.net.MulticastSocket class provides
different overloaded constructors. On some operating systems, if you use one constructor
variant, packets addressed to a particular multicast port are delivered to all listeners
on that port, regardless of the multicast address on which they are listening. We refer
to this as the promiscuous traffic problem. On most operating systems that exhibit the
promiscuous traffic problem (Linux, Solaris and HP-UX) JGroups can use a different
constructor variant that avoids the problem. However, on some operating systems with
the promiscuous traffic problem (Mac OS X), multicast does not work properly if the other
constructor variant is used. So, on these operating systems the recommendation is to
configure different multicast ports for different clusters.

22.6.2.3. Improving UDP Performance by Configuring OS UDP Buffer

Limits
By default, the JGroups channels in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform use the UDP transport
protocol to take advantage of IP multicast. However, one disadvantage of UDP is it does not come
with the reliable delivery guarantees provided by TCP. The protocols discussed in Section 22.1.5,
“Reliable Delivery Protocols” allow JGroups to guarantee delivery of UDP messages, but those
protocols are implemented in Java, not at the operating system network layer. For peak performance
from a UDP-based JGroups channel it is important to limit the need for JGroups to retransmit
messages by limiting UDP datagram loss.

One of the most common causes of lost UDP datagrams is an undersized receive buffer on the
socket. The UDP protocol's mcast_recv_buf_size and ucast_recv_buf_size configuration

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attributes are used to specify the amount of receive buffer JGroups requests from the operating
system, but the actual size of the buffer the operating system provides is limited by operating system-
level maximums. These maximums are often very low:

Operating System Default Max UDP Buffer (in bytes)

Linux 131071
Windows No known limit
Solaris 262144
FreeBSD, Darwin 262144
AIX 1048576
Table 22.1. Default Max UDP Buffer Sizes

The command used to increase the above limits is operating system-specific. The table below shows
the command required to increase the maximum buffer to 25 megabytes. In all cases, root privileges
are required:

Operating System Command

Linux sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=26214400
Solaris ndd -set /dev/udp udp_max_buf
26214400
FreeBSD, Darwin sysctl -w
kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=26214400
AIX no -o sb_max=8388608 (AIX will only allow 1
megabyte, 4 megabytes or 8 megabytes).
Table 22.2. Commands to Change Max UDP Buffer Sizes

22.6.3. JGroups Troubleshooting

22.6.3.1. Nodes do not form a cluster

Make sure your machine is set up correctly for IP multicast. There are 2 test programs that can be
used to detect this: McastReceiverTest and McastSenderTest. Go to the $JBOSS_HOME/server/
all/lib directory and start McastReceiverTest, for example:

java -cp jgroups.jar org.jgroups.tests.McastReceiverTest -mcast_addr

224.10.10.10 -port 5555

Then in another window start McastSenderTest:

java -cp jgroups.jar org.jgroups.tests.McastSenderTest -mcast_addr

224.10.10.10 -port 5555

If you want to bind to a specific network interface card (NIC), use -bind_addr 192.168.0.2, where
192.168.0.2 is the IP address of the NIC to which you want to bind. Use this parameter in both the
sender and the receiver.

You should be able to type in the McastSenderTest window and see the output in the
McastReceiverTest window. If not, try to use -ttl 32 in the sender. If this still fails, consult a system

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administrator to help you setup IP multicast correctly, and ask the admin to make sure that multicast
will work on the interface you have chosen or, if the machines have multiple interfaces, ask to be told
the correct interface. Once you know multicast is working properly on each machine in your cluster,
you can repeat the above test to test the network, putting the sender on one machine and the receiver
on another.

22.6.3.2. Causes of missing heartbeats in FD

Sometimes a member is suspected by FD because a heartbeat ack has not been received for
some time T (defined by timeout and max_tries). This can have multiple reasons, e.g. in a cluster of
A,B,C,D; C can be suspected if (note that A pings B, B pings C, C pings D and D pings A):

• B or C are running at 100% CPU for more than T seconds. So even if C sends a heartbeat ack to B,
B may not be able to process it because it is at 100%

• B or C are garbage collecting, same as above.

• A combination of the 2 cases above

• The network loses packets. This usually happens when there is a lot of traffic on the network, and
the switch starts dropping packets (usually broadcasts first, then IP multicasts, TCP packets last).

• B or C are processing a callback. Let's say C received a remote method call over its channel and
takes T+1 seconds to process it. During this time, C will not process any other messages, including
heartbeats, and therefore B will not receive the heartbeat ack and will suspect C.

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Chapter 23.

JBoss Cache Configuration and

Deployment
JBoss Cache provides the underlying distributed caching support used by many of the standard
clustered services in a JBoss Enterprise Application Platform cluster. You can also deploy JBoss
Cache in your own application to handle custom caching requirements. In this chapter we provide
some background on the main configuration options available with JBoss Cache, with an emphasis on
how those options relate to the JBoss Cache usage by the standard clustered services the Enterprise
Application Platform provides. We then discuss the different options available for deploying a custom
cache in the Enterprise Application Platform.

Users considering deploying JBoss Cache for direct use by their own application are strongly
encouraged to read the JBoss Cache documentation available at http://www.jboss.org/jbosscache.

See also Section 15.2, “Distributed Caching with JBoss Cache” for information on how the standard
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clustered services use JBoss Cache.

23.1. Key JBoss Cache Configuration Options

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform ships with a reasonable set of default JBoss Cache
configurations that are suitable for the standard clustered service use cases (e.g. web session
replication or JPA/Hibernate caching). Most applications that involve the standard clustered services
just work out of the box with the default configurations. You only need to tweak them when you are
deploying an application that has special network or performance requirements. In this section we
provide a brief overview of some of the key configuration choices. This is by no means a complete
discussion; for full details users interested in moving beyond the default configurations are encouraged
to read the JBoss Cache documentation available at http://www.jboss.org/jbosscache.

Most JBoss Cache configuration examples in this section use the JBoss Microcontainer schema
for building up an org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration object graph from XML. JBoss
Cache has its own custom XML schema, but the standard JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
CacheManager service uses the JBoss Microcontainer schema to be consistent with most other
internal Enterprise Application Platform services.

Before getting into the key configuration options, let's have a look at the most likely place that a user
would encounter them.

23.1.1. Editing the CacheManager Configuration

As discussed in Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform CacheManager Service”,
the standard JBoss Enterprise Application Platform clustered services use the CacheManager service
as a factory for JBoss Cache instances. So, cache configuration changes are likely to involve edits to
the CacheManager service.

Note
Users can also use the CacheManager as a factory for custom caches used by directly by
their own applications; see Section 23.2.1, “Deployment Via the CacheManager Service”.

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The CacheManager is configured via the deploy/cluster/jboss-cache-manager.sar/META-

INF/jboss-cache-manager-jboss-beans.xml file. The element most likely to be edited is the
"CacheConfigurationRegistry" bean, which maintains a registry of all the named JBC configurations
the CacheManager knows about. Most edits to this file would involve adding a new JBoss Cache
configuration or changing a property of an existing one.

The following is a redacted version of the "CacheConfigurationRegistry" bean configuration:

<bean name="CacheConfigurationRegistry"

class="org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.DependencyInjectedConfigurationRegistry">

<entry><key>standard-session-cache</key>
<value>
<bean name="StandardSessionCacheConfig"
class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

<!-- Provides batching functionality for caches that don't want

to
interact with regular JTA Transactions -->
<property name="transactionManagerLookupClass">
org.jboss.cache.transaction.BatchModeTransactionManagerLookup
</property>

<property name="clusterName">
${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}-SessionCache</property>

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<property name="multiplexerStack">
${jboss.default.jgroups.stack:udp}</property>
<property name="fetchInMemoryState">true</property>

<property name="nodeLockingScheme">PESSIMISTIC</property>
<property name="isolationLevel">REPEATABLE_READ</property>
<property name="cacheMode">REPL_ASYNC</property>

.... more details of the standard-session-cache configuration

</bean>
</value>
</entry>

<entry><key>field-granularity-session-cache</key>
<value>

<bean name="FieldSessionCacheConfig"
class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">
.... details of the field-granularity-standard-session-cache
configuration
</bean>

</value>

</entry>

... entry elements for the other configurations

</map>
</property>
</bean>

The actual JBoss Cache configurations are specified using the JBoss Microcontainer's
schema rather than one of the standard JBoss Cache configuration formats. When JBoss
Cache parses one of its standard configuration formats, it creates a Java Bean of type
org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration with a tree of child Java Beans for some of the more
complex sub-configurations (i.e. cache loading, eviction, buddy replication). Rather than delegating
this task of XML parsing/Java Bean creation to JBC, we let the Enterprise Application Platform's
microcontainer do it directly. This has the advantage of making the microcontainer aware of the
configuration beans, which in later Enterprise Application Platform 5.x releases will be helpful in
allowing external management tools to manage the JBC configurations.

The configuration format should be fairly self-explanatory if you look at the standard configurations the
Enterprise Application Platform ships; they include all the major elements. The types and properties
of the various java beans that make up a JBoss Cache configuration can be seen in the JBoss Cache
javadocs. Here is a fairly complete example:

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<property name="clusterName">${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}-
SFSBCache</property>

<property name="multiplexerStack">${jboss.default.jgroups.stack:udp}</
property>
<property name="fetchInMemoryState">true</property>

<property name="nodeLockingScheme">PESSIMISTIC</property>
<property name="isolationLevel">REPEATABLE_READ</property>
<property name="cacheMode">REPL_ASYNC</property>

<property name="useLockStriping">false</property>

<!-- Number of milliseconds to wait until all responses for a

synchronous call have been received. Make this longer
than lockAcquisitionTimeout.-->
<property name="syncReplTimeout">17500</property>

<property name="lockAcquisitionTimeout">15000</property>

<property name="stateRetrievalTimeout">60000</property>

<property name="enabled">false</property>

<!-- A way to specify a preferred replication group. We try

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Editing the CacheManager Configuration

and pick a buddy who shares the same pool name (falling
back to other buddies if not available). -->
<property name="buddyPoolName">default</property>

<property name="autoDataGravitation">false</property>
<property name="dataGravitationRemoveOnFind">true</property>
<property name="dataGravitationSearchBackupTrees">true</property>

<property name="individualCacheLoaderConfigs">
<list>
<bean
class="org.jboss.cache.loader.FileCacheLoaderConfig">

<property name="location">
${jboss.server.data.dir}${/}sfsb</property>

<property name="async">false</property>
<property name="fetchPersistentState">true</property>
<property name="purgeOnStartup">true</property>
<property name="ignoreModifications">false</property>
<property name="checkCharacterPortability">false</
property>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>

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Basically, the XML specifies the creation of an org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration java

bean and the setting of a number of properties on that bean. Most of the properties are of simple
types, but some, such as buddyReplicationConfig and cacheLoaderConfig take various types
java beans as their values.

Next we'll look at some of the key configuration options.

23.1.2. Cache Mode

JBoss Cache's cacheMode configuration attribute combines into a single property two related
aspects:

Handling of Cluster Updates

This controls how a cache instance on one node should notify the rest of the cluster when it makes
changes in its local state. There are three options:
• Synchronous means the cache instance sends a message to its peers notifying them of the
change(s) and before returning waits for them to acknowledge that they have applied the same
changes. If the changes are made as part of a JTA transaction, this is done as part of a 2 phase-
commit process during transaction commit. Any locks are held until this acknowledgment is
received. Waiting for acknowledgement from all nodes adds delays, but it ensures consistency
around the cluster. Synchronous mode is needed when all the nodes in the cluster may access the
cached data resulting in a high need for consistency.

• Asynchronous means the cache instance sends a message to its peers notifying them of the
change(s) and then immediately returns, without any acknowledgement that they have applied the
same changes. It does not mean sending the message is handled by some other thread besides
the one that changed the cache content; the thread that makes the change still spends some time
dealing with sending messages to the cluster, just not as much as with synchronous communication.
Asynchronous mode is most useful for cases like session replication, where the cache doing the
sending expects to be the only one that accesses the data and the cluster messages are used to
provide backup copies in case of failure of the sending node. Asynchronous messaging adds a
small risk that a later user request that fails over to another node may see out-of-date state, but

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Transaction Handling

for many session-type applications this risk is acceptable given the major performance benefits
asynchronous mode has over synchronous mode.

• Local means the cache instance doesn't send a message at all. A JGroups channel isn't even used
by the cache. JBoss Cache has many useful features besides its clustering capabilities and is a
very useful caching library even when not used in a cluster. Also, even in a cluster, some cached
data does not need to be kept consistent around the cluster, in which case Local mode will improve
performance. Caching of JPA/Hibernate query result sets is an example of this; Hibernate's second
level caching logic uses a separate mechanism to invalidate stale query result sets from the second
level cache, so JBoss Cache doesn't need to send messages around the cluster for a query result
set cache.

Replication vs. Invalidation

This aspect deals with the content of messages sent around the cluster when a cache changes its
local state, i.e. what should the other caches in the cluster do to reflect the change:
• Replication means the other nodes should update their state to reflect the new state on the sending
node. This means the sending node needs to include the changed state, increasing the cost of the
message. Replication is necessary if the other nodes have no other way to obtain the state.

• Invalidation means the other nodes should remove the changed state from their local state.
Invalidation reduces the cost of the cluster update messages, since only the cache key of the
changed state needs to be transmitted, not the state itself. However, it is only an option if the
removed state can be retrieved from another source. It is an excellent option for a clustered JPA/
Hibernate entity cache, since the cached state can be re-read from the database.

These two aspects combine to form 5 valid values for the cacheMode configuration attribute:
• LOCAL means no cluster messages are needed.

• REPL_SYNC means synchronous replication messages are sent.

• REPL_ASYNC means asynchronous replication messages are sent.

• INVALIDATION_SYNC means synchronous invalidation messages are sent.

• INVALIDATION_ASYNC means asynchronous invalidation messages are sent.

23.1.3. Transaction Handling

JBoss Cache integrates with JTA transaction managers to allow transactional access to the cache.
When JBoss Cache detects the presence of a transaction, any locks are held for the life of the
transaction, changes made to the cache will be reverted if the transaction rolls back, and any cluster-
wide messages sent to inform other nodes of changes are deferred and sent in a batch as part of
transaction commit (reducing chattiness).

Integration with a transaction manager is accomplished by setting the

transactionManagerLookupClass configuration attribute; this specifies the fully qualified class
name of a class JBoss Cache can use to find the local transaction manager. Inside JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform, this attribute would have one of two values:

• org.jboss.cache.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup

This finds the standard transaction manager running in the application server. Use this for any
custom caches you deploy where you want caching to participate in any JTA transactions.

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• org.jboss.cache.transaction.BatchModeTransactionManagerLookup

This is used in the cache configurations used for web session and EJB SFSB caching. It
specifies a simple mock TransactionManager that ships with JBoss Cache called the
BatchModeTransactionManager. This transaction manager is not a true JTA transaction
manager and should not be used for anything other than JBoss Cache. Its usage in JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform is to get most of the benefits of JBoss Cache's transactional
behavior for the session replication use cases, but without getting tangled up with end user
transactions that may run during a request.

Note
For caches used for JPA/Hibernate caching, the transactionManagerLookupClass
should not be configured. Hibernate internally configures the cache to use the same
transaction manager it is using for database access.

23.1.4. Concurrent Access

JBoss Cache is a thread safe caching API, and uses its own efficient mechanisms of controlling
concurrent access. Concurrency is configured via the nodeLockingScheme and isolationLevel
configuration attributes.

There are three choices for nodeLockingScheme:

• MVCC or multi-versioned concurrency control, is a locking scheme commonly used by modern
database implementations to control fast, safe concurrent access to shared data. JBoss Cache 3.x
uses an innovative implementation of MVCC as the default locking scheme. MVCC is designed to
provide the following features for concurrent access:
• Readers that don't block writers

• Writers that fail fast

It achieves this by using data versioning and copying for concurrent writers. The theory is that
readers continue reading shared state, while writers copy the shared state, increment a version id,
and write that shared state back after verifying that the version is still valid (i.e., another concurrent
writer has not changed this state first).

MVCC is the recommended choice for JPA/Hibernate entity caching.

• PESSIMISTIC locking involves threads/transactions acquiring either exclusive or non-exclusive

locks on nodes before reading or writing. Which is acquired depends on the isolationLevel
(see below) but in most cases a non-exclusive lock is acquired for a read and an exclusive lock
is acquired for a write. Pessimistic locking requires considerably more overhead than MVCC and
allows lesser concurrency, since reader threads must block until a write has completed and released
its exclusive lock (potentially a long time if the write is part of a transaction). A write will also be
delayed due to ongoing reads.

Generally MVCC is a better choice than PESSIMISTIC, which is deprecated as of JBoss Cache 3.0.
But, for the session caching usage in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.0.0, PESSIMISTIC is
still the default. This is largely because for the session use case there are generally not concurrent
threads accessing the same cache location, so the benefits of MVCC are not as great.

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JGroups Integration

• OPTIMISTIC locking seeks to improve upon the concurrency available with PESSIMISTIC by
creating a "workspace" for each request/transaction that accesses the cache. Data accessed by the
request/transaction (even reads) is copied into the workspace, which is adds overhead. All data is
versioned; on completion of non-transactional requests or commits of transactions the version of
data in the workspace is compared to the main cache, and an exception is raised if there are are
inconsistencies. Otherwise changes to the workspace are applied to the main cache.

OPTIMISTIC locking is deprecated but is still provided to support backward compatibility. Users are
encouraged to use MVCC instead, which provides the same benefits at lower cost.

The isolationLevel attribute has two possible values READ_COMMITTED and

REPEATABLE_READ which correspond in semantic to database-style isolation levels. Previous
versions of JBoss Cache supported all 5 database isolation levels, and if an unsupported isolation
level is configured, it is either upgraded or downgraded to the closest supported level.

REPEATABLE_READ is the default isolation level, to maintain compatibility with previous versions
of JBoss Cache. READ_COMMITTED, while providing a slightly weaker isolation, has a significant
performance benefit over REPEATABLE_READ.

23.1.5. JGroups Integration

Each JBoss Cache instance internally uses a JGroups Channel to handle group communications.
Inside JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, we strongly recommend that you use the Enterprise
Application Platform's JGroups Channel Factory service as the source for your cache's Channel. In
this section we discuss how to configure your cache to get it's channel from the Channel Factory; if
you wish to configure the channel in some other way see the JBoss Cache documentation.

Caches obtained from the CacheManager Service

This is the simplest approach. The CacheManager service already has a reference to the Channel
Factory service, so the only configuration task is to configure the name of the JGroups protocol stack
configuration to use.

If you are configuring your cache via the CacheManager service's jboss-cache-manager-jboss-
beans.xml file (see Section 23.2.1, “Deployment Via the CacheManager Service”), add the following
to your cache configuration, where the value is the name of the protocol stack configuration.:

Caches Deployed via a -jboss-beans.xml File

If you are deploying a cache via a JBoss Microcontainer -jboss-beans.xml file (see Section 23.2.3,
“Deployment Via a -jboss-beans.xml File”), you need inject a reference to the Channel Factory
service as well as specifying the protocol stack configuration:

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Caches Deployed via a -service.xml File

If you are deploying a cache MBean via -service.xml file (see Section 23.2.2, “Deployment Via
a -service.xml File”), CacheJmxWrapper is the class of your MBean; that class exposes a
MuxChannelFactory MBean attribute. You dependency inject the Channel Factory service into this
attribute, and set the protocol stack name via the MultiplexerStack attribute:

<attribute name="MuxChannelFactory"><inject bean="JChannelFactory"/></

attribute>
<attribute name="MultiplexerStack">udp</attribute>

23.1.6. Eviction
Eviction allows the cache to control memory by removing data (typically the least frequently used
data). If you wish to configure eviction for a custom cache, see the JBoss Cache documentation
for all of the available options. For details on configuring it for JPA/Hibernate caching, see the
Eviction chapter in the "Using JBoss Cache as a Hibernate Second Level Cache" guide at http://
www.jboss.org/jbossclustering/docs/hibernate-jbosscache-guide-3.pdf. For web session caches,
eviction should not be configured; the distributable session manager handles eviction itself. For
EJB 3 SFSB caches, stick with the eviction configuration in the Enterprise Application Platform's
standard sfsb-cache configuration (see Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
CacheManager Service”). The EJB container will configure eviction itself using the values included in
each bean's configuration.

23.1.7. Cache Loaders

Cache loading allows JBoss Cache to store data in a persistent store in addition to what it keeps in
memory. This data can either be an overflow, where the data in the persistent store is not reflected in
memory. Or it can be a superset of what is in memory, where everything in memory is also reflected
in the persistent store, along with items that have been evicted from memory. Which of these two
modes is used depends on the setting of the passivation flag in the JBoss Cache cache loader
configuration section. A true value means the persistent store acts as an overflow area written to
when data is evicted from the in-memory cache.

If you wish to configure cache loading for a custom cache, see the JBoss Cache documentation for all
of the available options. Do not configure cache loading for a JPA/Hibernate cache, as the database
itself serves as a persistent store; adding a cache loader is just redundant.

The caches used for web session and EJB3 SFSB caching use passivation. Next we'll discuss the
cache loader configuration for those caches in some detail.

23.1.7.1. CacheLoader Configuration for Web Session and SFSB Caches

HttpSession and SFSB passivation rely on JBoss Cache's Cache Loader passivation for storing
and retrieving the passivated sessions. Therefore the cache instance used by your webapp's
clustered session manager or your bean's EJB container must be configured to enable Cache Loader
passivaton.

In most cases you don't need to do anything to alter the cache loader configurations for the standard
web session and SFSB caches; the standard JBoss Enterprise Application Platform configurations
should suit your needs. The following is a bit more detail in case you're interested or want to change
from the defaults.

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The Cache Loader configuration for the standard-session-cache config serves as a good
example:

<property name="cacheLoaderConfig">
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.CacheLoaderConfig">

<property name="passivation">true</property>
<property name="shared">false</property>

<property name="individualCacheLoaderConfigs">
<list>
<bean class="org.jboss.cache.loader.FileCacheLoaderConfig">

<property name="location">
${jboss.server.data.dir}${/}session</property>

<property name="async">false</property>
<property name="fetchPersistentState">true</property>
<property name="purgeOnStartup">true</property>
<property name="ignoreModifications">false</property>
<property name="checkCharacterPortability">false</
property>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
</property>

Some explanation:

• passivation property MUST be true

• shared property MUST be false. Do not passivate sessions to a shared persistent store,
otherwise if another node activates the session, it will be gone from the persistent store and also
gone from memory on other nodes that have passivated it. Backup copies will be lost.

• individualCacheLoaderConfigs property accepts a list of Cache Loader configurations. JBC

allows you to chain cache loaders; see the JBoss Cache docs. For the session passivation use case
a single cache loader is sufficient.

• class attribute on a cache loader config bean must refer to the configuration class for a cache
loader implementation (e.g. org.jboss.cache.loader.FileCacheLoaderConfig or
org.jboss.cache.loader.JDBCCacheLoaderConfig). See the JBoss Cache documentation
for more on the available CacheLoader implementations. If you wish to use JDBCCacheLoader
(to persist to a database rather than the filesystem used by FileCacheLoader) note the comment
above about the shared property. Don't use a shared database, or at least not a shared table in the
database. Each node in the cluster must have its own storage location.

• location property for FileCacheLoaderConfig defines the root node of the filesystem tree where
passivated sessions should be stored. The default is to store them in your JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform configuration's data directory.

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• async MUST be false to ensure passivated sessions are promptly written to the persistent store.

• fetchPersistentState property MUST be true to ensure passivated sessions are included in the
set of session backup copies transferred over from other nodes when the cache starts.

• purgeOnStartup should be true to ensure out-of-date session data left over from a previous
shutdown of a server doesn't pollute the current data set.

• ignoreModifications should be false

• checkCharacterPortability should be false as a minor performance optimization.

23.1.8. Buddy Replication

Buddy Replication is a JBoss Cache feature that allows you to suppress replicating your data to all
instances in a cluster. Instead, each instance picks one or more 'buddies' in the cluster, and only
replicates to those specific buddies. This greatly helps scalability as there is no longer a memory and
network traffic impact every time another instance is added to a cluster.

If the cache on another node needs data that it doesn't have locally, it can ask the other nodes in the
cluster to provide it; nodes that have a copy will provide it as part of a process called "data gravitation".
The new node will become the owner of the data, placing a backup copy of the data on its buddies.
The ability to gravitate data means there is no need for all requests for data to occur on a node that
has a copy of it; any node can handle a request for any data. However, data gravitation is expensive
and should not be a frequent occurence; ideally it should only occur if the node that is using some
data fails or is shut down, forcing interested clients to fail over to a different node. This makes buddy
replication primarily useful for session-type applications with session affinity (a.k.a. "sticky sessions")
where all requests for a particular session are normally handled by a single server.

Buddy replication can be enabled for the web session and EJB3 SFSB caches. Do not add buddy
replication to the cache configurations used for other standard clustering services (e.g. JPA/Hibernate
caching). Services not specifically engineered for buddy replication are highly unlikely to work correctly
if it is introduced.

Configuring buddy replication is fairly straightforward. As an example we'll look at the buddy replication
configuration section from the CacheManager service's standard-session-cache config:

<!-- A way to specify a preferred replication group. We try

and pick a buddy who shares the same pool name (falling
back to other buddies if not available). -->
<property name="buddyPoolName">default</property>

<property name="autoDataGravitation">false</property>

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The main things you would be likely to configure are:

• buddyReplicationEnabled -- true if you want buddy replication; false if data should be

replicated to all nodes in the cluster, in which case none of the other buddy replication configurations
matter.

• numBuddies -- to how many backup nodes should each node replicate its state.

• buddyPoolName -- allows logical subgrouping of nodes within the cluster; if possible, buddies will
be chosen from nodes in the same buddy pool.

The ignoreColocatedBuddies switch means that when the cache is trying to find a buddy, it will if
possible not choose a buddy on the same physical host as itself. If the only server it can find is running
on its own machine, it will use that server as a buddy.

Do not change the settings for autoDataGravitation, dataGravitationRemoveOnFind and

dataGravitationSearchBackupTrees. Session replication will not work properly if these are
changed.

23.2. Deploying Your Own JBoss Cache Instance

It's quite common for users to deploy their own instances of JBoss Cache inside JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform for custom use by their applications. In this section we describe the various ways
caches can be deployed.

23.2.1. Deployment Via the CacheManager Service

The standard JBoss clustered services that use JBoss Cache obtain a reference to their cache
from the Enterprise Application Platform's CacheManager service (see Section 15.2.1, “The JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform CacheManager Service”). End user applications can do the same
thing; here's how.

Section 23.1.1, “Editing the CacheManager Configuration” shows the configuration of the
CacheManager's "CacheConfigurationRegistry" bean. To add a new configuration, you would add an
additional element inside that bean's newConfigurations <map>:

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<bean name="CacheConfigurationRegistry"

class="org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.DependencyInjectedConfigurationRegistry">
.....
<property name="newConfigurations">
<map keyClass="java.lang.String"
valueClass="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

<entry><key>my-custom-cache</key>
<value>
<bean name="MyCustomCacheConfig"
class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">
.... details of the my-custom-cache configuration
</bean>
</value>
</entry>
.....

See Section 23.1.1, “Editing the CacheManager Configuration” for an example configuration.

23.2.1.1. Accessing the CacheManager

Once you've added your cache configuration to the CacheManager, the next step is to provide a
reference to the CacheManager to your application. There are three ways to do this:

• Dependency Injection

If your application uses the JBoss Microcontainer for configuration, the simplest mechanism is to
have it inject the CacheManager into your service.

<bean name="MyService" class="com.example.MyService">

• JNDI Lookup

Alternatively, you can find look up the CacheManger is JNDI. It is bound under
java:CacheManager.

import org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.CacheManager;

public class MyService {

private CacheManager cacheManager;

public void start() throws Exception {

Context ctx = new InitialContext();
cacheManager = (CacheManager) ctx.lookup("java:CacheManager");
}

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• CacheManagerLocator

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform also provides a service locator object that can be used to
access the CacheManager.

import org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.CacheManager;
import org.jboss.ha.framework.server.CacheManagerLocator;

public class MyService {

private CacheManager cacheManager;

public void start() throws Exception {

CacheManagerLocator locator =
CacheManagerLocator.getCacheManagerLocator();
// Locator accepts as param a set of JNDI properties to help in
lookup;
// this isn't necessary inside the Enterprise Application Platform
cacheManager = locator.getCacheManager(null);
}
}

Once a reference to the CacheManager is obtained; usage is simple. Access a cache by passing
in the name of the desired configuration. The CacheManager will not start the cache; this is the
responsibility of the application. The cache may, however, have been started by another application
running in the cache server; the cache may be shared. When the application is done using the cache,
it should not stop. Just inform the CacheManager that the cache is no longer being used; the manager
will stop the cache when all callers that have asked for the cache have released it.

import org.jboss.cache.Cache;
import org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.CacheManager;
import org.jboss.ha.framework.server.CacheManagerLocator;

public class MyService {

private CacheManager cacheManager;
private Cache cache;

public void start() throws Exception {

Context ctx = new InitialContext();
cacheManager = (CacheManager) ctx.lookup("java:CacheManager");

// "true" param tells the manager to instantiate the cache if

// it doesn't exist yet
cache = cacheManager.getCache("my-cache-config", true);

cache.start();
}

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public void stop() throws Exception {

cacheManager.releaseCache("my-cache-config");
}
}

The CacheManager can also be used to access instances of POJO Cache.

import org.jboss.cache.pojo.PojoCache;
import org.jboss.ha.cachemanager.CacheManager;
import org.jboss.ha.framework.server.CacheManagerLocator;

public class MyService {

private CacheManager cacheManager;
private PojoCache pojoCache;

public void start() throws Exception {

Context ctx = new InitialContext();
cacheManager = (CacheManager) ctx.lookup("java:CacheManager");

// "true" param tells the manager to instantiate the cache if

// it doesn't exist yet
pojoCache = cacheManager.getPojoCache("my-cache-config", true);

pojoCache.start();
}

public void stop() throws Exception {

cacheManager.releasePojoCache("my-cache-config");
}
}

23.2.2. Deployment Via a -service.xml File

As in JBoss 4, you can also deploy a JBoss Cache instance as an MBean service via a -
service.xml file. The primary difference from JBoss 4 is the value of the code attribute in
the mbean element. In JBoss 4, this was org.jboss.cache.TreeCache; in JBoss 5 it is
org.jboss.cache.jmx.CacheJmxWrapper. Here's an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<attribute name="TransactionManagerLookupClass">
org.jboss.cache.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup
</attribute>

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<attribute name="MuxChannelFactory"><inject bean="JChannelFactory"/></

attribute>

<attribute name="MultiplexerStack">udp</attribute>
<attribute name="ClusterName">Example-EntityCache</attribute>
<attribute name="IsolationLevel">REPEATABLE_READ</attribute>
<attribute name="CacheMode">REPL_SYNC</attribute>
<attribute name="InitialStateRetrievalTimeout">15000</attribute>
<attribute name="SyncReplTimeout">20000</attribute>
<attribute name="LockAcquisitionTimeout">15000</attribute>
<attribute name="ExposeManagementStatistics">true</attribute>

</mbean>
</server>

The CacheJmxWrapper is not the cache itself (i.e. you can't store stuff in it). Rather, as it's name
implies, it's a wrapper around an org.jboss.cache.Cache that handles integration with JMX.
CacheJmxWrapper exposes the org.jboss.cache.Cache via its CacheJmxWrapperMBean
MBean interfaces Cache attribute; services that need the cache can obtain a reference to it via that
attribute.

23.2.3. Deployment Via a -jboss-beans.xml File

Much like it can deploy MBean services described with a -service.xml, JBoss Enterprise
Application Platform 5 can also deploy services that consist of Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) if
the POJOs are described using the JBoss Microcontainer schema in a -jboss-beans.xml file.
You create such a file and deploy it, either directly in the deploy dir, or packaged in an ear or sar.
Following is an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

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<property name="multiplexerStack">udp</property>
<property name="clusterName">Example-EntityCache</property>
<property name="isolationLevel">REPEATABLE_READ</property>
<property name="cacheMode">REPL_SYNC</property>
<property name="initialStateRetrievalTimeout">15000</property>
<property name="syncReplTimeout">20000</property>
<property name="lockAcquisitionTimeout">15000</property>
<property name="exposeManagementStatistics">true</property>

</bean>

<bean name="ExampleCache" class="org.jboss.cache.Cache">
<constructor factoryMethod="createCache">
<factory bean="DefaultCacheFactory"/>
<parameter class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration"><inject
bean="ExampleCacheConfig"/></parameter>
<parameter class="boolean">false</false>
</constructor>
</bean>

<bean name="ExampleService" class="org.foo.ExampleService">

</deployment>

The bulk of the above is the creation of a JBoss Cache Configuration object; this is the same
as what we saw in the configuration of the CacheManager service (see Section 23.1.1, “Editing
the CacheManager Configuration”). In this case we're not using the CacheManager service as a
cache factory, so instead we create our own factory bean and then use it to create the cache (the
"ExampleCache" bean). The "ExampleCache" is then injected into a (fictitious) service that needs it.

An interesting thing to note in the above example is the use of the RuntimeConfig object. External
resources like a TransactionManager and a JGroups ChannelFactory that are visible to the
microcontainer are dependency injected into the RuntimeConfig. The assumption here is that in
some other deployment descriptor in the Enterprise Application Platform, the referenced beans have
already been described.

Using the configuration above, the "ExampleCache" cache will not be visible in JMX. Here's an
alternate approach that results in the cache being bound into JMX:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

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.... same as above

</bean>

<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX
(name="foo:service=ExampleCacheJmxWrapper",

exposedInterface=org.jboss.cache.jmx.CacheJmxWrapperMBean.class,
registerDirectly=true)
</annotation>

<property name="configuration"><inject bean="ExampleCacheConfig"/></

property>

</bean>

<bean name="ExampleService" class="org.foo.ExampleService">

</deployment>

Here the "ExampleCacheJmxWrapper" bean handles the task of creating the cache from the
configuration. CacheJmxWrapper is a JBoss Cache class that provides an MBean interface for a
cache. Adding an <annotation> element binds the JBoss Microcontainer @JMX annotation to the bean;
that in turn results in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform registering the bean in JXM as part of the
deployment process.

The actual underlying org.jboss.cache.Cache instance is available from the CacheJmxWrapper

via its cache property; the example shows how this can be used to inject the cache into the
"ExampleService".

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Part IV. Performance Tuning
Chapter 24.

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

5 Performance Tuning
24.1. Introduction
Developing applications and deploying them to an Enterprise Application Platform does not guarantee
best performance without performance tuning of the applications and server. Performance tuning
involves ensuring your application does not consume resources unnecessarily while ensures best
performance of the applications and Enterprise Application Platform.

Application design, hardware/network profile, operating system, application software development,

testing and deployment all play a major role in performance tuning. A bottleneck in performance
therefore could be caused by these factors not just your application. Recent studies show that most
performance problems are the result of the applications not the middleware or the operating systems.
This could be associated with the technological developments in computer software, hardware and
networking which has increased their reliability.

Improvement of application design and undertaking performance review of your applications before
implementation is vital to avoiding bottlenecks after implementation. To undertake a performance
review you need to setup a test environment undertake and analyze the test results. To effectively
undertake a review, you also need to identify peak application workload times and the difference from
normal workload periods. Peak workload times could be during the day, week, certain periods of the
month, quarter or year. In understanding peaks workloads it is advisable not to go by averages as the
peaks may be much more than the averages calculated over a period. The system requirements are
bound by the peaks in the workload not the averages. On undertaking tuning it is recommended to
carry out a few more tests and tuning of your system until a satisfactory performance is achieved.

24.2. Hardware tuning

To develop a suitable hardware configuration that suits the performance of your applications on the
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, you need to understand the impact that the selected hardware
configuration may have on other applications and overall operating system performance.

To understand hardware performance tuning issues, it is also very critical to understand the hardware
architecture of your system.

24.2.1. CPU (Central Processing Unit)

The CPU is the central processing unit of your computer which consists of:
• a control unit which receives and decides what type of instructions it has received,

• CPU registers that store intermediate processing information temporarily,

• a program counter which holds the location of the succeeding executable tasks,

• instruction register that stores currently executing tasks,

• CPU cache which is a limited memory that holds data currently being processed by the CPU.

Understanding your CPU architecture can be helpful in identifying your CPU specifications
and how it works. For AMD CPU's please refer to http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/

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ProductInformation/0,,30_118,00.html for more information. For Intel CPU's please refer to http://
www.intel.com/products/processor/index.htm?iid=subhdr+prod_proc for more information.

24.2.2. RAM (Random Access Memory)

Random access memory (RAM) is the next level of storage that can be used to hold executing
programs and/or data. RAM chips provides a higher amount of storage than the CPU cache and can
improve computer performance. Storing data or programs frequently used in RAM can highly improve
performance as they can be retrieved faster than from the hard disk drives.

RAM is crucial for example when tuning your database management system to manage buffer cache.
This would involve storing frequently used database information in RAM for quick application access
while taking caution not to affect overall performance of other applications and operating system.

24.2.3. Hard Disk

Unlike the CPU and RAM, hard disk drives do not require a power source to retain information/data.
In case of power loss, information stored in the CPU and RAM is lost while that stored in the hard disk
is retained but may be corrupted depending on the type of operation that was in progress during the
power loss.

However retrieval and storage of information from disk drives takes much longer as they use
mechanical heads to read and write information to the cylinders of the disk. Storage areas in RAM and
in the CPU can be accessed with equal speed while on the hard disk, movement of the disk head to
the requested disk block/blocks where information is stored is necessary.

Practices such as disk defragmentation and cleanups can help improve file retrieval and overall
performance of your applications. It is therefore crucial to manage the disk storage carefully with
the retrieval and processing of data in mind. You also need to identify a suitable file system for your
operating system to ensure the best performance possible.

Understanding the main architectural differences and issues that may occur with different computer
hardware profiles can help identify a suitable hardware performance and disaster management
strategy that would be suitable for your needs.

24.3. Operating System Performance Tuning

Most modern operating systems now ship with performance tuning or profiling tools that can help you
monitor CPU, memory, hard disk and network usage in real-time.

On Windows the task manager and performance monitor can be helpful in identifying system
performance bottlenecks while in unix based operating systems top and ps are used for the same
purpose. Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora provide a graphical user
interface System Monitor that is useful to monitor system performance.

Operating system performance tuning is about resource management to respond to individual

requests. Managing operating system scalability on the other hand involves managing resource
consumption with varying volumes (low to very high) of requests.

Overall operational performance metrics that are critical for the business such as response time to
user requests, database, network, CPU and memory performance among other metrics should be
identified and tested and logged in real-time where possible or with system deployments

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Networking

For clustered environments, understanding and monitoring your cluster's performance and identifying
overloads early is critical to system failure prevention.

24.3.1. Networking
Network configurations may contribute to performance bottlenecks and may be hard to detect. For
example a user may get an error on their browser when trying to load a web application on a dial up
connection while the same page may load on a broadband internet connection. The main issue in this
scenario may be bandwidth and may not be obviously displayed in the error message displayed.

Identifying network architecture and infrastructure is therefore critical in performance tuning and fixing
system bottlenecks.

Most modern operating systems provide you with network hardware configuration tools while some
hardware manufacturers may also provide extended network hardware configuration tools with their
drivers.

Most operating systems support different communication protocols which you can tweak. Factors such
as TCP buffer memory space, connection buffer limits and acknowledgment options among others
should be take into account in your network design.

Deciding to turn DNS lookup on or off in your web servers can also affect your performance but
may be necessary to turn on for high security environments. Factoring this and allocating necessary
resources or hardware can help improve system performance.

24.4. Tuning the JVM

For java based applications, it is recommended to also be familiar with tuning of your Java Virtual
Machine (JVM). Some key aspects of your JVM that need tweaking include managing out of memory
exceptions, java heap settings and garbage collection. Please refer to the JDK 6 documentation on
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.6.0/docs/ for further discussions on this.

24.5. Tuning your applications

Good application design and development practices are critical to ensuring satisfactory application
performance. Data reads or writes and processing by your applications may cause performance
bottlenecks due to factors such as timeouts on remote servers memory allocation or network issues
among other factors. Understanding how each application works is therefore crucial in identifying
performance bottlenecks. Setting expected time duration each code part is expected to take can help
develop realistic benchmarks against which the applications can be reviewed. These benchmarks
should take into account high and low peak usage times for the applications and not averages as
these may highly vary from the peak times.

In addition, using bench-marking tools to test your applications may be a quick way to pinpoint issues
in your code which can often be causes for performance bottlenecks. Iterative tests are recommended
to identify cache and other hardware issues that may arise due to start up or other factors.

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform web console http://localhost:8080/web-console/ provides

you with monitoring tools starting with the JVM Hardware environment statistics on the default page
and access to monitoring tools and snapshots.

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Performance Monitor v/s Profiler

A performance monitor informs you on overall application performance such as requests
1
per second. Profiling tools such as JBoss Profiler will tell you how long it is taking your
application to service a request, and how often it services certain types of requests. This
can usually be broken down all the way to the individual methods. For example, how many
times a method was called and the average/maximum/minimum amount of time spent in
the method.

It is also important to take caution not to create bottlenecks for other applications while fixing a
performance issue in one application.

24.5.1. Instrumentation
Applications should be instrumented for performance analysis. In most cases, the actual production
workload is different than the expected workload. Without instrumentation of your applications, you
will lack accurate tracking data. Workloads on your applications can also change over time, as the
business size, models or environment changes.

Instrumentation in the past would have had to be embedded in the application. Today, there are many
solutions for instrumentation that do not require developers to code. Commercial products, and the
JBoss AOP framework can be used for just this purpose. You can also turn on call statistics in the
containers, and Hibernate statistics. For more on this please refer to the AOP and Hibernate project
pages.

Taking successive thread dumps (includes the current call stack for each Java Enterprise Application
Platform thread) can give the application developers enough information to get a sense for what
is going on in the application. This is something that you might do after the application has hit a
performance wall. If the performance problem lasts for five minutes, you might generate a thread
dump one a minute. You can use the JVM "jps -l" command to get a list of running Java applications
and the process ids for each. Note the process id for the "org.jboss.Main" application. You will then
run the "jstack ProcessID" command (replacing ProcessID with the "org.jboss.Main" process id) and
that will generate the thread dump. Of course, you should redirect the output of the jstack command to
save the output ("jstack ProcessID > threaddump1.txt").

24.6. Tuning JBoss Enterprise Application Platform

Before tuning the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, please ensure that you are familiar with its
components outlined in the introduction section of this book. You should also be familiar with any
particular services your application may use on the server and tune them to improve performance.
It is also important to establish optimal database connections used by your applications and set
these on the server. This section discusses these among other JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
performance tuning topics.

24.6.1. Memory usage

Memory usage of Java applications including the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is dictated by
the heap space allocated. You could therefore as an example, reduce 1GB heap space you currently
have allocated to 800MB to reduce memory footprint (if you have enough headroom).

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) manages segments (generations) of memory. If a segment of the
heap space is exhausted, you will see a Java OutOfMemoryError (OOME). All bets are off, when you

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Memory usage

get a Java OutOfMemoryError. The application should be restarted to correct any bad state. Part of
tuning is checking how much memory headroom you have while under load. If available memory is
too low, you will need to increase the max Java memory size (possibly switching to a 64-bit JVM if
needed).

Running out of memory generates an Error that is not likely to be masked in a Java catch block
because it is an Error rather than an Exception. An OOME is also thrown when the permanent
memory is exhausted and that is not part of the heap per se. That is a JVM specific area of memory
where information on loaded classes is maintained. If you have a mountain of classes (e.g, a lot of
EJBs and JSP pages) you can easily exhaust this area. Oftentimes an application will fail to deploy or
fail to redeploy. Increase your permanent memory space as follows to avoid OOMEs. The default with
the -server switch is 64 megabytes:

-XX:MaxPermSize?=256m

Note this is in addition to the heap. In this case we have 512M heap, 256M permanent space for a
total of 768 megabytes. Don't forget the JVM itself takes up a chunk of system memory and there
is also per thread stack space (size varies based on OS). That can add up with a lot of HTTP/S
processors.

-XX:MaxPermSize?=256m -Xmx512m (total of 768 megabytes allocated from system - this is not
the total size of the VM and does not include the space the VM allocates for the "C heap" or stack
space)

The HotSpot Java Virtual Machine consists of various garbage collection tools which you can use to
collect garbage collection information that you can use to tune your applications. You can find more
information on the HotSpot Virtual machine on http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/hotspot/.

Java 6 includes new tools that help monitor Java applications. Jmap can generate a heap dump
file (http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/share/jmap.html) that can easily be read by
the Eclipse Memory Analyzer tool (http://www.eclipse.org/mat/). The jstat tool (http://java.sun.com/
javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/share/jstat.html) can help give you a precise picture of your permanent
memory space and the other segments on the Java memory heap.

24.6.1.1. VFS Tuning

When looking for various tuning options, most of the information that exists can be found in VFSUtils
class. Its string constants point us to different possible system property settings we can use to
configure VFS behavior:

• jboss.vfs.forceCopy - has the options true and false, with the default being false.

This defines how nested jars should be handled. If forceCopy equals true, we create a temporary
copy of the nested jar, and re-wire VFS accordingly. If forceCopy equals false, we handle nested
jars in-memory, which doesn't create temporary copy, but is more memory consuming. Currently
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform forces temporary copy by default.

If the useCopyJarHandler property is used as part of URI query, you can configure force-copy at
runtime, per URI root (if it doesn't already exist).

• jboss.vfs.forceVfsJar has the options true and false, with the default being false.

By setting this property to true, you can implement the old JAR handling. Set to false by default, old
JAR handling was deprecated in favor of new ZIP handling code.

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Chapter 24. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 Performance Tuning

• jboss.vfs.forceNoReaper has the options true and false, with the default being false.

To gain a bit on performance, we close JAR files asynchronously via the separate reaper thread. If
you wish to close JAR files synchronously, you can force no usage of the reaper thread. This can
also be defined using the URI query and the noReaper query section.

• jboss.vfs.forceCaseSensitive has the options true and false, with the default being false.

With this enabled you can force differentiation between lower and upper cased file paths.

• jboss.vfs.optimizeForMemory has the options true and false, with the default being false.

With this enabled we re-order in-memory JAR handling, to gain on memory consumption.

• The jboss.vfs.cache (org.jboss.virtual.spi.cache.helpers.NoopVFSCache) class

can be defined in order to re-use existing temporary files (in order not to re-do all unpacking and
wiring). The VFS registry will use the defining of this class to keep its existing VFS roots.

Every VirtualFile lookup from the VFS class uses this singleton cache instance to check for
an existing matching cache entry. By matching we also consider any existing ancestor from which
you can use exact VirtualFile instance.

24.6.1.1.1. VFS Cache Tuning

As described before, VFS cache holds VFS roots, from which any VirtualFile lookup can access
existing VirtualFile instances. This is a sepcially useful in the case of temporary files (created
from nested JARs), meaning you don't have to do multiple unpackings for nested JAR file related
resources.

By default in VFS there is no caching involved as

org.jboss.virtual.spi.cache.helpers.NoopVFSCache is used. But you can provide your
own implementation or choose from existing VFS implementations.

Cache implementations from the org.jboss.virtual.plugins.cache package are:

• SoftRefVFSCache: uses soft reference as map's entry value.

• WeakRefVFSCache: uses weak reference as map's entry value.

• TimedVFSCache: evicts cache entries after defaultLifetime.

• LRUVFSCache: evicts cache entries based on LRU, keeping min and max entries.

• CombinedVFSCache: holds few permanent roots, any other new root is cached in its realCache
property.

In the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform we use CombinedVFSCache as we know which are our
permanent roots to watch and keep. This is how it's configured in MC's bean configuration file.

270
Memory usage

<parameter>org.jboss.virtual.plugins.cache.CombinedVFSCache</
parameter>
</constructor>
<start ignored="true"/>
<property name="permanentRoots">
<map keyClass="java.net.URL"
valueClass="org.jboss.virtual.spi.ExceptionHandler">
<entry>
<key>${jboss.lib.url}</key>
<value><null/></value>
</entry>
<entry>
<key>${jboss.common.lib.url}</key>
<value><inject bean="VfsNamesExceptionHandler"/></value>
</entry>
<entry>
<key>${jboss.server.lib.url}</key>
<value><inject bean="VfsNamesExceptionHandler"/></value>
</entry>
<entry>
<key>${jboss.server.home.url}deploy</key>
<value><inject bean="VfsNamesExceptionHandler"/></value>
</entry>
</map>
</property>
<property name="realCache">
<bean class="org.jboss.virtual.plugins.cache.IterableTimedVFSCache"/
>
</property>
</bean>

Any new custom VFS root (for example, an additional deploy directory) should be added to this
configuration.

24.6.1.1.2. Annotation Scanning Tuning

There are currently three ways to limit resources scanning.

• Provide a ScanningMetaData through XML or programmaticaly.

• Add a new deployment filter to GenScanDeployer bean in deployers/metadata-deployer-

jboss-beans.

• Modify JBossCustomDeployDUFilter in deployers/metadata-deployer-jboss-beans.

ScanningMetaData can come from the jboss-scanning.xml file placed in META-INF directory.
This is a simple example of this file:

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Chapter 24. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 Performance Tuning

Here you list the paths inside your deployment, and which packages to include or exclude. If there
is no explicit include, everything that is not excluded is included. If there is no path element at all,
everything is excluded, as in the following example.

Another way to limit scanning is to provide the jboss-classloading.xml file. More information
about this can be found in the Class Loader documentation section as it covers a lot of other details as
well, not just scanning.

24.6.2. Database Connection

Database performance tuning involves changing the initial database conceptual schema to improve
performance. Irrespective of type, overall database management system performance tuning involves
effective and efficient use of your hardware (Hard disk, CPU and RAM) and improving database read's
and writes.

Resource limits set by your operating system may also set limits on your database management
system. A database administrator can analyze a database and identify performance bottlenecks
through taking the above factors into consideration and adjusting the necessary database
management system parameters such as writing dirty buffers to disk, checkpoints and log file
rotations. In some instances hardware upgrades may also be necessary to improve database
performance.

Database connections can be costly to establish and manage. Applications that create new
connections to the database with every transaction or query and then close that connection add a
great deal of overhead. Having a very small connection pool will also throttle the applications as
the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform by default queues the request for a default of 30,000
milliseconds (30 seconds) before cancellation and throwing an exception.

We recommend reliance on data source definitions you can setup in the deploy directory of the JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform and utilizing the connection pool settings. Connection pooling in the
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform allows you to easily monitor your connection usage from the
JMX console to determine proper sizing. Your database management system may also shipped with
tools that allow you to monitor connections.

Depending on the databases implemented, please ensure you create a data source file in the deploy
directory of your configuration as shown below:

<JBoss_Home>/server/<your_configuration>/deploy/

272
Clustering Tuning

The filename should be in the following formats:

<yourdatabasename>-ds.xml

Note
Please note that the name of the file must end with -ds.xml in order for the JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform to recognize it as a data source file. The Postgres
database data source file for example is named postgres-ds.xml.

Examples
Examples of datasource definition files for external databases can be found in the
<JBoss_Home>/docs/examples/jca directory.

24.6.3. Clustering Tuning

If you are running your application in a cluster, particularly if if it involves high volume state
replication around the cluster, there are a number of possible performance optimizations. As with any
performance optimizations, always load test your application before and after making changes to verify
the change has the intended effect, and make one change at a time so it's clear what change has what
effect.

24.6.3.1. Ensuring Adequate Network Buffers

The standard clustered services in the Enterprise Application Platform use UDP for intra-cluster
communication, in order to take advantage of UDP-based IP multicast. A downside to the use of UDP
is some of the lossless transmission guarantees that are provided at the OS network level with TCP
instead need to be implemented in Java code. In order to achieve peak performance it is important to
reduce the frequency of UDP packets being dropped in the network layers. A frequent cause of lost
packets is inadequately sized network buffers on the machines that are hosting the cluster nodes.
The Enterprise Application Platform clustering code will request adequately sized read and write
buffers from the OS when it opens sockets, but most operating systems (Windows seems to be an
exception) will only provide buffers up to a maximum size. This maximum read and write buffer sizes
are configurable at the OS level, and the default values are too low to allow peak performance. So,
a simple tuning step is to configure your OS to allow buffers up to the size the Enterprise Application
Platform clustering code will request.

The specific configuration steps needed to increase the maximum allowed buffer sizes are OS
specific. See your OS documentation for instructions on how to increase these. For Linux systems,
maximum values for these buffers sizes that will survive machine restarts can be set by editing the /
etc/sysctl.conf file:

# Allow a 25MB UDP receive buffer for JGroups

net.core.rmem_max = 26214400
# Allow a 1MB UDP send buffer for JGroups
net.core.wmem_max = 1048576

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Chapter 24. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 Performance Tuning

24.6.3.2. Isolating Intra-Cluster Traffic

If network resources are a bottleneck for your application, overall performance can be improved by
isolating intra-cluster traffic from external request traffic. This requires multiple NICs on your server
machines, with request traffic coming in on one NIC and intra-cluster traffic using another. Once you
have the hardware set up, it is easy to tell the Enterprise Application Platform nodes to use a different
interface for the intra-cluster traffic:

./run.sh -c all -b 10.0.0.104 -Djgroups.bind_addr=192.168.100.104

In the above example, the -Djgroups.bind_addr setting tells the the Enterprise Application
Platform to run intra-cluster JGroups traffic over the 192.168.100.104 interface, with -b specifying that
all other traffic should use 10.0.0.104.

24.6.3.3. JGroups Message Bundling

The JGroups group communication library used by the Enterprise Application Platform provides
a feature known as "message bundling". Message bundling is similar to nagling on a TCP socket
-- small messages are queued before sending (for up to a configurable maximum time) until a
configurable number of bytes have accumulated, and then the queued messages are bundled and
sent as one large message. Use of bundling can have significant performance benefits for high-
volume asynchronous session replication. However, it is not enabled by default, as bundling can add
significant latency to other types of intra-cluster traffic, particularly clustered Hibernate/JPA Second
Level Cache traffic.

If your application uses high volume session replication (web sessions or EJB3 stateful session
beans), you might be able to increase performance by configuring the distributed caching layer
to use a JGroups channel configured with message bundling enabled. This is done by editing
the <JBoss_Home>/server/<your_configuration>/deploy/cluster/jboss-cache-
manager.sar/META-INF/jboss-cache-jboss-beans.xml file. For example, for the cache used
by default for web sessions:

. . .

<entry><key>standard-session-cache</key>
<value>
<bean name="StandardSessionCacheConfig"
class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

. . .

<!-- Replace standard 'udp' JGroups stack with

one that uses message bundling -->
<property name="multiplexerStack">udp-async</property>

. . .

For FIELD granularity web sessions, in the same file the same change can be made to the cache
configuration with the field-granularity-session-cache key. For EJB3 stateful session beans,
in the same file the same change can be made to the cache configuration with the sfsb-cache key.

274
Clustering Tuning

Note
Using the udp-async JGroups protocol stack for the session caches means an additional
JGroups transport protocol will be used. This means additional sockets will be opened
compared to a standard Enterprise Application Platform installation.

24.6.3.4. Enabling Buddy Replication for Session Caches

If your application involves high volume replication of web sessions or EJB3 stateful session beans in
a cluster of more than two nodes, you can improve performance by enabling "buddy replication" in the
web session and stateful session bean caches. With buddy replication, instead of replicating a copy
of sessions to all nodes in the cluster, a copy is only replicated to a configurable number of "buddy"
nodes.

Buddy replication is enabled done by editing the <JBoss_Home>/server/

<your_configuration>/deploy/cluster/jboss-cache-manager.sar/META-INF/jboss-
cache-jboss-beans.xml file. For example, for the cache used by default for web sessions:

. . .

<entry><key>standard-session-cache</key>
<value>
<bean name="StandardSessionCacheConfig"
class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

. . .

. . .

24.6.3.5. Reducing the Volume of Web Session Replication

If your application is configured for web session replication, reducing the amount data being replicated
can obviously improve performance. This can be accomplished both by avoiding replication when
a request hasn't actually updated the session and by limiting replication to only the session data
that has actually changed. See the discussion of replication-trigger and replication-granularity in
Section 19.2, “Configuring HTTP session state replication” for how to configure your application to limit
the amount of data replicated.

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Chapter 24. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 Performance Tuning

24.6.3.6. Reducing the Volume of EJB3 Stateful Session Bean Replication

If your application is configured for EJB3 Stateful Session Bean replication, avoiding replication after
bean requests that haven't modified state can improve performance. This can be controlled by having
your bean class implement the org.jboss.ejb3.cache.Optimized interface. See Section 17.2,
“Stateful Session Beans in EJB 3.0” for details.

24.6.3.7. Be Cautious with JPA/Hibernate Second Level Caching

JPA and Hibernate applications can often gain a performance boost by caching database data in the
application server. However, with a clustered application the decision of whether or not to cache data
is more complex than in the non-clustered case. This is because in a cluster, when database writes
occur on one node, the caching layer needs to send a message to all other nodes in the cluster telling
them to update or invalidate their cache content. For types of data that are frequently updated, the
cost of the intra-cluster messages can outweigh the benefits of caching.

So, be sure to carefully load test your clustered application when deciding whether to store items in
the Hibernate Second Level Cache. Avoid the temptation to turn on caching for all entity types; instead
rank your entity types based on how infrequent writes of each type are and how likely it is that more
than one transaction will read a particular entity. Then enable caching for one type at a time, testing for
the performance impact.

Be doubly cautious about enabling caching of query result sets. When query caching is enabled, any
time there is a database write, the clustered cache needs to send two messages around the cluster.
These messages are used to ensure that any query results that may have been affected by the write
are invalidated out of the cache. These messages need to be sent whether or not the entity type that
has been written is itself cached. The cost of these messages can easily offset the benefit of query
result caching. So, again, be sure to test the effect of caching.

24.6.3.8. Monitoring JGroups via JMX

When the Enterprise Application Platform clustering services create a JGroups Channel to use for
intra-cluster communication, they also register with the JMX server a number of MBeans related
to that channel; one for the channel itself and one for each of its constituent protocols. For users
interested in monitoring the performance-related behavior of a channel, a number of MBean attributes
may prove useful.

jboss.jgroups:cluster=<cluster_name>,protocol=UDP,type=protocol
Provides statistical information on the sending and receipt of messages over the network, along
with statistics on the behavior of the two thread pools used to carry incoming messages up the
channel's protocol stack.

Useful attributes directly related to the rate of transmission and receipt include MessagesSent,
BytesSent, MessagesReceived and BytesReceived.

Useful attributes related to the behavior of the thread pool used to carry ordinary incoming
messages up the protocol stack include IncomingPoolSize and IncomingQueueSize.
Equivalent attributes for the pool of threads used to carry special, unordered "out-of-band"
messages up the protocol stack include OOBPoolSize and OOBQueueSize. Note that
OOBQueueSize will typically be 0 as the standard JGroups configurations do not use a queue for
OOB messages.

276
Other key configurations

jboss.jgroups:cluster=<cluster_name>,protocol=UNICAST,type=protocol
Provides statistical information on the behavior of the protocol responsible for ensuring lossless,
ordered delivery of unicast (i.e. point-to-point) messages.

The ratio of NumRetransmissions to MessagesSent can be tracked to see how

frequently messages are not being received by peers and need to be retransmitted. The
NumberOfMessagesInReceiveWindows attribute can be monitored to track how many
messages are queueing up on a receipient node waiting for a message with an earlier sequence
number to be received. A high number indicates messages are being dropped and need to be
retransmitted.

jboss.jgroups:cluster=<cluster_name>,protocol=NAKACK,type=protocol
Provides statistical information on the behavior of the protocol responsible for ensuring lossless,
ordered delivery of multicast (i.e. point-to-multipoint) messages.

Use the XmitRequestsReceived attribute to track how often a node is being asked to
retransmit a messages it sent; use XmitRequestsSent to track how often a node is needing to
request retransmission of a message.

jboss.jgroups:cluster=<cluster_name>,protocol=FC,type=protocol
Provides statistical information on the behavior of the protocol responsible for ensuring fast
message senders do not overwhelm slow receivers.

Attributes useful for monitoring whether threads seeking to send messages are having to block
while waiting for credits from receivers include Blockings, AverageTimeBlocked and
TotalTimeBlocked.

24.6.4. Other key configurations

Other key configurations required for performance tuning of your Enterprise Application
Platform include the <JBoss_Home>/server/<your_configuration>/deployers/
jbossweb.deployer/server.xml file that sets your HTTP requests pool.

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5 has a robust thread pooling, that should be sized
appropriately. The server has a jboss-service.xml file in the <JBoss_Home>/server/
<your_configuration>/conf directory that defines the system thread pool. There is a setting that
defines the behavior if there isn't a thread available in the pool for execution. The default is to allow the
calling thread to execute the task. You can monitor the queue depth of the system thread pool through
the JMX Console, and determine from that if you need to make the pool larger.

The new administration console can be used for configuring and managing different aspects of the
Enterprise Application Platform environment.

The default configuration is appropriate for development, but not necessarily for a production
environment. In the default configuration, console logging is enabled. Console logging is ideal for
development, especially within the IDE, as you get all the log messages to show in the IDE console
view. In a production environment, console logging is very expensive and is not recommended. Turn
down the verbosity level of logging if its not necessary. Please note that the less you log, the less I/O
will be generated, and the better the overall throughput will be.

Other performance tuning aspects include Caching, Clustering and Replication which are discussed in
the respective Chapters in this book.

277
278
Part V. Index
Index
JBossWS
Web Services, 15
JMS (see JBoss Messaging)

A
P
AOP (see JBoss AOP)
Performance
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5
C Performance Tuning, 265
Configuration Pooling
databases, 95 JBossJCA, 121
Profiles
D all, 10
DataSource default, 10
deployment type, 9 minimal, 10
production, 10
E standard, 10
EAR (see Enterprise Application) web, 10
Enterprise Application ProfileService
deployment type, 9 bootstrap, 6
Exploded Deployment, 10
R
F Remoting
Frequently Asked Questions, 125 about, 79

H S
Hot deployment SAR (see Service Archive)
disabling, 6 Server Configuration (see Server Profile)
implementation, 6 Server Profile
definition, 10
Service Archive
J *-service.xml deployment type, 9
JAX-WS (see Web Services)
deployment type, 9
JBoss AOP
applying aspects, 63
aspect oriented framework, 61 W
creating aspects, 63 WAR (see Web Application)
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Web Application
architecture, 5 deployment type, 9
bootstrap, 6 Web Services
JMX Microkernel, 1 web services, 15
microcontainer, 1
performance tuning, 265
Server interface implementation, 6
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5
Performance Tuning
performance, 265
JBoss Messaging
about, 85
JBoss Microcontainer
*-jboss-beans.xml deployment type, 9
beans deployment type, 9

281
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