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Administration Guide

For JBoss ESB administrators

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Abstract

The Administration Guide contains information on how to configure and manage the JBoss Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).


The JBossESB supports a number of JMS providers. Currently we have successfully tested JBoss Messaging, JBossMQ, ActiveMQ and Websphere MQ Series (version 5.3 and 6.0). We recommend JBoss Messaging. At this time we know of no reasons why other JMS implementations should not also work, but have not been able to verify this.

To configure JMS Listeners and JMS Gateways to listen to queues and topics, specify the following parameters in the jbossesb-listener.xml and jbossesb-gateway.xml configuration files:

Important

Be sure to include the chosen JMS provider's client JAR files in the class-path.

Important

In the following sections we will assume that your JMS provider runs on 'localhost', that the connection-factory is 'ConnectionFactory', that we are listenening to a destination-type 'queue' and that it's name is 'queue/A'.

Note

Each JMSListener and JMSGateway can be configured to use it's own JMS provider, so you can use more then one provider in your deployment.

When using JMS, JBossESB utilizes a connection pool to improve performance. By default the size of this pool is set to 20, but can be over-ridden by setting the org.jboss.soa.esb.jms.connectionPool property in the transports section of the JBossESB configuration file. Likewise, if a session cannot be obtained initially, JBossESB will keep retrying for up to 30 seconds before giving up. This time can be configured using the org.jboss.soa.esb.jms.sessionSleep property.

The JBoss ESB's JmsConnectionPool pools JMS Sessions and is used by all JMS based components – JMS Listeners, JMS Couriers, JMS Router etc.

Some JMS providers limit the number of JMS Sessions per connection. This means that the JMS Components in JBoss ESB need to support a control mechanism for the maximum number of sessions created from each JMS Connection managed by a single JmsConnectionPool instance. This is done simply be specifying one or both of the following properties in the JNDI configuration of the JMS Component (JMS Provider/Bus, JMSRouter etc):

So if neither of the above parameters are configured, the JmsConnectionPool will create a single JMS Connection and create all JMS Sessions off that Connection instance.

These configurations should be made as generic property configurations on the JMS Provider configuration e.g.


<jms-provider ...>

    <property name="max-sessions-per-connection" value="5" />
    <property name="max-xa-sessions-per-connection" value="1" />

    <!-- And add providers.... -->

</jms-provider>

The settings for JBossMQ and JBossMessaging are identical and you should set the parameters to:

jndi-URL="localhost”
jndi-context-factory="org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory"
connection-factory="ConnectionFactory"
destination-type="queue"
destination-name="queue/myqueue"

Note

For JBossMQ you should have jbossmq-client.jar in your classpath. Not that this jar is included in jbossall-client.jar, which can be found in lib/ext. For JBossMessaging it should be jboss-messaging-client.jar While -for now- the JBossMQ is the default JMS provider in JBossAS, you can also use JBoss Messaging. Instructions for installing JBoss Messaging can be found on the project website, http://docs.jboss.org/jbossmessaging/docs/userguide-1.4.0.GA/html/installation.html.

For ActiveMQ you should set the parameters to:

jndi-URL="tcp://localhost:61616”
jndi-context-factory="org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory"
connection-factory="ConnectionFactory"
destination-type="queue"
destination-name="queue/A" 

In your classpath you should have:

activemq-core-4.x
backport-util-concurrent-2.1.jar

Both jars can be found in lib/ext/jms/activemq. We tested with version 4.1.0-incubator.

From a JBoss ESB perspective, configuring Websphere MQ providers is simple enough. You have 2 options:

  1. As a JCA Provider using the Websphere MQ JCA Adapter through the <jms-jca-provider> configuration.

  2. As a Standard JMS Provider through the <jms-provider> configuration.

The following is an example of a <jms-jca-provider> configuration:


<jms-jca-provider name="WMQ-JCA" connection-factory="MyAppXAConnectionFactory" adapter="wmq.jmsra.rar"
        jndi-context-factory="com.ibm.mq.jms.context.WMQInitialContextFactory">
  
    <property name="max-xa-sessions-per-connection" value="1" />

    <jms-bus busid="quickstartGwChannel">
        <jms-message-filter dest-type="QUEUE" dest-name="QUEUE1_JMS" transacted="true"/>
    </jms-bus>
    
    <activation-config>
        <property name="queueManager" value="TQM" />
        <property name="channel" value="Q1CONN" />
        <property name="hostName" value="localhost" />
        <property name="port" value="1414" />
        <property name="transportType" value="CLIENT" />
    </activation-config>
    
</jms-jca-provider>

The above configuration is an example of how to configure a gateway provider through the <jms-jca-provider> configuration. The main things to note of specific relevance to Websphere MQ are:

We said that the above <jms-jca-provider> configuration is an example of how to configure a gateway provider. That's not strictly true; it's just a provider configuration. It is the <jms-listener> configuration that determines the gateway/message-aware characteristics of a listener. What is true to say about the above configuration however is that, as far as Websphere MQ is concerned, it is only of use as a provider to a gateway listener i.e. would not work as a Message-Aware listener for Websphere MQ . This is because it does not specify an appropriate JNDI Provider URL (that can be used by the ServiceInvoker) for routing ESB messages to the destinations (buses) defined on the provider. Note the <activation-config> configures the JCA adapter for getting messages from the destinations. It does not specify any information used for delivering messages to the destinations. An example of a configuration that could be used as a provider for a Message-Aware listener would be:


<jms-jca-provider name="WMQ-JCA" connection-factory="MyAppXAConnectionFactory" adapter="wmq.jmsra.rar"
       jndi-URL="localhost:1414/CHANX"
       jndi-context-factory="com.ibm.mq.jms.context.WMQInitialContextFactory">
  
    <property name="max-xa-sessions-per-connection" value="1" />
              
    <jms-bus busid="quickstartEsbChannel">
        <jms-message-filter dest-type="QUEUE" dest-name="QUEUE2_JMS" transacted="true"/>
    </jms-bus>
    
    <activation-config>
        <property name="queueManager" value="TQM" />
        <property name="channel" value="Q2CONN" />
        <property name="hostName" value="localhost" />
        <property name="port" value="1414" />
        <property name="transportType" value="CLIENT" />
    </activation-config>

</jms-jca-provider>

Creating a standard JMS provider configuration is more or less the same:


<jms-provider name="JMS" connection-factory="MyAppConnectionFactory" 
              jndi-URL="localhost:1414/CHAN1"
              jndi-context-factory="com.ibm.mq.jms.context.WMQInitialContextFactory">
              
    <jms-bus busid="quickstartGwChannel2">
        <jms-message-filter dest-type="QUEUE" dest-name="QUEUE3_JMS" />
    </jms-bus>
              
</jms-provider>

What you should note with the standard provider is that there's no adapter and <activation-config> configurations. Listeners getting messages from the destinations defined in a standard provider do not use a JCA Adapter Inflow to receive the messages. Instead, they need to use JNDI to lookup the destination and get the messages. This effectively means that for Websphere MQ, the jndi-URL must always be specified (remember that for JCA it is only required for destinations that service a Message-Aware listener).

If your Websphere MQ endpoint is to participate in JTA/XA Transactions you will need to install the "Extended Transactional Client" bundle from IBM. This bundle may not be part of the default set of client jars provided with your Websphere MQ installation. If not, contact your IBM representative to get these jar files. Once you have the Extended Client bundle, install the .jar files on your ESB/Application Server's classpath, as well as on the classpath of any external client applications.

Before you can use extended transactions in WMQ, you need to configure XA Connection Factories in your WMQ JNDI namespace. Once you have configured the XA Connection Factories, you can reference them using their JNDI name in the "connection-factory" property of the JNDI connection property.

The following is an example showing how the <jms-jca-provider> configuration would look for an Extended Transaction Client configuration, where the XA Connection Factory configured in the WMQ JNDI namespace is called "WMQXAConnectionFactory". Inflow related configurations (adapter, <activation-config> etc) were intentionally omitted as they are not relevant to the Extended Client configuration:


<jms-jca-provider name="WMQ" connection-factory="WMQXAConnectionFactory"  
                  jndi-URL="wmqserver:1414/CHANXA_SEND" 
                  jndi-context-factory="com.ibm.mq.jms.context.WMQInitialContextFactory">

    <property name="max-xa-sessions-per-connection" value="1" />

    <jms-bus busid="ordersGwChannel">
        <jms-message-filter dest-type="QUEUE" dest-name="ORDERS" transacted="true"/>
    </jms-bus>
    
    <activation-config>
        <!-- 
        Used by inflow... not relevant to client
        See section on JMS and JCA. 
        -->
    </activation-config>

</jms-jca-provider>

The following is an example of using an the same XA Connection Factory on the JMSRouter:


<action name="routeToORDERSQueue" class="org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.routing.JMSRouter">
    <property name="jndi-context-factory" value="com.ibm.mq.jms.context.WMQInitialContextFactory"/>
    <property name="jndi-URL" value="wmqserver:1414/CHANXA_SEND"/>
    <property name="connection-factory" value="WMQXAConnectionFactory"/>
    <property name="jndiName" value="ORDERS"/>
    <property name="max-xa-sessions-per-connection" value="1"/>
    <!-- etc... -->
</action>                

Important

An important point to note about Websphere MQ and XA is that it does not support both getting and putting messages concurrently on the same Queue Manager Channel. For this reason, it is a good idea to configure a dedicated channel for each component that gets or puts messages into a Websphere MQ destination in the context of XA transactions.

  1. If using XA connections, set the max-xa-sessions-per-connection property to 1. (For more information on how to configure this property, see the "Maximum Sessions per Connection" section of this chapter.)

  2. If using XA connections, be sure to configure a dedicated Queue Manager Channel for each component that gets or sets messages into a Websphere MQ destination. See earlier section titled "Websphere MQ and XA Transactions".

  3. Make sure the GET and PUT properties on all your Websphere MQ destinations is not set to Inhibit. This can be set by default when the destination is created and results in the ESB not being able to put/get messages.

  4. Check that the following items are present on the class-path:

    If using the Websphere MQ v7.0 Client jar files you will also need to add the following jar files to your classpath:
    • com.ibm.mq.commonservices.jar

    • com.ibm.mq.headers.jar

    • com.ibm.mq.jmqi.jar

    Note

    The client jars differ between MQ 5.3 and MQ 6.0. However the 6.0 jars should be backward compatible. The jars are not open source, and are therefor not provided by us. You will have to obtain them from your WAS and MQ installs.

    Warning

    The following exception may be encountered when running Websphere MQ 6.0:

    Message: Unable to get a MQ series Queue Manager or Queue Connection. Reason: failed to create connection --javax.jms. JMSSecurityException: MQJMS2013: invalid security authentication supplied for MQQueueManager

    This is a permissions issue. To fix this problem, add the user responsible for running the JBoss Enterprise Service Bus to the mqm group.

If using JCA Inflow, you will need to configure the "adapter" attribute on the <jms-jca-provider> configuration and ensure that the JCA Adapter RAR file is in the ESB/Application Server's deploy folder:


<jms-jca-provider name="WMQ" ... adapter="wmq.jmsra.rar">

    <jms-bus busid="ordersGwChannel">
        <jms-message-filter dest-type="QUEUE" dest-name="ORDERS" transacted="true"/>
    </jms-bus>
    
    <activation-config>
        <!-- etc... -->
    </activation-config>

</jms-jca-provider>

Also, be sure to read the section on JMS and JCA, as well as how to configure JCA <connection-factories> and AdminObjects for your JMS Destinations on JBoss Application Server.

  1. For Oracle AQ you should set the parameters to:

    connection-factory="QueueConnectionFactory"
    
  2. Use the following properties:

    
    <property name="java.naming.factory.initial"    value="org.jboss.soa.esb.oracle.aq.AQInitialContextFactory"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.user"     value="<user>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.password" value="<pw>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.server"   value="<server>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.instance" value="<instance>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.schema"   value="<schema>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.port"     value="1521"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.driver"  value="thin"/>
  3. Optionally specify a database connection url:

    
    <property name="java.naming.factory.initial"    value="org.jboss.soa.esb.oracle.aq.AQInitialContextFactory"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.user"     value="<user>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.password" value="<pw>"/>
    <property name="java.naming.oracle.aq.url"   value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@(description=(address_list=(load_balance=on)(failover=on)(address=(protocol=tcp)(host=host1)(port=1621))(address=(protocol=tcp)(host=host2)(port=1621)))(connect_data=(service_name=SID)(failover_mode=(type=select)(method=basic)))) "/>

    Note

    The above example can be used to connect to Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC).

    Note

    You may notice the reference to the InitialContext factory. You only need this is if you want to avoid OracelAQ to register its queues with an LDAP. The AqinitialContextFactory references code in a plugin jar that you can find in the plugins/org.jboss.soa.esb.oracle.aq directory. The jar is called org.jboss.soa.esb.oracle.aq-4.2.jar and you will have to deploy it to the jbossesb.sar/lib directory.

    Note

    When creating a Queue in Oracle AQ make sure to select a payload type of SYS AQ$_JMS_MESSAGE.

    Note

    For a sample you can check the samples/quickstarts/helloworld_action/oracle-aq directory for an example jboss-esb.xml configuration file.

  1. For Red Hat MRG you should set the parameters to:

    
    <property name="jndi-prefixes" value="connectionfactory,.destination"/>
    <property name="jndi-connection-factory" value="org.apache.qpid.jndi.PropertiesFileInitialContextFactory"/>
    <property name="connectionFactory.qpidConnectionFactory" value="amqp://guest:guest@clientid/virtualHost?brokerlist='tcp://localhost:5672'"/>
    <property name="destination.[queueName]Queue" value="direct://amq.direct//[queueName]?routingkey=[routingkeyname]"/>

  2. In your classpath in your classpath you should have the Apache Qpid qpid-common and qpid-client JARs.

    • qpid-common-0.6.jar

    • qpid-client-0.6.jar

    Note

    We tested with version 0.6.

  1. For Tibco EMS you should set the parameters to:

    
    jndi-URL="tcp://localhost:7222
    jndi-context-factory=com.tibco.tibjms.naming.TibjmsInitialContextFactory"
    connection-factory="QueueConnectionFactory"
    destination-type="queue"
    destination-name="myqueue"
  2. In your classpath you should have the client jars that ship with Tibco EMS, which are found in the tibco/ems/clients/java dir.

    • jaxp.jar

    • jndi.jar

    • tibcrypt.jar

    • tibjmsapps.jar

    • tibrvjms.jar

    • jms.jar

    • jta-spec1_0_1.jar

    • tibjmsadmin.jar

    • tibjms.jar

    Note

    We tested with version 4.4.1.

JBoss ESB supports a JMS JCA transport, with a dedicated JMS JCA Provider configuration (<jms-jca-provider>). This transport allows JCA message Inflow in 2 ways:

The following is a very simple example of a <jms-jca-provider> configuration:


<jms-jca-provider name="JBossMessaging" connection-factory="XAConnectionFactory">

    <jms-bus busid="ordersGwChannel">
        <jms-message-filter dest-type="QUEUE" dest-name="queue/orders" transacted="true"/>
    </jms-bus>
    
    <activation-config>
        <property name="dLQMaxResent" value="5"/>
    </activation-config>

</jms-jca-provider>

The <jms-jca-provider> configuration configures 2 separate (but related) things, either explicitly or through the application of defaults:

  1. The JCA Inflow configuration properties (server side). These configrations configure the JCA Gateway and JCA Listeners listed above. The configurations include:

    Note that the JCA Activation configuration also extracts some configuration properties (for the JCA Inflow) from the <jms-bus> and <jms-message-filter> that are nested inside the <jms-jca-provider> element. These include the destination type, destination name and message selector.

  2. The JMS client connection details (client side) used to deliver messages to the JMS JCA Inflows (Gateway or ESB Aware Listener). This Information is used to generate the EPR for clients connecting to the JMS JCA Inflow. The configurations include:

It is important to ensure that the JMS client connection configurations (outlined above) are not configured to connect through JCA managed resources. The JMS client connection configurations should connect directly to the JMS Provider and not through JCA managed resources. This is important because this information is built into the EPRs used by the ESBs ServiceInvoker class, as well as other components that use the ESB's inbuilt JMS Connection Pooling. It is important to avoid a situation where the Inbuilt Connection Pooling is pooling JCA managed connections.

The current list of components that use the ESBs inbuilt JMS Connection Pooling are:

These components should all connect directly to the JMS Provider i.e. not through local JCA managed resources.

The ESB uses a database for persisting Registry services, and the Message-Store.

Database scripts for each of these can be found under:

Message-Store: ESB_ROOT/services/jbossesb/src/main/resources/message-store-sql

Service Registry: The service registry is now jUDDI v 3.1.0, which does not use SQL scripts but uses the persistence layer to initialize the database schema.

A few database types and their scripts are provided, and you should be able to easily create one for your particular database (if you do, please contribute it back to us).

For the Message-Store you will need to also update the data-source setting properties in the main ESB config file jbossesb-properties.xml. The following are settings you will need to change, based on the connection information appropriate to your environment – these settings are found in the DBSTORE section of the file.

As long as there is script for your database the ESB will auto-create the schema's on startup. By default JBossESB is configured to use a JEE DataSource.


<properties name="dbstore">
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.conn.manager" 
        value="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.manager.J2eeConnectionManager"/>

    <!-- this property is only used if using the j2ee connection manager -->
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.datasource.name"
        value="java:/JBossESBDS"/>
</properties>

When running from the standalone bootstrapper use:


<properties name="dbstore">
    <!--  connection manager type -->
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.conn.manager"
        value="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.manager.StandaloneConnectionManager"/>    
    
    <!-- FIXME: is this a typo ? -->
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.conn.manager"
    
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.connection.url"
        value="jdbc:hsqldb:hsql://localhost:9001/jbossesb"/>
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.jdbc.driver"
        value="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"/>
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.user" value="sa"/>
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.pwd" value=""/>        
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.pool.initial.size" value="2"/>
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.pool.min.size" value="2"/>
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.pool.max.size" value="5"/>
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.pool.test.table" value="pooltest"/>        
    
    <property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.db.pool.timeout.millis" value="5000"/> 
</properties>  

The Service Registry database information is contained in the esb.juddi.xml file. You should consult the Service Registry section of this document for more detailed information on what settings and their values and how they effect the behavior of the ESB.

JBoss server comes with a pre-installed hypersonic database (HSQLDB). The database can only be accessed in the same JVM. The data-source definition can be found in the jbossesb.sar/message-store-ds.xml.

This section describes the steps to move from using the default hypersonic database to postgres. These steps should be the same for any other database. Just replace postgres with the database you want to switch to.

Procedure 1.1. Changing the database to PostgreSQL

  1. Remove deploy/hsqldb-ds.xml and add the following in a file named deploy/postgres-ds.xml:

    
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <datasources>
        <local-tx-datasource>
            <jndi-name>DefaultDS</jndi-name>
            <connection-url>jdbc:postgresql://host:port/database</connection-url>
            <driver-class>org.postgresql.Driver</driver-class>
            <user-name>username</user-name>
            <password>password</password>
            <metadata>
                <type-mapping>PostgreSQL 7.2</type-mapping>
            </metadata>
            <check-valid-connection-sql>
                select count(*) from jbm_user
            </check-valid-connection-sql>
        </local-tx-datasource>
    </datasources>

    Modify the above to suite your needs, connection parameters and such. Make sure the name of the DS is the same though (DefaultDS)

  2. Replace deploy/jbossesb-registry.sar/juddi-ds.xml with the same configuration in the previous step (change the database name if needed).
Again make sure the keep the jndi-name(juddiDB). 


  3. Replace deploy/jbossesb.esb/message-store-ds.xml with the same configuration in step one (change the database name if needed).
Again make sure the keep the jndi-name(JBossESBDS).

  4. Replace the database name in the 'message-store-sql' element in deploy/jbossesb.esb/jbossesb-service.xml:

    
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <server>
        <mbean code="org.jboss.internal.soa.esb.dependencies.DatabaseInitializer"
            name="jboss.esb:service=MessageStoreDatabaseInitializer">
            <attribute name="Datasource">java:/JBossESBDS</attribute>
            <attribute name="ExistsSql">select * from message</attribute>
            <attribute name="SqlFiles">
                message-store-sql/postgresql/create_database.sql
            </attribute>
            <depends>jboss.jca:service=DataSourceBinding,name=JBossESBDS</depends>
        </mbean>
    </server>
  5. Edit the persistence.xml, located in either jbossesb-registry.sar/META-INF/ or jbossesb-registry.sar/juddi_config/META-INF/. hibernate.dialect property must be set to the type of database that is going to be used as the data source. (It may, for example, be org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect.)

  6. Replace deploy/jboss-messaging/hsqldb-persistence-service.xml with the postgres-persistence-service.xml from the version of JBM that you are running.

    This needs to match the same version and might not work it the versions mismatch. These files can be found in src/etc/server/default/deploy of a JBM distribution.

  7. Copy the database driver to the servers lib directory and fire up the server.

JBossESB allows for multiple message store implementations via a plugin-based architecture. As an alternative to the default database message store, a JSR-170 (Java content repository) message store may be used. The JCR implementation included with JBossESB is Apache Jackrabbit. To enable the JCR message store, add the following property to the "core" section of jbossesb-properties.xml in the root of the jboss-esb.sar (or the root of deployers/esb.deployer on AS5):


<property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.base.plugin.jcr"
value="org.jboss.internal.soa.esb.persistence.format.jcr.JCRMessageStorePlugin"/>

This adds the JCR plugin to the list of available message stores. The JCR message store can use an existing repository via JNDI or can create a standalone instance locally on the application server. The following list of properties should be added in the "dbstore" section of jbossesb-properties.xml to configure repository access:


<property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.jcr.jndi.path" value="jcr"/>
<property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.jcr.username" value="username"/>
<property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.jcr.password" value="password"/>
<property name="org.jboss.soa.esb.persistence.jcr.root.node.path"
    value="JBossESB/MessageStore"/>

An easy test for whether the JCR message store is configured properly is to add the org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.persistence.StoreJCRMessage action onto an existing service. The action will attempt to store the current message to the JCR store.

It is possible to trace any and all Messages sent through JBossESB. This may be important for a number of reasons, including audit trail and debugging. In order to trace Messages you should ensure that they are uniquely identified using the MessageID field of the Message header: as mentioned in the Programmers Guide, this is the only way in which Messages can be uniquely identified within the ESB.

By default, JBossESB components (e.g., gateways, ServiceInvoker and load balancing) log all interactions with Messages through standard logger messages. Such log messages will contain the entire header information associated with the Message which will enable correlation across multiple JBossESB instances. You can identify these messages by looking for the following in your output:

header: [ To: EPR: PortReference < <wsa:Address ftp://foo.bar/> >, From: null, ReplyTo: 
EPR: PortReference < <wsa:Address http://bar.foo/> >, FaultTo: null, Action: urn:dowork, 
MessageID: urn:foo/bar/1234, RelatesTo: null ]

Furthermore, you can enable a logging MetaData Filter, whose only role is to issue log messages whenever a Message is either input to an ESB component, or output from it. This filter, org.jboss.internal.soa.esb.message.filter.TraceFilter, can be placed within the Filter section of the JBossESB configuration file, in conjunction with any other filters: it has no effect on the input or output Message. Whenever a Message passes through this filter, you will see the following log at info level:

TraceFilter.onOutput ( header: [ To: EPR: PortReference < <wsa:Address ftp://foo.bar/> >, 
From: null, ReplyTo: EPR: PortReference < <wsa:Address http://bar.foo/> >, FaultTo: null, 
Action: urn:dowork, MessageID: urn:foo/bar/1234, RelatesTo: null ] )

TraceFilter.onInput ( header: [ To: EPR: PortReference < <wsa:Address ftp://foo.bar/> >, 
From: null, ReplyTo: EPR: PortReference < <wsa:Address http://bar.foo/> >, FaultTo: null, 
Action: urn:dowork, MessageID: urn:foo/bar/1234, RelatesTo: null ] )

TraceFilter will only log if the property org.jboss.soa.esb.messagetrace is set to on/ON (the default setting is off/OFF). By default, if enabled it will log all Messages that pass through it. However, for finer grained control you may enable finer grained control over which Messages are logged and which are ignored. To do this make sure that the property org.jboss.soa.esb.permessagetrace is set to on/ON (the default is off/OFF). Once enabled, those Messages with a Property of org.jboss.soa.esb.message.unloggable set to yes/YES will be ignored by this filter.

Beginning with JBossESB 4.2, there is now support for fail-over of stateless services. You should consult the Programmers Guide for further details, but the pertinent issues to note are:

JBossESB uses Endpoint References (EPRs) to address messages to/from services. As described in the Programmers Guide, messages have headers that contain recipient addresses, sequence numbers (for message correlation) and optional addresses for replies, faults etc. Because the recommended interaction pattern within JBossESB is based on one-way message exchange, responses to messages are not necessarily automatic: it is application dependent as to whether or not a sender expects a response.

As such, a reply address (EPR) is an optional part of the header routing information and applications should be setting this value if necessary. However, in the case where a response is required and the reply EPR (ReplyTo EPR) has not been set, JBossESB supports default values for each type of transport. Some of these ReplyTo defaults require system administrators to configure JBossESB correctly.

There are a number of options for monitoring and managing your ESB server. Shipping with the ESB are a number of useful JMX MBeans that help administrators monitor the performance of their server.

Under the jboss.esb domain, you should see the following MBean types:

deployment=<ESB package name>

Deployments show the state of all of the esb packages that have been deployed and give information about their XML configuration and their current state.

listener-name=<Listener name>

All deployed listeners are displayed, with information on their XML configuration, the start time, maxThreads, state, etc. The administrator has the option of initialising/starting/stopping/destroying a listener.

category=MessageCounter

Message counters break all of the services deployed for a listener down into their separate actions and give counts of how many messages were processed, as well as the processing time of each message.

service-name=<Service name>

Displays statistics per-service (message counts, state, average size of message, processing time, etc). The message counts may be reset and services may be stopped and started.

Note

Additionally, jms domain MBeans show statistics for message queues, which is useful information when debugging or determining performance.

JBossESB provides management and monitoring through Embedded JOPR: (http://localhost:8080/admin-console).

The JBossESB monitoring console gathers information on the performance of different ESB services that are deployed . As of JBoss ESB 4.2.0.GA, the monitoring console allows users to get message counts by service, action, and node, as well as other information like processing time, number of failed messages, bytes transferred, and last successful and failed message date time. As of JBoss ESB 4.6, the previous ESB monitoring tool has been deprecated.

The monitoring console is installed automatically in the stand-alone ESB server and JBossAS.

Below is a screenshot of the console. The console requests MBean information from each node within the ESB registry, and then displays it back.


The JBoss Web Console (http://community.jboss.org/wiki/WebConsole) is a utility within both the JBoss AS and the JBoss ESB Server that is capable of monitoring and sending alerts based off of JMX MBean properties. You can use this functionality to receive alerts for ESB-related events – such as the DeadLetterService counter reaching a certain threshold.

  1. Configure ./deploy/mail-service.xml with your SMTP settings.

  2. Change ./deploy/monitoring-service.xml – uncomment the EmailAlertListener section and add appropriate header related information.

  3. Create a file ./deploy to serve as your monitor MBean.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<server>
<mbean code="org.jboss.monitor.ThresholdMonitor"
       name="jboss.monitor:service=ESBDLQMonitor">
  <attribute name="MonitorName">ESB DeadLetterQueue Monitor</attribute>
  <attribute name="ObservedObject">
    jboss.esb:category=MessageCounter,deployment=jbossesb.esb,service-name=DeadLetterService
  </attribute>
  <attribute name="ObservedAttribute">overall service message count</attribute>
  <attribute name="Threshold">4</attribute>
  <attribute name="CompareTo">-1</attribute>
  <attribute name="Period">1000</attribute>
  <attribute name="Enabled">true</attribute>
  <depends-list optional-attribute-name="AlertListeners">
<depends-list-element>jboss.alerts:service=ConsoleAlertListener</depends-list-element>
<depends-list-element>jboss.alerts:service=EmailAlertListener</depends-list-element>
  </depends-list>
  <depends>jboss.esb:deployment=jbossesb.esb</depends>
</mbean>
</server>

This MBean will serve as a monitor, and once the DeadLetterService counter reaches 5, it will send an e-mail to the address(es) specified in the monitoring-service.xml. Note that the alert is only sent once – once the threshold has been reached. If you want to be alerted again once resetting the counter, you can reset the alerted flag on your monitoring service MBean (in this case jboss.monitor:service=ESBDLQMonitor).

Note

For more details on how to use the JBoss Web Console monitoring, please see http://community.jboss.org/wiki/JBossMonitoring.

JBossAS as well as the JBossESB-Server are always checking the 'deploy' directory for new files to deploy. So we're really talking about hot redeployment. So here is what you have to do to make it redeploy an existing deployment for the different components.

  1. SAR files

    The jbossesb.sar is hot deployable. It will redeploy when

    • the timestamp of the archive changes, if the sar is compressed archive.

    • the timestamp of the META-INF/jboss-service.xml changes, if the sar is in exploded from.

  2. ESB files

    Any *.esb archive will redeploy when

    • the timestamp of the archive changes, if the esb is compressed archive.

    • the timestamp of the META-INF/jboss-esb.xml changes, if the esb is in exploded from.

    Our actions have lifecycle support, so upon hot deployment it goes down gracefully, finishes active requests, and does not accept any more incoming messages until it is back up. All of this can be done by simply redeploying the .esb archive. If you want to update just one action, you can use groovy scripting to modify an action at runtime (see the groovy QuickStart: http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=JBossESBQuickStart.)

  3. rule files

    There are two options to refresh rule files (drl or dsl)

    1. redeploy the jbrules.esb (see 2)

    2. turn on the 'ruleReload' in the action config (see http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=JBossESBContentBasedRouting). Now if a rule file *changes* it will be reloaded. .) After doing so, if a rule file is changed, it will be re-loaded.

  4. transformation files

    The only way to refresh transformation files is to redeploy the esb archive in which the transformation file resides.

  5. Business Process Definitions

    When using jBPM new Business Process Definitions can be deployed. From within the jBPM eclipse plugin you can deploy a new definition to the jbpm database. New process instances will get the new version, in flight processes will finish their life cycle on the previous definitions. For details please see the documentation on jBPM.

The jBPM integration within ESB now support additional Message and Scheduler services, distinct from those offered natively by jBPM. In addition to the standard jBPM configurations we now also support a JMS based Message Service, driven using JCA inflow, and three additional Scheduling Services, based on JBoss Messaging, hornetq and quartz.

The configuration, as shipped by default within ESB, uses the jBPM JobExecutor and the database implementations of the Message and Scheduler service.


<service name="message" factory="org.jbpm.msg.db.DbMessageServiceFactory" /> 
<service name="scheduler" factory="org.jbpm.scheduler.db.DbSchedulerServiceFactory" /> 

<bean name="jbpm.job.executor" class="org.jbpm.job.executor.JobExecutor"> 
    ...
</bean> 

In order to utilize the alternative services it is necessary to replace the active configurations with the versions specific to your requirements.

The configuration for the alternative services can be found within the jbpm.esb/config directory

The configuration files within the appropriate directory should be used to replace the active configurations within the jbpm.esb directory, remembering to remove the .config suffix from each. It should also be noted that only one of the quartz message queue service definitions should be used, either hornetq-jms.xml, jbm-queue-service.xml or jbmq-queue-service.xml, depending on which JMS implementation is currently in use.

Revision History
Revision 1Fri Jul 16 2010David Le Sage, Darrin Mison
Initial conversion from OpenOffice ODT files.