JBoss Server Manager Reference Guide

From this preference page you can see all declared runtimes and their types as well. Figure above shows two declared runtimes that include a JBoss 4.2 instance. Here, it's possible to edit or remove existing runtimes as well as add a new one.

To create a JBoss runtime click Add button and choose a necessary type of runtime from the appeared dialog.

As you can see, JBoss Tools provide its own adapters such as JBoss 3.2, 4.0, 4.2 and 5.0 as well. The last one comes with its own new feature, that is a safer incremental deployment, which prevents partial deployments to be picked up by the server. It means that scanning for auto-deployment is suspended while files are being copied to the deployment location and resumed when the copy is completed.

You'll also note a Deploy-Only Runtime type. This type provides no classpath for WTP projects. It is used solely by its server type for the purpose of setting up a deploy directory for users who don't wish to make use of starting, stopping, or debugging their projects inside eclipse.

The following table describes all the available options of the wizard.

As a result of having each runtime represent a specific configuration rather than the server installation as a whole, it is very likely you'll create several different runtimes to test each of your configurations. It becomes important to ensure your runtimes, and later your servers, are given descriptive names that help you remember which is which.

Press Finish to see your new runtime in the list.

A server object is that keeps track of things like command line arguments when starting or stopping, and runtimes keep track of the location of the installation. Thus, each server instance must be backed by an appropriate runtime.

If the server you want to create doesn't have any installed runtime yet, the combo box and button will disappear.

Press Finish to complete the process of the server creation.

Now that we've created our runtimes and servers, we can dwell on all services and tools that JBoss Server Manager provides.

The top part also shows the server's publish status. The fallowing table lists possible statuses.

By double-clicking on any server, an editor window will appear allowing you to edit parts of that server. On the figure you can see that a username/password is available in the UI when configuring the server. If you get an SecurityException when trying to launch the server, it is most likely because your server is protected and hence you need to fill the username/password fields with appropriate values.

It should be pointed out that our server adapter by default tries to automatically detect the ports it needs for integrating with a JBoss server. Sometimes it can though be relevant to override this automatic detection if you are using some custom configuration. For this purposes the Server Ports section in the Server editor is provided where the port settings are configurable.

The settings relating to Publishing , Timeouts or Server Polling can also be adjusted here.

The following table describes all these additional properties.

Mentioned above Twiddle is a JMX library that comes with JBoss, and you can use it to access any variables that exposed via the JBoss JMX interfaces.

In order to access the view's preferences, you should access Window > Preferences > JBoss Tools > JBoss Servers > View . This preference page allows you to select which view extensions you want on or off, the order they appear in the view, as well as any other extension-specific preferences that may be available.

The first view extension is Modules section. It shows which modules are currently deployed to the server, and allows you to remove them from the server, or force a full republish upon them. It only shows which modules have been deployed through Eclipse, not any and all modules that happen to be in the deploy directory.

The Event Log will show relevant information to your server's startup, shutdown, and publish processes. This allows you to keep an eye on what's going on (such as automatic incremental deployment if you have it enabled). The only action available is to clear the Event Log . However, if the Properties View is opened, you can receive further information on each Event Log item (when available).

The XML Configuration category allows you to quickly browse to descriptor files in your server's deploy directory and check or change the values. Its use requires the Properties view. Basically, XML Configuration includes XML XPaths where a xpath is a path used to access some specific part of an xml document.

The XML Configuration category itself contains only a list of categories. Ports are provided by default and is filled with many of the most commonly used ports in the JBoss Server. In the Properties view you can see an identifier and nested files underneath in which that xpath can be found as well as its current value. The details of the xpath are hidden as all you need to see is only which file you're referring to and what its current value is.

By right-clicking on XML Configuration, you can create a new category. Besides, context menu for XML Configuration category makes possible to disable it. You can disable any category in the bottom part of the JBoss Server View. Look for them in the Inactive Categories afterwards to re-enable.

By right-clicking on Ports or any other category in XML Configuration , you can create a new xpath.

After that, the dialog shown below will appear.

The goal here is to get an end result where the XPath matches up with a necessary property. With that in mind, let's look how it works. If the property you want to reach is the value of the name attribute in the element <mbean>, then your XPath Patten should end with mbean and your Attribute Name should be name like on the next figure.

...

<server>

...

    <mbean code="org.jboss.ejb.EJBDeployer" 

                   name="jboss.ejb:service=EJBDeployer" xmbean-dd="">

  

     <!-- Inline XMBean Descriptor BEGIN -->

         <xmbean>

             <description>

                    The EJBDeployer responsible for ejb jar deployment</description> 

               ...

         </xmbean>

     </mbean>

</server>

Then, on the other hand, if your desired field is the text of an element <description>, your XPath Patten should end with description and Attribute Name field should be left blank. When finished, click Preview to see how many matches you have for that particular XPath.

As part of the JBoss Server View there is a JMX Console section which allows you to browse and use the JMX exposed beans on the server.

A project's configuration contains archives. On the image above there is only one archive, but a project can contain many. Inside the archive folders (testFolder), filesets, or other internal archives can be located. Internal archives and filesets may be directly inside of an archive, or in some sub-folder of that archive.

In the upper right corner of the view you can see an icon which, when clicked, will build the selected top-level archive. Additionally, you can select Project > Build Packages when a project is selected in the Packages View to build all declared packages in that project's .packages file. This will execute a full build on all declared archives.

JAR is the standard archive type, and does very little configuration, leaving most of the work up to you. You can customize the name, add folders, filesets, and inner jars to it.

The other types, for the most part, simply start off with a default setting, usually the jar with some specific children based on an expected structure of the project. For example, if the project is a Dynamic Web Project, and you create a WAR archive, the archive will be created with a few filesets relevant to the known structure of the project.

Here is the first page of all New archive wizards. It is the same for any archive type and the only page in the New Jar Wizard.

The page is pretty simple. All it asks for is the name of your new archive, a destination, which we'll get to in a moment, and whether the archive is exploded or packaged up.

The destination of an archive can be anywhere on the filesystem, anywhere in the workspace, inside some other archive, or inside a folder declared inside an archive. You can browse to workspace or filesystem destinations by clicking on their respective buttons. To select a destination inside some other archive, you'll need to press the Workspace... button. At the bottom of the list, you'll see archives that have been declared in the workspace.

The context menu on the items in the view is extendable, but there are several that come standard.

The dialog above appears after selecting Publish To Server . To simply publish once, you just select the server(s) that you want, and finish. If you want the Publish to Server action on that particular Archive to publish always to that set of servers, then check the appropriate checkbox. And finally, to enable automatic publishing upon build events, check the last checkbox.

The automatic publishing feature is nice if, for example, your package's destination (where it is built) is a temporary folder and you want the archive published to several servers. If you only really want your archive published to one server, it might be easier to have the archive's destination folder be the deploy folder of the server.

Click Next button to see add or remove projects page where you can choose projects to configure them on server.

This page of the wizard also allows to undeploy modules from the server. For that choose proper module(s) from the right and click < Remove . The modules will be completely undeployed after restarting your server or republishing.

The deployed files are listed side-by-side with other modules that are deployed to the server.

Here, Incremental Publish is meant to enable publishing of only those parts where changes have been made.