To run the examples with the provided build scripts, you’ll need the following:

In the next few sections, you’ll be using the Maven command (mvn) to invoke the Maven project file in each example to compile, assemble and deploy the example to WildFly and, for the war example, Apache Tomcat. You can also deploy the generated artifact (war or ear) to any other container that supports Java EE 7, such as GlassFish 4.

The sections below cover the steps for deploying with Maven in detail.

If you simply want to run the numberguess example without the requirement of a specific runtime you can start with the following commands:

$> cd examples/jsf/numberguess
$> mvn wildfly:run

The Maven WildFly plugin will run WildFly and deploy the example and the server will be automatically downloaded in the target directory. The numberguess application is available at http://localhost:8080/weld-numberguess.

To deploy the examples to a WildFly instance, you’ll need to download WildFly first. The good news is that there are no additional modifications you have to make to the server. It’s ready to go!

After you have downloaded WildFly, extract it. (We recommended renaming the folder to include the as qualifier so it’s clear that it’s the application server). You can move the extracted folder anywhere you like. Wherever it lays to rest, that’s what we’ll call the WildFly installation directory, or JBOSS_HOME.

$> unzip wildfly-10.1.0.Final.zip
$> mv wildfly-10.*/ wildfly-10

In order for the build scripts to know where to deploy the example, you have to tell them where to find your WildFly installation. Set the JBOSS_HOME environment variable to point to the WildFly installation, e.g.:

$> export JBOSS_HOME=/path/to/wildfly

You’re now ready to run your first example!

Switch to the examples/jsf/numberguess directory and execute the Maven deploy target:

$> cd examples/jsf/numberguess
$> mvn wildfly:deploy

Wait a few seconds for the application to deploy (or the application server to start) and see if you can determine the most efficient approach to pinpoint the random number at the local URL http://localhost:8080/weld-numberguess.

You can also run functional tests to verify that the example works as expected. Run:

$> mvn verify -Darquillian=wildfly-managed-8

You should see the following output:

Tests run: 2, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0

The second starter example, weld-translator, will translate your text into Latin. (Well, not really, but the stub is there for you to implement, at least. Good luck!) To try it out, switch to the translator example directory and execute the deploy target:

$> cd examples/jsf/translator/ear
$> mvn jboss-as:run

Again, wait a few seconds for the application to deploy (if you’re really bored, read the log messages), and visit http://localhost:8080/weld-translator to begin pseudo-translating.

Again, functional tests can be running by executing:

$> cd examples/jsf/translator/ftest
$> mvn verify -Darquillian=wildfly-managed-8

Deploying to GlassFish should be easy and familiar, right? After all, it’s the Java EE 7 reference implementation and Weld is the CDI reference implementation, meaning Weld gets bundled with GlassFish. So yes, it’s all quite easy and familiar.

To deploy the examples to GlassFish, you’ll need a GlassFish 4.0 release. Select the release that ends in either -unix.sh or -windows.exe depending on your platform. After the download is complete, execute the installer. On Linux/Unix, you’ll need to first make the script executable.

$> chmod 755 glassfish-4.0-unix.sh
$> ./glassfish-4.0-unix.sh

On Windows you can just click on the executable. Follow the instructions in the installer. It will create a single domain named domain1. You’ll use that domain to deploy the example. We recommend that you choose 7070 as the main HTTP port to avoid conflicts with a running instance of WildFly (or Apache Tomcat).

Next, make sure the GLASSFISH_HOME environment variable is set to point to the GlassFish installation.

Now switch to the GLASSFISH_HOME directory and deploy the example.

$> ./bin/asadmin
asadmin> deploy /path/examples/jsf/numberguess/target/weld-numberguess.war

Once the command completes the application is available at http://localhost:7070/weld-numberguess

The reason the same artifact can be deployed to both WildFly and GlassFish, without any modifications, is because all of the features being used are part of the standard platform. And what a capable platform it has become!

Servlet containers are not required to support Java EE services like CDI. However, you can use CDI in a servlet container like Tomcat by embedding a standalone CDI implementation such as Weld.

Weld comes with servlet integration extension which bootstraps the CDI environment and provides injection into servlets components. Basically, it emulates some of the work done by the Java EE container, but you don’t get the enterprise features such as session beans and container-managed transactions.

Let’s give the Weld servlet extension a spin on Apache Tomcat. First, you’ll need to download Tomcat 9.0.11 or later from tomcat.apache.org and extract it.

$> unzip apache-tomcat-9.0.11.zip

The Maven plugin communicates with Tomcat over HTTP, so it doesn’t care where you have installed Tomcat. However, the plugin configuration assumes you are running Tomcat in its default configuration, with a hostname of localhost and port 8080. The readme.txt file in the example directory has information about how to modify the Maven settings to accommodate a different setup.

You can either start Tomcat from a Linux shell:

$> cd /path/to/apache-tomcat-9
$> ./bin/startup.sh

a Windows command window:

$> cd c:\path\to\apache-tomcat-9\bin
$> start

or you can start the server using an IDE, like Eclipse.

Change to the examples/jsf/numberguess directory again and run the following Maven command:

$> cd examples/jsf/numberguess
$> mvn clean package -Ptomcat

Now you’re ready to deploy the numberguess example to Tomcat!

$> cp examples/jsf/numberguess/target/weld-numberguess.war apache-tomcat/webapps/