Upgrading from DeploymentService to ProfileService in JBoss 5.1.0 GA - jboss5.x

Question

In Jboss 5.1 the Profile Service does what the Deployment Service was doing in Jboss 4.x.In Jboss 4.x I was using the Deployment Service to create a datasource "on-the-fly" and I was wondering if I could do the same thing using the Profile Service (since Deployment Service doesn't exist any more in Jboss 5.x).
Does anyone know a practical guid on using ProfileService?
Thank you ,
Regards.

Answer 1

I don't know of any guide but I can provide you with my experience using the Profile Service and a few links to JBoss wiki pages on this topic. I'd like to post more links but the spam protection doesn't allow me to post more than two, but you should easily find the other pages in the wiki on the ProfileService. Don't be suprised in case you don't find much, there isn't more.
ProfileService ManagementView
http://community.jboss.org/wiki/ProfileServiceManagementView
ProfileService DeploymentTemplates
http://community.jboss.org/wiki/ProfileServiceDeploymentTemplates
There you'll find usefull information about the ProfileService but no detailed information is available in the jboss wiki as far as I can tell.
In order to create Datasources on the fly you can use the DeploymentTemplates (also for creating message queues and topics) The last link provides you with information on how to use the templates but not with all the template names and their properties. You can list them programatically though.
// Get all Templates
for(String template : mgtView.getTemplateNames())
{
System.out.println("=========================================");
System.out.println("Listing properties for template: "+template);
DeploymentTemplateInfo info = mgtView.getTemplate(template);
for(String prop : info.getProperties().keySet())
System.out.println("- "+prop);
}
In order to get the ManagementView (mgtView) from an external java programm you can use something similiar to this:
// set security policy
System.setProperty("java.security.policy", "<path_to_policy_file>");
System.setSecurityManager( new RMISecurityManager() ) ;
// set initial context properties
Hashtable<String, String> env = new Hashtable<String, String>();
env.put("java.naming.factory.initial", "org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory");
env.put("java.naming.provider.url","jnp://localhost:1099");
env.put("java.naming.factory.url.pkgs","org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces");
ctx = new InitialContext(env);
// login to JBoss
SecurityClient client = SecurityClientFactory.getSecurityClient();
client.setSimple("admin", "admin");
client.login();
// get ProfileService and ViewManager
ProfileService ps = (ProfileService) ctx.lookup("ProfileService");
mgtView = ps.getViewManager();
What you want to get is the Java Naming Conext (InitialContext). In order to do that you'll need a security policy (you can use the java.policy file which is located in JBOSS_HOME/server/SERVER_DIR/conf/),security manager and environment properties to get the context. The java.naming.provider.url specifies the location of the JBoss naming service (default port is 1099).
Usually you would have to authenticate at this point which is done with the SecurityClient.
Finally you can use the context to grap the ProfileService.
At this point most of the anoying stuff is done und you can start playing around.
getViewManager() returns the ViewManager with which you can create datasources on the fly and getDeploymentManager() will give you the DeploymentManager with which you can deploy, undeploy, start, stop applications and other deployments.
The libraries you'll need to do that are located in
JBOSS_HOME/client
JBOSS_HOME/lib
JBOSS_HOME/common/lib
I've read several times that including the jbossall-client.jar in the client directory should be enough but that's actually not true. You need libraries from all three directories as far as I can tell (couldn't do it without referencing all of them at least). I haven't figured out which exact jars you need though...
IMPORTANT: The ProfileService in Jboss 5 Community Edition has some bugs though which got fixed in JBoss 6. I'd either suggest using a newer JBoss version or the Enterprise Edition.