I am attempting to implement a GBean to start up the Open For
Business suite of applications. Due to large number of libraries
involved we have some tricky ways of loading the application today.
Currently we have a small kernel which starts up (much like Geronimo)
and dynamically loads all the classes and builds a initial classloader.
From there, using this newly created classloader we startup the
server components, i.e. JOTM, Tomcat, etc. We are looking to move
away from this approach and instead of embedding these components
inside the application, we prefer to run the application inside a
container. Specifically Geronimo. Now that OFBiz has been accepted
into the Apache Incubator; I am motivated to get this done ASAP.
What I have attempted to do first was just replace the context
classload on the current thread of the GBean and used a quick JSR88
implementation to deploy the web applications using this GBean as the
parent. However, the classloader obtained (after looking at the GBean
source code) is cached on the object itself and appears to be immutable.
My second attempt was based on code I found in the Kernel API. After
creating my classloader, I defined a new GBean (from inside the
initial GBean which does the classloading). I first grab an instance
of the Kernel:
Kernel kernel = KernelRegistry.getSingleKernel();
Then I attempt to:
ObjectName ofb = JMXUtil.getObjectName(":role=OFBizCore");
GBeanData ofbBean = new GBeanData(ofb, OFBLoader.GBEAN_INFO);
kernel.loadGBean(ofbBean, cl);
kernel.startGBean(ofb);
Passing it the classloader *I* created (cl). I was hoping then that
if I configured the web applications to have the parent
':role=OFBizCore' in their geronimo-web.xml configuration this would
set their servlet context classloader would be a child of the
classloader I created (loading the huge amount of classes/libraries
required).
However, this bean (ofbBean) remains in the STARTING status and never
appears to start.
Can anyone suggest to me a way to accomplish my goal.
1) Load all our classes in a dynamic way. I do not wish to copy all
libraries and configuration files into the standard Geronimo repository.
2) Load our web applications from their current location using the
classloader from #1. Our web applications are not in a single
location and are all expanded.
I am open to suggestions.
Andy
