Netbeans5.5Beta2 bundled with JBoss4.0.4 : No way to change server port

Netbeans5.5Beta2 bundled with JBoss4.0.4 : No way to change server port

I’ve been playing a bit with Netbeans5.5, mostly due to Geertjan’s posts (esp. those describing how to build plugins supporting web frameworks). I even started nbtapestrysupport.

So, i’m on a new machine today and having decided to take a look at NB’s plugin support, i head for www.netbeans.org to download the 5.5 version. I’m however sidetracked with the plethora of the available installers… without thinking a lot, i go for the “NetBeans IDE 5.5 Beta 2 + JBoss Application Server 4.0.4 Bundle Installer“.

Installation went smoothly. After updating NB to include the subversion support, I was able to checkout from https://nbtapestrysupport.dev.java.net/svn/nbtapestrysupport/trunk/TapestryPlugin and build & run the project.

My next thought is ‘let’s see how well JBoss integrates’…so, going to the Runtime tab, right-clicking on JBoss and selecting Start results in “port 8080 already in use”. Oh well, there’s a background tomcat instance running on this pc, it shouldn’t be difficult to make jboss use another port, i.e. 7070.

Googling easily produces “change the following file:
server/xxx/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar/server.xml” and indeed, if i then issue “jboss_dir/bin/run.sh” it picks up the change and it works.

BUT, from within NetBeans it doesn’t and there’s no way to make it work… googling doesn’t help either… it’s as if there’s a hardcoded configuration somewhere inside NB’s JBoss integration code… Let’s look for a workaround then. Right click to “Add Server” and then browse to the JBoss installation folder is quite interesting. NB informs us that the configured port is 7070 (cool!) but also that ‘The domain instance you want to add already exists’ (sad but correct).

My question of course is, since the instance already exists and since it can indeed read the 7070 value, why doesn’t it use it ???

Anyway, I ended up renaming the instance (just a folder rename) which allowed me to add the server in the previously described way. And this leaves us with:

Why, oh why, can’t I delete (or even rename) the original (and non-working) JBoss server registration ???

Java Hellenic User Group

Today, I attended an event organized by our local JUG and I must say I had a really good time. Saw plenty of familiar faces, met some new ones and heard lots of interesting stuff.

The event started with lots of coffee : ) I think it was 4 cups but they were needed – I was up all night coding more AJAX goodies for TACOS and TAPESTRY.

Anyway, after the coffee we heard a quick intro on the history of the JUG and the first presentation was on ‘JBoss Status Update, Business Model, Products and Roadmaps’ by Dimitris Andreadis. It was a short and pleasant intro on the JBoss company, its model, its products and its future. I liked it, but I was also shocked by a few questions from the audience. It seems, some people are still afraid of open source – they think there’s a trap somewhere. Could it be the “not built here” syndrome, or the “it’s free it’s crap” one?

Well, there followed an ‘Introduction to Java Data Objects (JDO 2)’ by G.Kostaras. I must say I didn’t enjoy this one – at least for me it was useless. There wasn’t even a comparision with Hibernate, apart from some marketing stuff. But again, judging from the audience, it seems that many people simply do not get ORM tools. It must be the same syndromes again. We really need more training + be more open-minded…

Then, there was ‘Practical Iterative Development’ by K.Flokos. Due to my fatigue, I was planning to take a nap on this, but I simply couldn’t. Mr Flokos is an excellent presenter and knows his stuff thoroughtly. I’m sure the material presented stems from personal experience as well as general knowledge, and I’d sure like to download it when it gets available. It would also be very interesting and educating ( I believe for both of us ) to work together, but there’s no way I’m going to Belgium : )

Finally, we had ‘The clustering architecture of JBoss’ again by Mr Andreadis and again an excellent and thought-provoking presentation. I’ve never needed to really use JBoss, but I’m downloading it right now to witness its clustering capabilities. And I know that TAPESTRY is a really cluster-friendly web framework.

All in all, it was a nice Saturday morning. I hope there’ll be more of this, and perhaps I can arrange to present TAPESTRY as well as some AJAX magic there…