Packaging your update center module

Once you've created a GlassFish Update center installer.jar, you would want to package it in the format that update center tool would like. Here is how your update center jar should look like.

File system layout for downloadable module file (equivalent of NetBeans NBM file) will be jar archive file with following structure:

         module_xx.jar
                |   
                +- info
                |   |
                |   +- info.xml
                |
                +- module
                      |
                      |
                      +- locale (optional, for localized packages)
                           |
                           |
                           +-installer_xx.jar or installer_xx.zip

installer_xx.jar can be addon component installer or configurator jar file as specified in Addon installer and configurator plug-in imported interfaces.

The DTD for info.xml is here.

Posted at 03:47PM Jun 15, 2007 by Manveen Kaur in Web 2.0  |  Comments[0]

Creating your own update center addon module

To try GlassFish Update Center, install GlassFish V2 (screencast). Then go to install-root/glassfish/updatecenter/bin and invoke updatetool (or updatetool.bat). You'll see a list of addon modules available for installation.

But what's an addon?

An addon is a companion product or runtime component installed on top of Sun Java System Application Server.

Right, but how do you create such a module?

To start with, you need to implement an com.sun.appserv.addons.Installer interface. You may also need a com.sun.appserv.addons.Configurator interface implementation.

What's the difference between and installer and a configurator plugin?

If addon requires installation of shared files which are not specific to a particular application server domain, installation and initial configuration of such files must be handled by installer plugin. The installer plugin has read-write access to installation root directory (INSTALL_ROOT) of the appserver. Installer plugin is invoked either at the end of appserver installation or when the CLI command asadmin install-addon addon_name_installer.jar is executed.
The configurator plugin should assume read-only access to INSTALL_ROOT and read-write access to root directory of the domain (DOMAIN_DIR). The configurator will be invoked once, prior to starting application server domain. The configurator will access application server configuration files like DOMAIN_DIR/config/domain.xml, DOMAIN_DIR/config/server.policy etc. and make necessary changes.

Where can I get the installer plugin API?

How do I package the installer plugin?

addon_name_installer.jar
        |- META-INF/services/com.sun.appserv.addons.Installer
        |- InstallerImpl.class (implements Installer)
        |- InstallerUtil.class
        |- InstallerMore.class
        |- addon_name_configurator_01_01_00.jar
           |- META-INF/services/com.sun.appserv.addons.Configurator
           |- ConfiguratorImpl.class (implements Configurator)
           |- Another.class
           |- More.class
           |- Util.class 

How do I invoke and test the installer plugin?

Installer plugin is invoked either at the end of appserver installation or when the CLI command

asadmin install-addon addon_name_installer.jar 

Posted at 03:28PM Jun 15, 2007 by Manveen Kaur in Web 2.0  |  Comments[0]