Hot deploy on JBoss - how do I make JBoss “see” the change?

Question

I am developing a Java EE application that I deploy over and over again on a local JBoss installation during development. I want to speed up the build by hot deploying my ap

Answer 1

Deploy the app as exploded (project.war folder), add in your web.xml:

<web-app>
    <context-param>
        <param-name>org.jboss.weld.development</param-name>
        <param-value>true</param-value>
    </context-param>

Update the web.xml time every-time you deploy (append blank line):

set PRJ_HOME=C:\Temp2\MyProject\src\main\webapp
set PRJ_CLSS_HOME=%PRJ_HOME%\WEB-INF\classes\com\myProject

set JBOSS_HOME= C:\Java\jboss-4.2.3.GA-jdk6\server\default\deploy\MyProject.war
set JBOSS_CLSS_HOME= %JBOSS_HOME%\WEB-INF\classes\com\myProject

copy %PRJ_CLSS_HOME%\frontend\actions\profile\ProfileAction.class %JBOSS_CLSS_HOME%\frontend\actions\profile\ProfileAction.class
copy %PRJ_CLSS_HOME%\frontend\actions\profile\AjaxAction.class %JBOSS_CLSS_HOME%\frontend\actions\profile\AjaxAction.class

ECHO.>>%JBOSS_HOME%\WEB-INF\web.xml

Answer 2

Use Ant script and make target deploy.

The deploy target should:

1. Stop JBoss
2. Copy the ear or war to the deploy directory
3. Start JBoss

==> No caching + also no out of memory issues after subsequent deploys during testing.

Answer 3

I've been developing a project with Eclipse and Wildfly and the exploded EAR file was getting big due to deploying of all the 3rd party libraries I needed in the application. I was pointing the deployment to my Maven repository which I guess was recopying the jars each time. So redeploying the application when ever I changed Java code in the service layer was turning into a nightmare.

Then having turned to Hotswap agent this helped a lot as far as seeing changes to EJB code without redeploying the application.

However I have recently upgraded to Wildfly 10, Java 8 and JBoss Developer Studio 10 and during that process I took the time to move all my 3rd party application jars e.g. primefaces into Wildfly modules and I removed my Maven repo from my deployment config. Now redeploying the entire application which is a pretty big one via Eclipse takes just a few seconds and it is much much faster than before. I don't even feel the need to install Hotswap and don't want to risk it anyway right now.

So if you are building under Eclipse with Wildfly then keep you application clear of 3rd party libs using Wildfly Modules and you'll be much better off.

Answer 4

Actually my problem was that the command line mvn utility wouldn't see the changes for some reason. I turned on the Auto-deploy in the Deployment Scanner and there was still no difference. HOWEVER... I was twiddling around with the Eclipse environment and because I had added a JBoss server for it's Servers window I discovered I had the ability to "Add or Remove..." modules in my workspace. Once the project was added whenever I made a change to code the code change was detected by the Deployment Scanner and JBoss went thru the cycle of updating code!!! Works like a charm.

Here are the steps necessary to set this up;

First if you haven't done so add your JBoss Server to your Eclipse using File->New->Other->Server then go thru the motions of adding your JBoss AS 7 server. Being sure to locate the directory that you are using.

Once added, look down near the bottom of Eclipse to the "Servers" tab. You should see your JBoss server. Highlight it and look for "Add or Remove...". From there you should see your project.

Once added, make a small change to your code and watch JBoss go to town hot deploying for you.

Answer 5

This worked for me in Eclipse Mars with WildFly 11. Double-click on WildFly server under Servers to open the configuration page. In the Overview tab -> Publishing, choose "Automatically publish when resources change" and set the interval to 1. Next, Overview tab -> Application Reload Behavior, uncheck the use default pattern and set the pattern to \.jar$|\.class$. In the Deployment tab, uncheck Deploy project as compressed archives. Hope this helps.

Answer 6

In case you are working with the Eclipse IDE there is a free plugin Manik-Hotdeploy.

This plugin allows you to connect your eclipse workspace with your wildfly deployment folder. After a maven build your artifact (e.g. war or ear) will be automatically pushed into the deployment folder of your server. Also web content files (e.g. .xhtml .jsf ...) will be hot deployed.

The plugin runs for wildfly, glassfish and payara.

Read the section JBoss/Wildfly Support for more details.