How can I deploy a resource-adapter activation in JBoss 7?

Question

I am trying to figure out how to deploy a resource-adapter activation in JBoss 7. Basically, I want to be able to package and deploy a full application without having to modify the base server configuration, in part because I want to bootstrap testing using Arquillian but also because I want to be able to deploy my packages into an environments where I may not have the option of modifying the base server's configuration.

Here's where I am right now. I have created an EAR which contains the active-mq rar (which is also configured in the application.xml). This ear by itself builds and deploys perfectly using the maven ear plugin and the jboss-as-maven-plugin.

However, in order to activate the rar, the only way I have been able to figure out is to hack the rar file itself and add an ironjacamar.xml into the rar's META-INF directory. But in order to do this, I had to hack the rar in my maven repo which I don't really want to do.

I tried to get maven to add the ironjacamar.xml during the packaging phase of my maven pom, but that's a bit of hack as well and I couldn't get it work anyways. (Note to self: check on Deployment Overlays)

I also thought about scripting the addition of a connection-factory using jboss-cli, but the docs clearly state that is for creating factories for the built in hornet-mq server which is not my target, and swapping the default JMS implementation in the server requires some major surgery on the server's config.

I looked though all the quickstart projects and observed all sorts of constructs being deployed though -jms.xml and -ds.xml files included in the package, but they're also specific to hornet-mq and JDBC respectively. (I was hoping the deployer might support a -rar.xml or the like).

The only other way I can think of, and I don't know if it is supported, is to define a subsystem deployment in my package. Is there such a thing ?

===== UPDATE =====

I tried adding a cli overlay update (as I would using the maven jboss as plugin) but it had no effect.

deployment-overlay add --name=rarActivation  --content=META-INF/ironjacamar.xml=\..\container\src\main\resources\ironjacamar.xml --deployments=activemq-rar.rar --redeploy-affected

Answer 1

Well, in the absence of any other answers, this is the solution I came up with. It's a bit of a hack, but it has worked flawlessly with Active MQ and WebSphere MQ. The premise is that I deploy 2 different RARs per JMS system I want to connect to. One is the untouched xxx.rar file I retrieve from the Maven repository. The second is my "configuration RAR" which contains a copy of the ra.xml from the original rar, and then an ironjacamar.xml configuration file. Both of those are placed in the config rar's META-INF folder.

For each given vendor RAR, the ironjacamar.xml file can be generated using rar-info.sh which is included in the Iron Jacamar 1.1 download. The procedure is described in the section titled 10.1. Resource adapter information tool int the user guide.

Using ActiveMQ 5.8.0 as an example:

The generated ironjacamar.xml is extracted from the full output of the rar-info.sh output. Within the file, it is titled:

Deployment Descriptor:
----------------------

The extracted part of the file that will become ironjacamar.xml starts after that header and ends with </resource-adapters>.

The following edits should be applied:

1. Remove the opening <resource-adapters> and <resource-adapter> tags and replace with an <ironjacamar.xml> opening tag.
2. Remove the opening <archive> tag.
3. Remove the closing </resource-adapter> and </resource-adapters> tags and replace with an </ironjacamar.xml> closing tag.

There are sample definitions for connection factories for each type of connection (Connection, Queue and Topic) which include a JNDI name where JBoss will bind the factories to. Edit these as you see fit. I only needed the Connection factory so I edited the JNDI name and deleted the other two definitions.

There are sample definitions for destination references (which are almost un-necessary with ActiveMQ, but it's helpful for others). One for a queue, one for a topic. Edit these as you see fit.

The maven dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.activemq</groupId>
  <artifactId>activemq-rar</artifactId>
  <version>5.8.0</version>
  <type>rar</type>
</dependency>

The deployable EAR looks like this:

sample.ear
    META-INF
        application.xml
    activemq-rar.rar  (file)
    activemq-config.rar  (directory)
        ra.xml   (extracted from activemq-rar.rar or generated)
        ironjacamar.xml  (generated, then edited)

Actually, the ra.xml can be extracted from the "real" rar, but it is also generated in the IronJacamar rar-info.sh output file, so take it from either.

The application.ear then looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<application xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/application_6.xsd" version="6">
  <display-name>JBoss7Sample Ear</display-name>
  <!--   Sample for WebSphereMQ
  <module><connector>wmq.jmsra.rar</connector></module>
  <module><connector>wmq-config.rar</connector></module>
  -->
  <module><connector>activemq-rar.rar</connector></module>
  <module><connector>amq-config.rar</connector></module>  
</application>

To re-emphasize, this (actually quite simple) work around is important to me because any deployment procedure that starts with "Edit the server file called..... or "In the management console....." is a non-starter in the environment I am targeting. I need to assume no access to a vanilla JBoss 7 (EAP 6.1) internal directories, nor access to the console, as one might deploy at the end of a Jenkins build or the like.. (Not to mention which, editing files to add a deployment is a non-starter all by itself).

This workaround and others can be viewed in more detail in this github project which was setup specifically to share some working configurations which I have found are otherwise fairly difficult to come by.

P.S. Since this is the only offered answer, I am awarding the correct answer to myself, but I'll give it up for a better answer.