Administration Guide

The target audience of this guide is the JOnAS server administrator.

JOnAS provides two tools to perform some administration tasks on a running JOnAS Server.
These tools allow to administrate several JOnAS Servers.
Each JOnAS Server is identified by its name (given by the value of the -n option used in the jonas start command, the default name being jonas).

The provided administration tools are:

Moreover, since the MX4J open source JMX implementation was integrated in JOnAS, the server administrator can also used the MC4J generic administration console.

jonas admin

jonas admin is described in the JOnAS Commands chapter.

JonasAdmin

This chapter provides information for installing, configuring and using the JonasAdmin administration console.

JonasAdmin is the new administration tool for JOnAS and replaces the deprecated Jadmin tool.

JonasAdmin was developed using the Struts framework ; it uses standard technologies like Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages. JonasAdmin is more ergonomic than Jadmin and provides integrated administration facilities for a Tomcat server running embedded in JOnAS.

How to install JonasAdmin ?

Designed as a web application, JonasAdmin is packed in a WAR and installed under the JONAS_ROOT/webapps/autoload/ directory. You may install this WAR in JONAS_BASE/webapps/autoload in case you have defined JONAS_BASE variable in your environment. When having installed the JonasAdmin WAR in the autoload directory, the application is deployed when starting the JOnAS server, so the administration console is automatically accessible.

As any web application, JonasAdmin requires a servlet server to be installed. Also, it is required that the JOnAS server running JonasAdmin has the web service present in the list of services defined in jonas.properties configuration file.

When accessing JonasAdmin, the administrator must identify and authenticate himself.
The jonas-realm.xml configuration file contains a memory realm definition named memrlm_1, which is referenced in both server.xml and jetty.xml configuration files. You can modify here the default user name (jonas or jadmin) and password (jonas) corresponding to the admin role.

How to use JonasAdmin ?

Once started, JonasAdmin can administrate the JOnAS server within which is running, and also other JOnAS servers sharing the same registry with it. Typically, this can be used to administrate JOnAS servers running without the WEB container service.
Note that the administered JOnAS servers may be running on the same or on different hosts. Also, if Tomcat is used as WEB container service implementation, you can use JonasAdmin to administer it.

Run JonasAdmin

Be sure the web service is listed in the jonas.services property in the jonas.properties configuration file. Depending on the Servlet container you want to use, you must have set CATALINA_HOME (for Tomcat4.1.x) or JETTY_HOME environment variable. We noticed that when running the Servlet container on top of Unix, the DISPLAY environment variable must be set in order to use the JOnAS server monitoring feature of JonasAdmin.

Once you have launched JOnAS, load JonasAdmin if it was not installed in the autoload directory. The administration console is accessible at the URL: http://<hostname>:<portnumber>/jonasAdmin/ on your favorite web browser.

<hostname> is the name of the host where the Servlet container is running and <portnumber> is the http port number (default is 8080).

After the log-in step, the right frame in the Welcome page presents the management tree associated to the JOnAS server running the administration application. Let's consider its name is jonas. If other servers sharing the same registry with jonas are running, you can use the selector in the upper frame to administer one of them.

If you click on the Server JOnAS node, you get the following page:

JonasAdmin

The above presented management tree allows access to the main management facilities.

The console also allows browsing of MBeans registered in the MBean server associated to the currently managed JOnAS server.

Server management

Additionally to general information about the administered JOnAS server, the included JMX server and WEB server, you can list the content of the Registry.

Server monitoring

Presents memory usage and a thread count for the threads created by JOnAS. Other monitoring information concerning services or resources are presented when managing each of them.

Logging management

Allows administrator to configure the JOnAS Logging system, and in case Tomcat is used as WEB service implementation, it also allows creation of HTTP access loggers.

Communication protocols management

This management facility is relevant to integration of Tomcat management in JonasAdmin.
It currently presents connectors defined in the Tomcat configuration and allows for the creation of new HTTP, HTTPS or AJP connectors.
Note that the Protocols sub-tree is not presented if Jetty is used as the WEB service implementation.

Active services presentation and configuration

All the active services have a corresponding sub-tree in the Services tree.

Managing the several container services consists in presenting information about the components deployed in these containers. New components can be deployed using the dynamic deployment facilities presented in the next section. However, in the case of a WEB components (WAR package) to be deployed in a Tomcat server, it may be necessary to create a new context for it before the deployment step, if a customized context is required by the component. This operation is allowed by the New web application button.

Similarly, the services allowing to manage the different kind of resources (DataSources, Resource Adapters, Jms and Mail resources), present information about the resources being deployed. Also, deployed resources (DataSources or MailFactories) may be reconfigured and their new configuration made persistent using a Save button.

The transaction service management allows (possible persistent) reconfiguration and presents monitoring information about transactions managed by JOnAS.

Dynamic deployment with JonasAdmin

A very useful management operation is the possibility to load stand alone J2EE components (JAR, WAR, RAR packages) or J2EE applications (EAR packages) using the Deployments sub-tree in the JonasAdmin console.
Administrator's task is facilitated by the presentation of the list of deployable modules, the list of deployed modules and the possibility to transfer modules from one list to another. The deployable modules are the ones installed in directories specific to their type. For example, the deployable JARs are un-deployed JARs installed in JONAS_BASE/ejbjars/ or in a JONAS_BASE/ejbjars/autoload/ directory.

Resources management

The Resources sub-tree allows for loading or creating new resources managed by the active services. For example, if the JMS service is running, the JMS sub-tree in Resources presents the existent JMS destinations (Topics and Queues) with the possibility to remove unused destinations and allows the creation of new JMS destinations.
Adding or removing resources implies the corresponding service reconfiguration. If this new configuration is saved using the Save button, the JOnAS configuration file is updated. If we consider again the JMS service example, the removed topics are deleted from the list assigned to the jonas.service.jms.topics property, and the newly created topics are added to this list.

Security management

The Security sub-tree allows presentation of existent security realms and the creation of new realms of different kinds: memory, datasource and ldap realms.

Note concerning persistent reconfiguration facilities

It is important to note that JOnAS and Tomcat have different approaches concerning reconfiguration persistency. In JOnAS, every Save operation is related to a service or a resource reconfiguration. For example, the administrator may reconfigure a service and a resource but choose to save only the new resource configuration.
In Tomcat, the Save operation is global to all the configuration changes that have been done. For example, if a new HTTP connector was reconfigured and a new context created for a web application, both configuration changes are saved if using the Save button.