Tools

WildFly Swarm on Oracle Application Container Cloud

UPDATED!

In this blog post, I will describe how to deploy the CloudEE Duke application packaged in a WildFly Swarm über-jar to Oracle Application Container Cloud.

Über-jar approach

The deployment artifact required for deployment in Oracle Application Container Cloud is a ZIP archive containing the application über-jar and a manifest file (manifest.json). The WildFly Swarm version of the manifest.json for CloudEE Duke is listed below.

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -Dswarm.http.port=$PORT -Dswarm.bind.address=$HOSTNAME -jar cloudee-duke-swarm.jar",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Swarm"
}

You need to specify the port and host for WildFly Swarm in the startup command. This is done by using the $PORT and $HOSTNAME environment variables.

The über-jar is produced by using the WildFly Swarm Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${version.wildfly.swarm}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>package</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Hollow-jar approach

It is also possible to package the CloudEE Duke application as a hollow-jar using the WildFly Swarm Maven Plugin:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${version.wildfly.swarm}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>package</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
    <configuration>
        <hollow>true</hollow> <!-- Tells the plugin to produce a hollow-jar rather than a über-jar -->
    </configuration>
</plugin>

The command configuration in the manifest.json needs to be updated accordingly:

{
    "runtime": {
        "majorVersion": "8"
    },
    "command": "java -Dswarm.http.port=$PORT -Dswarm.bind.address=$HOSTNAME -jar cloudee-duke-hollow-swarm.jar cloudee-duke.war",
    "release": {
        "version": "1.0",
        "build": "1",
        "commit": "123"
    },
    "notes": "Dukes says hello from Swarm"
}

When using the hollow-jar approach, you will need to package both the hollow-jar and the application-war in the zip file together with the manifest.json file.

See the complete pom.xml for an example on how to produce the deployable ZIP archive with the maven command:

mvn clean package assembly:single -Pswarm

This will produce a file called cloudee-duke-oracle-swarm.zip  in the target folder. This is the ZIP archive you will deploy to Oracle Application Container Cloud as shown in the screenshot below.

When your application is deployed, you should be able to access the hello endpoint

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/hello
Duke says Hello!

You will also have the health and metrics endpoints provided by the MicroProfile implementation

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/health
{
outcome: “UP”,
checks: [ ]
}

https://<dependsonyouraccount>.oraclecloud.com/metrics
# HELP base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count Displays the total number of classes that have been loaded since the Java virtual machine has started execution.
# TYPE base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count counter
base:classloader_total_loaded_class_count 14170.0
…

Flying High with Oracle Cloud

I recently joined the Oracle Developer Champion Program, and one of the benefits is that I get free credits to try out the various services offered by Oracle Cloud. As you see in the picture below, the credits just poured down on me yesterday 🙂

Will this hurt my reputation of being unbiased and vendor neutral when I talk about technologies?

Well, I certainly hope not! In that case, it should probably have gone long time ago since I already get free credits from other vendors, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, and more. The way I see it, is that it is an excellent opportunity to try out the different solutions and give them a fair comparison.

Stay tuned for more…

 

MVC 1.0 Generator

The JPA Modeler plugin for NetBeans provides visual support for creating, designing and editing entity relationship models. It also provides Java code generation and new for version 1.5.5 is that it provides support for generating MVC 1.0 applications.

Check out MVC 1.0 Generator Tutorial to see how it works.

JSP

Kudos to Gaurav Gupta (@jGauravGupta) for this awesome tool! Another proof that NetBeans is the IDE for developing Java EE applications!

Follow @jpamodeler on Twitter!

NetBeans Dream Team

It is great to start 2016 with the announcement that I have been included in the NetBeans Dream Team!

I always try to be as objective and unbiased as possible when writing and talking about tools and technologies, but I guess it has been pretty obvious that NetBeans is my favorite IDE and in my opinion the best IDE for Java EE development. Being a member of the Dream Team will enable me to contribute even more to make this great tool even greater.

More information about the NetBeans Dream Team can be found on the wiki.

Snoop becomes SnoopEE [ˈsnuːpı]

SnoopEE [ˈsnuːpı] – The lean and simple discovery mechanism for Java EE based microservices.

What’s in a name, really?

Naming is hard! When I came up with the name Snoop for my discovery mechanism for microservices based on Java EE, my though was to associate the name with “snooping around for services to discover”. It seems, however, that most people’s thought goes to Snoop Dogg when hearing the name and that was never my intention.

That is one of the reasons for the renaming. Another consideration is that I want to point out that the best fit for SnoopEE is for Java EE!

At the same time I don’t want to signal that it is only for Java EE. I want it to be just as lean and simple no matter what technology used to implement the services. That is the only reason why I have been a little reluctant to the renaming.

SnoopEE has a nicer feel and as the twitter poll indicates, I am not alone thinking this.

For the record, I have nothing at all against Snoop Dogg! I just feel that Snoopy the dog is a little bit cuter…

I have crated a new page for SnoopEE, but as for everyhing else, such as GitHub repo, maven coordinates and naming, it all stays as it is until properly announced otherwise.

Cool Security Feature in MVC 1.0

If you are developing web applications, sooner or later you will come across something called Cross Site Request Forgery. The most common way to prevent CSRF attacks is by embedding additional, difficult-to-guess data fields, or tokens, in requests containing sensitive data.

Support for CSRF protection has been added to the MVC 1.0 specification. It goes like this:

First, enable CSRF Protection in your application configuration by setting the javax.mvc.security.CsrfProtection to either CsrfOptions.EXPLICIT or CsrfOptions.IMPLICIT.

@ApplicationPath("mvc")
public class MyApplication extends Application {

    @Override
    public Map<String, Object> getProperties() {
        final Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
       
        // explicit CSRF Protection
        map.put(Csrf.CSRF_PROTECTION, Csrf.CsrfOptions.EXPLICIT);
        return map;
    }
}

Then add the CSRF token to your forms. The Csrf object is available in Expression Language as mvc.csrf .

<form name="form" action="" method="post">
   ...
   <input type="hidden" name="${mvc.csrf.name}" value="${mvc.csrf.token}"/>
</form>

If CsrfOptions.IMPLICIT is used, you’re done. All controller methods annotated with @POST and that consumes the media type x-www-form-urlencoded will be automatically checked for a valid CSRF token.

If CsrfOptions.EXPLICIT is used, then the  @CsrfValid annotation must be added exlicitly to the methods you want the CSRF token to be validated.

@CsrfValid
@POST
@Path("new")
public Response createReservation(@BeanParam FormBean form) {
   // your controller implementation
}

And that’s all you need!

Meet Snoop @ JavaOne

JavaOne in San Francisco is less than a month away. If you have not registered yet, do so now!

j1-468x60-2590159

So far so good! Then you will need to add sessions you want to attend to to your personal schedule. Make sure you don’t wait until the last moment. The most popular sessions tend to fill up pretty fast.

My presentation Meet Snoop – a Discovery Service for Java EE may be can be found in the Schedule Builder by searching for CON1615. Add it to your schedule so that you are sure to get a seat. It may fill up…

Help Wanted – Logo for Snoop

Are you in possession of artistic and/or creative skills and want to contribute to an Open Source project?

Snoop is an open source service registry and discovery mechanism for Java EE based microservices that is in desperate need of a logo.

Have a look at https://github.com/ivargrimstad/snoop/issues/13 and see if you can help.

Check out Snoop@GitHub for more information about Snoop.

Snoop in Swarm

If you want to run a Snoop enabled microservice in WildFly Swarm, you will need to add some more dependencies to get it to work. This is because Snoop relies on being run in a Java EE 7 compliant application server. And you will need to tell Swarm what parts you need to be able to run it.

In addition to the Swarm modules your microservice depend on, you will also need to add the following dependencies that Snoop requires:

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>eu.agilejava</groupId>
    <artifactId>snoop</artifactId>
    <version>1.3.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.json</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.4</version>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-jaxrs</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0.Alpha4</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
  </dependency>      
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-ejb</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0.Alpha4</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
  </dependency>      
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
    <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-weld</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0.Alpha4</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
  </dependency>      
</dependencies>

The build section may be just as any swarm application:

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.wildfly.swarm</groupId>
      <artifactId>wildfly-swarm-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>1.0.0.Alpha4</version>
      <executions>
        <execution>
          <goals>
            <goal>package</goal>
          </goals>
        </execution>
      </executions>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

Doing this will enable you to run your application as a JAR:

java -jar myservice-swarm.jar

A more complete example can be found here:

https://github.com/ivargrimstad/snoop/tree/master/snoop-examples/snoop-swarm

Snoop 1.0.0 Released

Snoop..what…?

An explanation may be in order. Snoop is an experimental open source discovery service for Java EE that I created as a demo for my presentation at JavaLand earlier this year. After that I have developed it a little further and now I deem it good enough to be showcased more publicly.

The artifacts are published in Maven Central and has the following coordinates:

<dependency>
   <groupId>eu.agilejava</groupId>
   <artifactId>snoop</artifactId>
   <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
   <groupId>eu.agilejava</groupId>
   <artifactId>snoop-client</artifactId>
   <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

The Snoop Service is also available in Maven Central and for convenience available as a Docker image.

$ docker run -it -p 8081:8080 ivargrimstad/snoop-service:1.0.0

The GitHub project contains the source code as well as more documentation.

https://github.com/ivargrimstad/snoop