Administering plugins

Deploying and administering plugins

Converting applications into plugins using the Administration Console

Installing a plugin

You can install a plugin into an existing server in different ways:

• GShell deploy/list-plugins command
• Geronimo administrative console
• Using maven and the geronimo-maven-plugin
  You can also install a plugin into a new server assembly using the car-maven-plugin.
  Note that in all cases the dependency system assure that if you install a plugin, everything needed to run the plugin will also be installed. For instance if you install a Java EE application plugin such as one of the samples into the framework server, openejb, openjpa, the transaction manager and connector framework and the appropriate web container will also be installed as dependencies.

Creating a plugin

• You can create a plugin as part of a maven build using the car-maven-plugin.
• You can create a plugin "virtually" by installing a deployed application from a running geronimo server acting as a plugin repository.
• You can create a plugin using the Geronimo administrative console to create or edit the plugin metadata.

Building,installing plugins and assembling a server from an exsiting server

More details about this topic, please see Buidling,installing plugins and assembling a server from an exsiting server

Assembling a server using maven.

The easiest way to assemble a server is to use maven and the car-maven-plugin. The dependencies from your pom will be installed in your server, and if they are plugins they will be installed as modules with all dependencies and stuff unpacked and metadata installed into the correct files. Here's a simple example assembling a server that supports Roller and includes the basic admin console.

Upgrading jars and plugins to a new version

Updating a plugin

At times, you may need to upgrade a plugin or jar version, for instance if a new version of a dependency is released but you cannot rerelease all the artifacts that depend on it. Here are some methods to upgrade jar versions.

Simple jar upgrade

If the jar is to be installed as part of a plugin installation, see the section below. Otherwise, follow these steps. First, if the server is running, stop the server. Second, copy the new jar into the appropriate directory in your geronimo server's repository. For instance:

mkdir -p repository/org/foo/myjar/1.1/
cp ~/newFooJar/myjar-1.1.jar repository/org/foo/myjar/1.1/

Alternatively, the admin console portlet Services->Repository can be used to add artifacts to the server's repository.

Finally, after the new jar is installed in the server's repository, add a line to var/config/artifact_aliases.properties (or the equivalent file, if the server is using a non-standard alias file). For instance, to replace myjar-1.0.jar with myjar-1.1.jar:

org.foo/myjar/1.0/jar=org.foo/myjar/1.1/jar

With this configuration, the server will substitute myjar-1.1.jar for any myjar-1.0.jar dependency.

Upgrading a jar while releasing a plugin

If the jar is installed as part of a plugin installation, you can include configuration upgrade information in the geronimo-plugin.xml. During plugin installation, the upgraded jar will be automatically installed. This is easiest to specify in the car-maven-config configuration in the pom.xml, prior to building the plugin.

<artifact-alias key="org.foo/myjar/1.0/jar">org.foo/myjar/1.1/jar</artifact-alias>