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JNDI in Tomcat unavailable in Alfresco

rdanner

Just thought this might be important to some of you.

Due to the packaging of the naming-*jar files in the Alfresco war file it is not possible to get the java:comp/env context.

If you remove these jars things work as they would typically with Tomcat. Note – other things may break. I have discussed it with a few folks and the impact of removing these jars is that LDAP related functionality will break. I have not confirmed this.

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vijay_alfresco

Today I have configured Alfresco 2.1 (Tomcat Version) using JNDI Datasource. The procedure is simple as follows and uses mysql database

1. Update $TOMAT_HOME$\server.xml with the following within

<GlobalNamingResources>
<Resource name="jdbc/alf_global" auth="Container" scope="Shareable"
                 type="javax.sql.DataSource"
       maxActive="100" maxIdle="30" maxWait="10000"
       username="alfresco" password="alfresco"
                 driverClassName="org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver"
       url="jdbc:mysql:///alfresco"/>
…………………………………………………………
<\GlobalNamingResources>

2. Update $TOMCAT_HOME$\context.xml with the following

<Context path="/alfresco" docBase="alfresco"
         debug="5" reloadable="true" crossContext="true">

    <!– Default set of monitored resources –>
    <WatchedResource>WEB-INF/web.xml</WatchedResource>

    <!– Uncomment this to disable session persistence across Tomcat
    restarts –>
    <!–
    <Manager pathname="" />
    –>

    <!– Uncomment this to enable Comet connection tacking (provides
     events on session expiration as well as webapp lifecycle) –>
    <!–
    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.CometConnectionManagerValve" />
    –>

   <ResourceLink name="jdbc/alfresco" global="jdbc/alf_global" type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
</Context>

3. Update $TOMCAT_HOME$\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\web.xml at the end with the following

<resource-ref>
      <description>DB Connection</description>
      <res-ref-name>jdbc/alfresco</res-ref-name>
      <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
      <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

4. Update $TOMCAT_HOME$\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\core-services-context.xml
with the following

    <!– Datasource bean –>
    <!–<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close">
        <property name="driverClassName">
            <value>${db.driver}</value>
        </property>
        <property name="url">
            <value>${db.url}</value>
        </property>
        <property name="username">
            <value>${db.username}</value>
        </property>
        <property name="password">
            <value>${db.password}</value>
        </property>
        <property name="initialSize" >
            <value>${db.pool.initial}</value>
        </property>
        <property name="maxActive" >
            <value>${db.pool.max}</value>
        </property>
        <property name="defaultAutoCommit" >
            <value>false</value>
        </property>
    </bean>–>

   <bean id="dataSource" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">
      <property name="jndiName" value="java:comp/env/jdbc/alfresco"/>
   </bean>
Actually you are commenting the BasicDataSource and adding JndiObjectFactoryBean

5. Remove naming-factory.jar and naming-resources.jar from the
   lib $TOMCAT_HOME$\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\lib
these 2 jar files are causing problems when initiating java:comp initial context. These jars are used to connect to a remote resource like LDAP..
etc. I have seen many posts having problems with java:comp context,
I think these are due these jar files, please clarify me.

6. Now run your alfresco…

Please update me your experiences

Thanks,
Vijay

bangu

Just thought this might be important to some of you.

Due to the packaging of the naming-*jar files in the Alfresco war file it is not possible to get the java:comp/env context.

If you remove these jars things work as they would typically with Tomcat. Note – other things may break. I have discussed it with a few folks and the impact of removing these jars is that LDAP related functionality will break. I have not confirmed this.

hema

Hi Russ,

I see that the links on Jira #1131 are not accessible anymore.
Is there a way to get JNDI patch.
I am currently using alfresco 2.0 as 2.1 version of email listener is still not out. And I see from forums that JNDI works fine on 2.0.

Can you please let me know how to get the alfresco-jcr-jndi-v5.zip.

Thanks very much,
Hema

rdanner

Hi Russ,

I see that the links on Jira #1131 are not accessible anymore.
Is there a way to get JNDI patch.
I am currently using alfresco 2.0 as 2.1 version of email listener is still not out. And I see from forums that JNDI works fine on 2.0.

Can you please let me know how to get the alfresco-jcr-jndi-v5.zip.

Thanks very much,
Hema

Hema are you looking to make JNDI work or are you looking to get JCR or both?

JNDI works when you remove the apache naming jars from Alfresco but I caution you, LDAP functionality may break

If you are looking to push JCR in to JNDI and then pick it up with another application:

I think i can put this code up in the JCR-RMI area: If you are thinking about this here are some thoughts:

- You need to remove the JCR api from alfresco and put it in the shared classloader (you need to establish the JCR api as common to both apps)
- You need spring to push the JCR implementation up in to JNDI

I like the reference to the JCR repository to be a Proxy because I want some JCR implementation available even if alfresco has not started. If you are going to take this approach you need to consider that the consumer application may start before alfresco. We have this scenario which means we also need a small component that manages initialization of the server.

If you are using JBOSS you can use the MBeans management capability to manage start up order dependency. If you are using tomcat you can probably do the same thing but I've haven't tried it with the JMX components.

hema

If you are looking to push JCR in to JNDI and then pick it up with another application:

I think i can put this code up in the JCR-RMI area: If you are thinking about this here are some thoughts:

- You need to remove the JCR api from alfresco and put it in the shared classloader (you need to establish the JCR api as common to both apps)
- You need spring to push the JCR implementation up in to JNDI

Thanks Russ for a very fast reply.

Yes, you are absolutely right. I want to use JNDI for remote access from my custom- application. I use only JCR api in my application. And hence I would need both JCR and JNDI.

My application does not do all the administration functions on the repo. Since Alfresco Web client does a very good job on this, I would love to keep that. But for some of our custom operations on the repository, we use our application. So both need to be running at the same time.
I am able to acheive this scenario with JCR-RMI extension, but we are having some problems with multi threads so, thought JNDI must be a good option.

About the proxy, I guess that's a real good thought, I would try that once my JCR - JNDI is up and running

(just for ref: I use Apache Tomcat 5.5)

So if you could put up the code on the given site and just give me some pointers as to how to proceed, that would be really great.

Thanks again very much for your time,
Hema

rdanner

Dinner is served

This is the package I had in my source tree and it's the last one I uploaded to issues.alfresco.com

If you have any issues let me know.

It contains a readme on how to use it.

Best,

http://forge.alfresco.com/frs/download.php/295/alfresco-jcr-jndi-v5.zip

hema

Russ,
Thank you very much.
I will try that out and write to you about the outcome once I am done.

Thanks again,
Hema

hema

Thanks Russ,
I could successfully run the Test Application without any problems.

But, Now I have an issue based on my requirement.
My program is not a web application. I have to talk to the repository even though the web client is running. So I need the context.
(Previously I used rmi to get an instance of repository. Now I want to use jndi to get an instance of the repository)

I just tried to use the JndiJcrObjectFactory's getObjectInstance to get an instance of repository but could not pass the right parameters.

Is there a way to talk to the jcr repository using jndi from a local application (not web application) when already a instance of alfresco (web-client) is running.

Thank you very much,
Hema

hema

Hi Russ,

Hope you will able to help me with this.
I used the steps from lookupJndiJcr from test-tomcat.jsp to get my initial context.

After getting the environment right(with difficulty

), I could get my InitialContext. But now I am facing problems with java:comp. I get the following error:
javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: Name java:comp is not bound in this Context

I am trying to google around to find some solution. but no success.
I see that naming -*.jars could be a problem but I cannot remove them from my application because the property java.naming.factory.initial needs org.apache.naming.java.javaURLContextFactory which is in naming-factory.jar

So please advice how I can go about.

Thanks very much again,
Hema

hema

I am still stuck with that.
Is it really possible to use JNDI to look up for JCR Repository(alfresco) from a standalone program?

Any comments will help.

Thanks again,
Hema

vijay_alfresco

Hi Hima,

Just follow this wiki

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Install_Extension_without_a_Compile_-_Plugin‍

I could run standalone with these instructions

for the context and root node, just follow the jcrRmiTest.jsp.

Thanks,
Vijay

hema

Hi Vijay,

Thanks for your reply.
I did try out RMI extension and it works. But I am having performance issues with this approach. I am unable to have multiple threads.
So I wanted to go JNDI route. Do you have any advice.

Thanks again,
Hema

rdanner

Hi Vijay,

Thanks for your reply.
I did try out RMI extension and it works. But I am having performance issues with this approach. I am unable to have multiple threads.
So I wanted to go JNDI route. Do you have any advice.

Thanks again,
Hema

The multiple thread issue has been taken care of by Lenard Fuller with thread pool. The downside of the solution is that the system is not very scalable. We've long since abandoned our use of JCR/RMI where I work.

JNDI/JCR is pretty easy to set up. The biggest issue I have found is that the apache naming jars are included in the alfresco package and that clobbers JNDI in tomcat (go figure …. I lost some hair before I figured that one out)

How far along are you? how can we help?

hema

Thanks Russ.

JCR-RMI was pretty straight forward and very easy to setup. But unfortunately we could not make it scale in our application. Hence looking for other routes.

Scenario:
I have alfresco(web-client) running on tomcat. And I am trying to use my local application to probe the alfresco repo to get results(search, list,..)
What I need:
I need a the context to the running repository.

What I did :
private static Repository getRepository() {
       Object vRetComponent = null;
        Context vNamingContext = null;

        try {
            /*
             * Retrieve Repository */
             vNamingContext = new InitialContext();
             System.out.println("after context");
             vNamingContext = (Context)vNamingContext.lookup("java:comp/env");
             vRetComponent = vNamingContext.lookup("jcr/baseRepository");
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println("A Repository Exception occurred " + e);
        }
        return (Repository)vRetComponent;
}

my jndi.properties:
java.naming.factory.initial = org.apache.naming.java.javaURLContextFactory
java.naming.factory.url.pkgs = org.apache.naming
java.naming.provider.url = http://<mylocalIP>:1099

Result:
NameNotFoundException: java:comp not bound by the context

I think I am missing something here. I have added the Resource to server.xml under <tomcat_home> . But I don't know where to put the ResourceLink . I have removed the naming-*.jars from alfresco/WEB-INF/lib .
I don't know how to make my application and alfresco web application share the resource,lib and context.

Can you please help on this.

Thanks a lot again.
Hema

rdanner

Thanks Russ.

JCR-RMI was pretty straight forward and very easy to setup. But unfortunately we could not make it scale in our application. Hence looking for other routes.

Scenario:
I have alfresco(web-client) running on tomcat. And I am trying to use my local application to probe the alfresco repo to get results(search, list,..)
What I need:
I need a the context to the running repository.

What I did :
private static Repository getRepository() {
       Object vRetComponent = null;
        Context vNamingContext = null;

        try {
            /*
             * Retrieve Repository */
             vNamingContext = new InitialContext();
             System.out.println("after context");
             vNamingContext = (Context)vNamingContext.lookup("java:comp/env");
             vRetComponent = vNamingContext.lookup("jcr/baseRepository");
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println("A Repository Exception occurred " + e);
        }
        return (Repository)vRetComponent;
}

my jndi.properties:
java.naming.factory.initial = org.apache.naming.java.javaURLContextFactory
java.naming.factory.url.pkgs = org.apache.naming
java.naming.provider.url = http://<mylocalIP>:1099

Result:
NameNotFoundException: java:comp not bound by the context

I think I am missing something here. I have added the Resource to server.xml under <tomcat_home> . But I don't know where to put the ResourceLink . I have removed the naming-*.jars from alfresco/WEB-INF/lib .
I don't know how to make my application and alfresco web application share the resource,lib and context.

Can you please help on this.

Thanks a lot again.
Hema

You need something to put JCR in to JNDI as well as something to get it out. We actually use three components per se

We have an Proxy that the server puts in JNDI when the server loads
For example this is our Server XML's global naming section

<GlobalNamingResources>

   <Resource name="initialization/initializaionService"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="xtendj.javax.service.init.InitializationService"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.init.jndi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory" />

   <Resource name="scheduling/scheduler"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.scheduler.Scheduler"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.scheduler.Scheduler"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />

   <Resource name="servlet/servletPipeline"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.pipeline.servlet.ServletProcessorChain"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.pipeline.servlet.ServletProcessorChain"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />

   <Resource name="jcr/baseRepository"
             scope="Shareable"
             auth="Container"
             type="javax.jcr.Repository"
             factory="org.alfresco.jcr.jndi.JndiJcrObjectFactory"
             jcrRepositoryName="baseAlfrescoRepository"
             proxyType="nonblocking"/>

   <Resource name="content/alfrescoAdapter"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.repository.content.RepositoryAdapter"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.repository.content.RepositoryAdapter"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />

   <Resource name="content/contentServices"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.repository.content.services.ContentRepositoryServices"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.repository.content.services.ContentRepositoryServices"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />

<Resource name="targeting/targeterDirectory"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.targeter.TargeterDirectory"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.targeter.TargeterDirectory"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />

    <Resource name="content/renderedContentProviderDirectory"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.content.provider.directory.RenderedContentProviderDirectory"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.content.provider.directory.RenderedContentProviderDirectory"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />

        <Resource name="content/rankingService"
              scope="Shareable"
              auth="Container"
              type="legoj.content.ranking.ContentRankingServices"
              factory="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.spi.ServiceNamingObjectFactory"
              serviceType="legoj.content.ranking.ContentRankingServices"
              proxyType="xtendj.javax.service.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiService" />




    <!– Test entry for demonstration purposes –>
    <Environment name="simpleValue" type="java.lang.Integer" value="30"/>

    <!– Editable user database that can also be used by
         UserDatabaseRealm to authenticate users –>
    <Resource name="UserDatabase" auth="Container"
              type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"
       description="User database that can be updated and saved"
           factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory"
          pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" />

  </GlobalNamingResources>
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There are probably two things that here you need to pay attention to. First is the JCR declaration and the second is the initialization component. The upside of running along side of Alfresco (in contrast of ontop of alfresco) is that upgrades to Alfresco are much more simple. Especially in the Pre-AMP era. The down side is that you need external configuration like this, and furthermore you need something to solve for a possible startup race condition where your app starts before Alfresco starts – but your application needs alfresco. We use a simple initialization service to solve this problem. The initialization service doesn't have deep knowledge of the applications… when an app or service implementation starts up one of the spring components that starts grabs the init service and tells it… call me back when the following names report they are started (names you configure in spring). When the component gets the call back it continues the start up of it's app or service.

The next component is the context XML. For simplicity we put our configuration in the server wide context.xml


   <ResourceLink global="initialization/initializaionService"
                  name="initialization/initializaionService"
                  type="xtendj.javax.service.init.InitializationService"/>
                  
    <ResourceLink global="jcr/baseRepository"
                  name="jcr/baseRepository"
                  type="javax.jcr.Repository"/>

   <ResourceLink global="content/alfrescoAdapter"
                  name="content/alfrescoAdapter"
                  type="legoj.repository.content.RepositoryAdapter"/>
                  
   <ResourceLink global="scheduling/scheduler"
                  name="scheduling/scheduler"
                  type="legoj.scheduler.Scheduler"/>

   <ResourceLink global="servlet/servletPipeline"
                  name="servlet/servletPipeline"
                  type="legoj.pipeline.servlet.ServletProcessorChain"/>

   <ResourceLink global="content/contentServices"
                  name="content/contentServices"
                  type="legoj.repository.content.services.ContentRepositoryServices"/>

   <ResourceLink global="targeting/targeterDirectory"
                  name="targeting/targeterDirectory"
                  type="legoj.targeter.TargeterDirectory"/>

   <ResourceLink global="content/renderedContentProviderDirectory"
                  name="content/renderedContentProviderDirectory"
                  type="legoj.content.provider.directory.RenderedContentProviderDirectory"/>

   <ResourceLink global="content/rankingService"
                  name="content/rankingService"
                  type="legoj.content.ranking.ContentRankingServices"/>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

The rest is just spring components:
Something in Alfresco to push it's JCR or Foundation Services in to JNDI and somthing in the consumer to pull it down (like the code you shared)

When we push something in to JNDI it doesn't really look like we are to the application. They are simply registering a service with a directory (which happens to expose the service in JNDI)

You are going to want to minimize the amount of JNDI knowledge. Your end points don't want to know about JNDI … they probably want to talk to a directory or a registry of some sort … which has the JNDI knowlege.

Just some thoughts…. hope this is helpful…

raju_myadam

Hello Russ,

I have installed the alfresco-jcr-jndi-v5.zip and configured as per the instructions in both Tomcat and JBoss. When I try to run the I am getting following error in both servers-

Mar 25, 2008 3:20:45 PM org.alfresco.jcr.jndi.ProxyNonBlockingJndiJcrRepository login
SEVERE: underlying repository is null, cannot delegate activity

Do I need to do anything else? Please help me out.

Regards,
Raju

rdanner

I suspect there is an error further up stream in your error log – the proxy isnt getting the handle to the underlying repository adapter – so either it hasn't been installed in alfresco properly, JNDI is being blocked by the naming jars in the distro, or there is some other error up stream.

raju_myadam

Thank for your reply.
I have installed as per the readme.txt for tomcat server.
1. Expose the prepository as a global resource (server.xml in tomcat):
<Resource name="jcr/baseRepository"
           scope="Shareable"
           auth="Container"
           type="javax.jcr.Repository"
           factory="org.alfresco.jcr.jndi.JndiJcrObjectFactory"
           jcrRepositoryName="baseAlfrescoRepository"/>


2. In the context.xml of the application that will consume the JCR: Note, no mention of alfresco
   <ResourceLink global="jcr/baseRepository" name="jcr/baseRepository" type="javax.jcr.Repository"/>
3. put jcr-api-jndi-context.xml in WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\extension

Do I need to do anything else?

Regards,
Raju

raju_myadam

forgot to mention in my previous post. I am not seeing any errors in the log file.

raju_myadam

Hi Russ,

I have also tried with JBoss 4.2 but no luck. I am facing the same issue.

Could you please let me know if I am missing anything?

Regards,
Raju

rdanner

Sorry about the delayed response – i did not see that you replied (i usually get an email notification which I did not get for some reason) I'll try to come back here to night and see if I can provide some pointers. I'm here in the forums on a mission at the moment and don't have the time to answer.

Best,
-R

raju_myadam

Ok Russ. I will wait for your response.
Are you aware of any one using this JNDI - JCR adapter approach in production applications?
We are also looking at other options like creating the service interface and the service implementation based on alfresco's web services API.

regards,
Raju

raju_myadam

Hello Russ,

Do you have any EJB sample which calls alfresco through web services?

Regards,
Raju