Deployment problems EAR & WAR

Question

I have serious problems deploying an EAR, containing 25 ejb-jars and 3 wars.
The history of the project is that it was first developed on WLS 4.5 & 5.1. We
have later moved to Orion were the actual development takes place. Now we can
run the application on Orion and WLS 5.1. We now want to deploy the application
on WLS 6.1 sp 2. We have setup the whole application to be deployed as one EAR,
this works fine with Orion. The whole building is made in Ant.
I'm new on WLS 6.1 but have worked a lot on WLS 5.1 and 4.5 (I think it was).
I might have missed something but the documentation on EAR is very short.
When I first deploy the EAR, it seemed to work fine according to the console,
however when I tried to access servlets or JSPs, they simply weren't there (Error
404--Not Found). When I deployed the EAR from the console I got a number of zipexceptions.
After asking around, I was recommended to remove the compression in the jar,war
& earfiles. When I did that I got a number of errors in static initializers in
EJBs, which indicated that the EJBs actually were deployed. I fixed those and
the application was deployed without errors (when I start WLS and the EAR is deployed
by being in the config.xml file). Still when I deploy it from the console it still
throws ZipExceptions.
Anyway now I can access one of the war files but the other is not there. The deployed
war file is a lot smaller than the one not being deployed.
I think that all settings in application.xml, web.xml etc is correct. I'm also
confident that modules are correct, it does work in Orion, which has similar classloading.
From other developers, I have heard that I need to use WLS 6.1 sp 2, no compression
and that I have to break up large EARs in smaller (my EAR is 6,5 MB) files.
What really annoys me that I do not seem to get any errors, logs or anything.
The console indicates that everything is deployed even if apparently is not.
And I can deploy PerStore and everything works. If I deploy the wars, and ejbs
from the console (one at a time), it works.
I would appreciate any help on this subject any workarounds etc. I think that
I have to skip my first intent and deploy an exploded EAR instead of having (almost)
the same deployement as in Orion, which kind of pisses me of. I am also disappointed
that BEA has apperantly skipped java-modules all together. It is after all in
the specification.
I have talked to a number of people and they say that the whole EAR deployment
in WLS is very shaky. Is this true?
Thanks in advance,
Erik Romson

Answer 1

EAR deployment works fine from my own experience. Use JAR and turn off
compression for the WARs and JARs and the EAR itself, although I've never
seen a ZIP exception and I use JAR and ZIP and Winzip and whatever else I
can grab to muck with the files. 6.5MB is not tiny, but it isn't very large
either -- WL can handle much bigger EARs. Normally we don't suggest having
so many JARs and WARs in the EAR, but that is more preference ... are you
using manifest class path? ... are you referring to any of the files in the
WARs from any of the classes in the JARs?
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Clustering Weblogic? You're either using Coherence, or you should be!
Download a Tangosol Coherence eval today at http://www.tangosol.com/
"Erik Romson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
I have serious problems deploying an EAR, containing 25 ejb-jars and 3wars.
The history of the project is that it was first developed on WLS 4.5 &5.1. We
have later moved to Orion were the actual development takes place. Now wecan
run the application on Orion and WLS 5.1. We now want to deploy theapplication
on WLS 6.1 sp 2. We have setup the whole application to be deployed as oneEAR,
this works fine with Orion. The whole building is made in Ant.
I'm new on WLS 6.1 but have worked a lot on WLS 5.1 and 4.5 (I think itwas).
I might have missed something but the documentation on EAR is very short.
When I first deploy the EAR, it seemed to work fine according to theconsole,
however when I tried to access servlets or JSPs, they simply weren't there(Error
404--Not Found). When I deployed the EAR from the console I got a numberof zipexceptions.
After asking around, I was recommended to remove the compression in thejar,war
& earfiles. When I did that I got a number of errors in staticinitializers in
EJBs, which indicated that the EJBs actually were deployed. I fixed thoseand
the application was deployed without errors (when I start WLS and the EARis deployed
by being in the config.xml file). Still when I deploy it from the consoleit still
throws ZipExceptions.
Anyway now I can access one of the war files but the other is not there.The deployed
war file is a lot smaller than the one not being deployed.
I think that all settings in application.xml, web.xml etc is correct. I'malso
confident that modules are correct, it does work in Orion, which hassimilar classloading.
>
From other developers, I have heard that I need to use WLS 6.1 sp 2, nocompression
and that I have to break up large EARs in smaller (my EAR is 6,5 MB)files.
>
What really annoys me that I do not seem to get any errors, logs oranything.
The console indicates that everything is deployed even if apparently isnot.
>
And I can deploy PerStore and everything works. If I deploy the wars, andejbs
from the console (one at a time), it works.
I would appreciate any help on this subject any workarounds etc. I thinkthat
I have to skip my first intent and deploy an exploded EAR instead ofhaving (almost)
the same deployement as in Orion, which kind of pisses me of. I am alsodisappointed
that BEA has apperantly skipped java-modules all together. It is after allin
the specification.
I have talked to a number of people and they say that the whole EARdeployment
in WLS is very shaky. Is this true?
Thanks in advance,
Erik Romson