Newbie: orion-application.xml in both deployment and applications dirs

Question

Okay,
I am using OAS 10.1.2.2 and have deployed an OC4J instance with a web application. The web application that I deployed (from a .war file) was installed normally but for some reason I have an orion-application.xml file in both the +/application-deployments/webappname/+ and the +/applications/webappname/META-INF/+ directories. They look almost identical with the differences noted below:
applications directory version:
This file has a complete definition for the jazn provider but is missing a reference to the principals.xml file.
jazn section looks like this:
     <jazn provider="LDAP" location="ldap://ldap.server.edu:389">
          <property name="ldap.user" value="cn=username" />
          <property name="ldap.password" value="!password" />
          <property name="ldap.cache.session.enable" value="false"/>
          <property name="ldap.cache.realm.enable" value="false"/>
          <property name="ldap.cache.policy.enable" value="false"/>
          <property name="jaas.username.simple" value="true" />
          <jazn-web-app auth-method="SSO"/>
     </jazn>
application-deployments directory version:
It points to a principals.xml file and gives a generic definition for the jazn provider (specifies provider="LDAP" and a default-realm but no location attribute in the jazn tag).
jazn section looks like this:
     <jazn provider="LDAP" default-realm="whidbey1">
          <jazn-web-app auth-method="SSO"/>
          <property name="jaas.username.simple" value="true" />
     </jazn>
I assume the one defined in the +/applications/webappname/META-INF+ is the proper one since it has all the detailed OID connection information. However, are both needed? If so, why? If not, which one is being used and why would there be two of them?
I've checked all the documentation and have found several references to it being installed in one or the other place but not both.
Any help you can provide would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi,
The difference between these files is this:
The one in the applications/ tree is the one that comes packaged in your ear file. This is a way to package your deployment preferences. At deployment time, enterprise manager extracts this file to configure your deployment.
The one in the application-deployments directory is the one that is actually in use.
LDAP connection from OC4J containers is specified on the container level, because this is container-level security. This means that using the enterprise manager, you configure your container to connect to the LDAP (enterprise manager, tab administration, item Identity Management). In the orion-application.xml, you no longer need the details because they are stored on container level. So these are removed when deploying your application, leaving only what you see.
The configuration parameters you specify can be added as container startup parameters using -Dparam=value.
Regards,
Jeroen van Veldhuizen