WildFly is the new name for the community version of JBoss AS. WildFly is still the most popular Java Enterprise server out there. It is easy to use, has a clean management interface, a powerful command-line tool, a modular architecture, is light, and is lightning quick. If you need product support, it is very easy to move from WildFly to JBoss EAP Server and, importantly, the license and support costs won't break the bank.
This book gently introduces you to WildFly by looking at how to download and install the server. We then move on to look at configuring enterprise services and the various subsystems, and securing your server and applications. The topics become more advanced as the book progresses, so in the later part of the book, we look at high availability, which is achieved through clustering and load balancing.
Whether you are a Java developer who wishes to improve their knowledge of WildFly, or you are a server administrator who wants to gain a better understanding of the inner workings of WildFly, there is something in this book for everyone.
Chapter 1, Installing WildFly, introduces you to the WildFly server. You are taken through the installation of Java and WildFly and learn to start, stop, and restart the server. You will also discover the purpose of the various folders within the WildFly install directory and gain a basic understanding of the WildFly kernel. Lastly, you will learn to install the WildFly server adaptor in Eclipse.
Chapter 2, Configuring the Core WildFly Subsystems, provides a detailed description of the anatomy of the standalone configuration file. You will be introduced to the concepts of modules and subsystems, and then you will learn in detail how to configure two of the core subsystems, the logging subsystem, and the thread-pool subsystem.
Chapter 3, Configuring Enterprise Services, teaches you to configure enterprise services and components, such as transactions, connection pools, Enterprise JavaBeans, and JMS. You will also learn to install JDBC drivers and configure database connections.
Chapter 4, The Undertow Web Server, explains the architecture of Undertow and teaches you how to configure the servlet container. You will also learn how to serve static content and configure JSPs. In this chapter, we create a simple web application using JSF, EJB, and JPA and teach you to deploy the application using the Eclipse WildFly Server adaptor.
Chapter 5, Configuring a WildFly Domain, teaches you how to manage a WildFly domain. It covers the domain and host controller configuration and outlines the differences between a server domain and multiple standalone server instances.
Chapter 6, Application Structure and Deployment, explains the structure of web and enterprise archives and how they are packaged. You will also learn in detail about the various ways to deploy your application to the WildFly server. We also explain how class loading works in WildFly.
Chapter 7, Using the Management Interfaces, introduces more advanced command-line interface commands, such as those for adding datasources and configuring JMS. We also provide a high-level overview of the web admin console.
Chapter 8, Clustering, provides detailed examples on clustering standalone and domain servers. You will also learn about JGroups and how to cluster the enterprise components, such as Messaging and Hibernate.
Chapter 9, Load-balancing Web Applications, explains the benefits of using the Apache web server with WildFly. You will also learn how to load-balance your web applications with mod_jk, mod_proxy, and mod_cluster.
Chapter 10, Securing WildFly, teaches you how to configure the security subsystem. We cover various login modules, such as database login and LDAP. We also look at securing enterprise components, such as Enterprise JavaBeans and web services. We then look at securing the management interfaces.
Chapter 11, WildFly, OpenShift, and Cloud Computing, discusses the advancement of cloud computing and the benefits it offers to your company. We see how OpenShift can be used to ease software development and aid rapid deployment of your applications to cloud servers.
Appendix, CLI References, provides a quick reference to some of the more commonly used commands in the CLI.
Prior knowledge of Java is expected. Some knowledge of Enterprise Java would be beneficial, although not essential. To run WildFly, you will need the following software:
JDK 8
WildFly 8
MySQL (if you configure a MySQL datasource)
If you wish to run the Java code examples in this book, you will also need:
Maven 3
An IDE (Eclipse is used in the book)
MySQL
This book is aimed at Java developers, system administrators, and anyone who wants to learn more about how to configure the WildFly 8 server. It will suit people who are new to WildFly server, as no prior experience is assumed. The book progresses to advanced concepts, which means it will also suit the more experienced system administrators and developers.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The content of this file will include the custom Web context, as specified by the context-root element."
A block of code is set as follows:
<servers>
<server name="server-one" group="other-server-group">
<socket-bindings socket-binding-group="ha-sockets"/>
</server>
</servers>When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
public class RemoteEJBClient {
static {
Security.addProvider(new JBossSaslProvider());
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
super();
}
}Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
[standalone@localhost:9990 /] data-source remove --name=MySQLPool
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Agree to the terms and click on OK."
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