Installing additional feature packs in WildFly

By Bartosz Spyrko-Smietanko | November 27, 2023

Introduction

In a previous article, you learnt how to install and use Prospero to provision a WildFly server. In this article, you will learn how to use Prospero to modify an existing server and extends its capabilities by adding a MariaDB datasource.

For the purpose of this article, we assume the existing server has been installed from a downloaded WildFly zip archive. However the process works for servers installed using Prospero. In such case, simply skip the Registering WildFly server with Prospero section and start with Creating feature pack channel section.

Additional feature packs for WildFly

Galleon feature packs provide a mechanism to extend WildFly server capabilities. An example of feature packs contributed by the WildFly community are wildfly-datasources-galleon-pack, and wildfly-myfaces-galleon-pack. The first one can be used to add support for a database, while the latter can replace default JSF implementation with MyFaces.

The additional feature packs can be installed in existing servers either using Galleon or Prospero tools.

Prerequisites

  1. Download WildFly 30.0.0.Final and unzip it in /tmp folder:

    cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/wildfly/wildfly/releases/download/30.0.0.Final/wildfly-30.0.0.Final.zip
unzip -q wildfly-30.0.0.Final.zip

  2. Download and unzip Prospero in /tmp folder

    cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/wildfly-extras/prospero/releases/download/1.2.0.Final/prospero-1.2.0.Final.zip
unzip -q prospero-1.2.0.Final.zip
cd /tmp/prospero-1.2.0.Final

Registering WildFly server with Prospero

The first step to install additional feature packs in an existing WildFly server, is to subscribe the server to WildFly channels. This allows Prospero to apply updates for WildFly and modify the installation.

./bin/prospero.sh update subscribe \
  --dir /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final \
  --product wildfly \
  --version 30.0.0.Final

The update subscribe command generates a manifest based on selected version of WildFly server and registers the server to a channel using this manifest:

./bin/prospero.sh channel list --dir /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final

The command will output the channels that the server is subscribed to:

Server /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final is subscribed to following channels:

 ----
# wildfly
  manifest: file:/tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final/.installation/manifest-wildfly-30.0.0.Final.yaml
  repositories:
    id: central
    url: https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/
    id: jboss-public
    url: https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/groups/public/
    id: mrrc
    url: https://maven.repository.redhat.com/ga/

Creating feature pack channel

All additional feature packs installed on top of WildFly have to be registered in a channel. We’re going to create a new manifest for this.

echo "schemaVersion: 1.0.0
streams:
  - groupId: org.wildfly
    artifactId: wildfly-datasources-galleon-pack
    version: 6.0.0.Final
" > /tmp/datasources-manifest.yaml

Then we can register WildFly to receive updates from a new channel:

./bin/prospero.sh channel add \
 --channel-name datasources \
 --manifest /tmp/datasources-manifest.yaml \
 --repositories central::https://repo1.maven.org/maven2 \
 --dir /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final

Install wildfly-datasource-galleon-pack

Finally to install the MariaDB database driver from wildfly-datasource-galleon-pack:

./bin/prospero.sh feature-pack add \
  --fpl org.wildfly:wildfly-datasources-galleon-pack \
  --layers mariadb-datasource \
  --dir /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final

After running the command, you will be asked to confirm the changes, and the feature pack will be downloaded and installed.

Installing feature pack `org.wildfly:wildfly-datasources-galleon-pack` in server `/tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final`
Continue adding the feature pack? [y/N]:y
Applying changes

Feature-packs resolved.
Packages installed.
Downloaded artifacts.
JBoss modules installed.
Configurations generated.
JBoss examples installed.
Operation completed in 19.62 seconds.

After running this command, a new module org.mariadb.jdbc:main will be created in the server modules directory and the standalone/configuration/standalone.xml will be updated with a new driver and datasource configuration.

Updating mariadb driver version

Steps above installed a default version of MariaDB driver, but using prospero and WildFly channels we are able to update that.

First, let’s add the desired version of the driver to the datasources manifest:

echo "
  - groupId: org.mariadb.jdbc
    artifactId: mariadb-java-client
    version: 3.3.0
" >> /tmp/datasources-manifest.yaml

Next, we just need to let prospero perform an update:

./bin/prospero.sh update perform --dir /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final

The command will report available updates - in this case showing the changed mariadb driver - and ask you to confirm the changes.

Updates found:
  org.mariadb.jdbc:mariadb-java-client                  3.2.0                ==>  3.3.0
Continue with update [y/N]: y
Building updates

Feature-packs resolved.
Packages installed.
Downloaded artifacts.
JBoss modules installed.
Configurations generated.
JBoss examples installed.

Build update complete!
Applying updates
Update complete!
Operation completed in 25.48 seconds.

Now we can check that the org.mariadb.jdbc:main module:

ls /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final/modules/org/mariadb/jdbc/main

and see the updated driver:

mariadb-java-client-3.3.0.jar  module.xml

Starting the server

Before starting the server with the new datasource, we need to provide the MariaDB connection information. Those can either be added to the server configuration as WildFly system properties, or as OS environment variables. For the purpose of this article, we will assume that the MariaDB database called testdb is available on localhost:3306 and is secured using test/password credentials.

The detailed description of available configuration options can be found in the datasource feature pack documentation, eg. MariaDB configuration. Managing WildFly system properties is described in the WildFly Admin Guide

Let’s try to set the required configuration using environment variables and start the server:

export MARIADB_USER=test
export MARIADB_PASSWORD=password
export MARIADB_DATABASE=testdb

/tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final/bin/standalone.sh

Note that for this example, we are using a MariaDB database available at the default address localhost:3306. If your environment is different, you can change those values using MARIADB_HOST and MARIADB_PORT environment variables.

Looking at the startup logs, we can see that mariadb driver and a new data source java:jboss/datasources/MariaDBDS are made available.

=========================================================================

  JBoss Bootstrap Environment

  JBOSS_HOME: /tmp/wildfly-30.0.0.Final

  JAVA: /opt/java/jdk-11.0.20.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java

  JAVA_OPTS:  -Xms64m -Xmx512m -XX:MetaspaceSize=96M -XX:MaxMetaspaceSize=256m -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djboss.modules.system.pkgs=org.jboss.byteman -Djava.awt.headless=true  --add-exports=java.desktop/sun.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.naming/com.sun.jndi.ldap=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.naming/com.sun.jndi.url.ldap=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=java.naming/com.sun.jndi.url.ldaps=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=jdk.naming.dns/com.sun.jndi.dns=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.lang.invoke=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.lang.reflect=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.io=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.net=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.security=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util.concurrent=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.management/javax.management=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.naming/javax.naming=ALL-UNNAMED

=========================================================================

12:24:22,095 INFO  [org.jboss.modules] (main) JBoss Modules version 2.1.2.Final
12:24:22,300 INFO  [org.jboss.msc] (main) JBoss MSC version 1.5.2.Final
12:24:22,303 INFO  [org.jboss.threads] (main) JBoss Threads version 2.4.0.Final
12:24:22,348 INFO  [org.jboss.as] (MSC service thread 1-1) WFLYSRV0049: WildFly Full 30.0.0.Final (WildFly Core 22.0.1.Final) starting
[...]
12:24:22,909 INFO  [org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 44) WFLYJCA0004: Deploying JDBC-compliant driver class org.mariadb.jdbc.Driver (version 3.3)
12:24:22,915 INFO  [org.jboss.as.connector.deployers.jdbc] (MSC service thread 1-6) WFLYJCA0018: Started Driver service with driver-name = mariadb
[...]
12:24:23,067 INFO  [org.jboss.as.connector.subsystems.datasources] (MSC service thread 1-7) WFLYJCA0001: Bound data source [java:jboss/datasources/MariaDBDS]
[...]
12:24:23,161 INFO  [org.jboss.as] (Controller Boot Thread) WFLYSRV0025: WildFly Full 30.0.0.Final (WildFly Core 22.0.1.Final) started in 1201ms - Started 288 of 530 services (318 services are lazy, passive or on-demand) - Server configuration file in use: standalone.xml

Conclusion

In this article, we learned how to use Prospero to extend WildFly server with additional capabilities using feature packs.

In particular we used wildfly-datasources-galleon-pack to install and update a MariaDB datasource, but the same technique can be used to install other feature packs contributed by the community.

If you want to learn more about Prospero or available feature packs, please take a look at the GitHub projects below:

If you would like to learn more about extending WildFly using feature packs, please take a looke at:

WildFly is fully open. All components are open source and follow a community-focused development process.

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