Considerations for Lifecycle Modules

The resources allocated at initialization or startup should be freed at shutdown or termination. The lifecycle module classes are called synchronously from the main server thread, therefore it is important to ensure that these classes don’t block the server. Lifecycle modules can create threads if appropriate, but these threads must be stopped in the shutdown and termination phases.

The LifeCycleModule class loader is the parent class loader for lifecycle modules. Each lifecycle module’s classpath in domain.xml is used to construct its class loader. All the support classes needed by a lifecycle module must be available to the LifeCycleModule class loader or its parent, the Connector class loader.

You must ensure that the server.policy file is appropriately set up, or a lifecycle module trying to perform a System.exec() might cause a security access violation. For details, see The server.policy File.

The configured properties for a lifecycle module are passed as properties after the INIT_EVENT. The JNDI naming context is not available before the STARTUP_EVENT. If a lifecycle module requires the naming context, it can get this after the STARTUP_EVENT, READY_EVENT, or SHUTDOWN_EVENT.