Chapter 1 GlassFish^TM Server Compatibility Issues

Some compatibility issues affect Java applications that run on earlier releases with which Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 (GlassFish Server 3.0.1) is binary compatible. When you upgrade to GlassFish Server 3.0.1, you must address these issues.

The following topics are addressed here:

• Binary Compatible Releases For GlassFish Server 3.0.1

• Application Client Interoperability

• Command Line Interface: The asadmin Command

• Applications That Use Java DB

• Applications That Use Persistence

• Signed Applications

• HTTP Service to Network Service Changes

Binary Compatible Releases For GlassFish Server 3.0.1

Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 (GlassFish Server 3.0.1) is binary compatible with the following earlier releases of the software:

• Sun Java^TM System Application Server 9.1 Update 2 (Developer Profile)

• Sun GlassFish^TM Enterprise Server v2 Update 2 (Developer Profile)

• Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1 (Developer Profile)

• Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1.1 (Developer Profile)

• Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Prelude

• Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3

Java applications that run on these releases also work on GlassFish Server 3.0.1 except for the compatibility issues that are listed in the remainder of this chapter.

The compatibility issues that are listed in the remainder of this chapter do not affect Java applications that run on Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3. The differences between GlassFish Server 3.0.1 and Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 do not affect applications and data.

Application Client Interoperability

The Java EE 6 platform specification imposes stricter requirements than Java EE 5 did on which JAR files can be visible to various modules within an EAR file. In particular, application clients must not have access to EJB JAR files or other JAR files in the EAR file unless they use a Class-Path header in the manifest file, or unless references use the standard Java SE mechanisms (extensions, for example), or use the Java EE library-directory mechanism. Deployed Java EE 5 applications that are upgraded to GlassFish Server 3.0.1 will have the compatibility property set to v2 and will run without change on GlassFish Server 3.0.1. You may, however, want to consider modifying the applications to conform to Java EE 6 requirements.

If your upgrade includes a deployed application with an application client, you will need to retrieve the client stubs using GlassFish Server 3.0.1 in order to run the client. Use the asadmin get-client-stubs command.

If you try to run the application client before retrieving the client stubs, you will see the following error message:

Invalid or corrupt jarfile jar-file-name

If you commonly distribute application clients to remote systems from which users will run them, you must not only retrieve the client stubs, but you must also run the package-appclient utility for GlassFish Server 3.0.1 to upgrade the GlassFish Server system files. This utility creates a JAR file, which you can then expand on the remote systems.

Application clients use EJBs, web services, or other enterprise components that are in the application server (on the server side). The application client and the application server must use the same version and implementation of the RMI-IIOP protocol. GlassFish Server 3.0.1 does not support communication between different versions of the protocol implementation. You cannot run application clients with one version of the application server runtime with a server that has a different version. Most often, this would happen if you upgraded the server but had not upgraded all the application client installations. If you run the package-appclient utility, this issue will not arise.

You can use the Java Web Start support to distribute and launch the application client. If the runtime on the server has changed since the end-user last used the application client, Java Web Start automatically retrieves the updated runtime. Java Web Start enables you to keep the clients and servers synchronized and using the same runtime.

Command Line Interface: The asadmin Command

The following sections describe changes to the command line utility asadmin:

• asadmin Subcommands

• Deprecated and Unsupported Options

For more information about asadmin and its subcommands, see Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 Reference Manual.

asadmin Subcommands

Subcommands are backward compatible except as noted below.

The following subcommand is deprecated.

• deploydir (use deploy instead)

In GlassFish Server 3.0.1, it is recommended that utility options of the asadmin command precede the subcommand. Utility options are options that control the behavior of the asadmin utility, as distinguished from subcommand options. Use of the following options after the subcommand is deprecated.

• --host

• --port

• --user

• --passwordfile

• --terse

• --secure

• --echo

• --interactive

Deprecated and Unsupported Options

Options in Table 1–1 are deprecated or no longer supported.

Applications That Use Java DB

The directory location of Java DB in GlassFish Server 3.0.1 has changed from its location in previous installations. Suppose that you have deployed applications that use Java DB databases in your previous server installation, and you upgrade your existing installation to GlassFish Server 3.0.1. If you run the asadmin start-database command and successfully start Java DB, you could run into problems while trying to run applications that were deployed on your previous server installation.

To solve this problem, you can copy the databases directory from your previous installation to as-install/databases. Make sure the database is not running when you do this.

Alternatively, you can perform these steps:

1. After upgrade, start GlassFish Server 3.0.1.

2. Use the asadmin start-database command with the --dbhome option pointing to the databases directory in the older version of Java DB. For example:

   asadmin start-database --dbhome c:\glassfish\databases

3. Deploy the migrated applications.

Applications That Use Persistence

GlassFish Server 3.0.1 and Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 use the persistence provider EclipseLink, while earlier versions used TopLink Essentials.

An application that uses the container to create an EntityManager or EntityManagerFactory and that used Toplink Essentials as its provider will work in GlassFish Server 3.0.1. The container creates an EntityManager if the application uses the @PersistenceContext annotation to inject an EntityManager, as in the following example:

@PersistenceContext
EntityManager em;

The container creates an EntityManagerFactory if the application uses the @PersistenceUnit annotation to inject an EntityManagerFactory, as in the following example:

@PersistenceUnit
EntityManagerFactory emf;

EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();

When the application is loaded, GlassFish Server 3.0.1 will translate the provider to EclipseLink and will also translate toplink.* properties in the persistence.xml to corresponding EclipseLink properties. (The actual persistence.xml file remains unchanged.)

Under certain circumstances, however, you may have to modify the persistence.xml file or your code:

• If your application uses Java SE code to create the EntityManagerFactory, you will need to change your persistence.xml file for both the provider element and for any toplink.* properties to use the EclipseLink equivalents. An application uses Java SE code if it uses the javax.persistence.Persistence class to create the EntityManagerFactory, as in the following example:

  EntityManagerFactory emf =
      javax.persistence.Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("Order");
  EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();

  In this case, change the provider element to specify the following:

  <provider>org.eclipse.persistence.jpa.PersistenceProvider</provider>

• If the application itself contains any TopLink Essentials-specific code and therefore contains casts to oracle.toplink.*, you must change the code to cast to org.eclipse.persistence.*. You can use the package renamer tool described on the Eclipse wiki to do this. This tool is not provided with GlassFish Server 3.0.1, however, so you must obtain it from the EclipseLink project download site.

Signed Applications

During the upgrade process, archives for previously deployed applications are re-created from the application repository bits and then redeployed. This approach does not work for signed applications. After archive recreation, the signature becomes invalid. Therefore, you must redeploy the signed applications manually after upgrade.

HTTP Service to Network Service Changes

In GlassFish Server 3.0.1 and Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3, most HTTP Service settings are in the Network Service configuration that was introduced in Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3.

The changes are described in the following sections.

• Changes to Dotted Names

• Changes to asadmin Commands

• Remapping of HTTP Service Attributes and Properties

• New Network Service Elements and Attributes

Changes to Dotted Names

The dotted name hierarchy for the HTTP Service configuration in the v3 Prelude release is shown below. Elements that are no longer supported are request-processing, keep-alive, connection-pool, http-protocol, http-file-cache, and http-listener. During the upgrade process, these discontinued elements are remapped to the new configuration automatically and then deleted.

config
    http-service
        access-log
        request-processing
        keep-alive
        connection-pool
        http-protocol
        http-file-cache
        http-listener
            ssl 
            property
        virtual-server
            http-access-log
            property
        property
    thread-pools
        thread-pool

The dotted name hierarchy for the new Network Service and HTTP Service configurations is shown below. The network-config element and all its children are new except for ssl.

config
    network-config
        transports
            selection-key-handler
            transport
        protocols
            protocol
                http
                    file-cache
                port-unification
                    protocol-finder
                protocol-chain-instance-handler
                    protocol-chain
                protocol-filter
                ssl
        network-listeners
            network-listener
    http-service
        access-log
        virtual-server
            http-access-log
            property
        property
    thread-pools
        thread-pool

The following examples compare the commands for setting a listener port for Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Prelude and GlassFish Server 3.0.1 or Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3.

• Command for Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Prelude:

  asadmin set server-config.http-service.http-listener.http-1.listenerport=4321

• Command for GlassFish Server 3.0.1 or Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3:

  asadmin set server-config.network-config.network-listeners.network-listener.http-1.listenerport=4321

Changes to asadmin Commands

To accommodate the move of HTTP Service into the new Network Service configuration, asadmin(1M) commands are changed as follows:

• The create-ssl(1) command has a new --type parameter value, network-listener.

• The create-virtual-server(1) command has a new parameter, --networklisteners.

• The create-http-listener(1) command adds a network-listener element to the domain configuration. The syntax and options of this commands are unchanged.

Remapping of HTTP Service Attributes and Properties

The following tables describe how attributes and properties in the HTTP Service configuration for v3 Prelude are remapped to attributes in the Network Service configuration for GlassFish Server 3.0.1 and Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3. If you use a configuration from a Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2 or v3 release, this remapping happens automatically and then discontinued elements are deleted.

New Network Service Elements and Attributes

The following tables describe the Network Service elements and attributes that were introduced in Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3. For attributes and properties remapped from discontinued elements to new elements, see Remapping of HTTP Service Attributes and Properties.

The new file-cache element has no new attributes. All of its attributes are remapped from the http-file-cache element. For details, see Table 1–4.

For remapped http attributes, see Table 1–3, Table 1–5, Table 1–6, Table 1–7, Table 1–9, and Table 1–10.

For remapped network-listener attributes, see Table 1–5.

For remapped protocol attributes, see Table 1–5.

For remapped ssl attributes, see Table 1–11.

For remapped thread-pool attributes, see Table 1–3, Table 1–10, and Table 1–12.

For remapped transport attributes, see Table 1–2, Table 1–3, Table 1–5, and Table 1–6.