(This article describes some improvements to the AS 5/6 ProfileService that will not be implemented in AS 6. AS 7 will work quite differently, so much of this content may not be relevant to AS 7. However, I've moved the article to the AS 7 space as some of the general concepts may be relevant to AS 7 -- Brian Stansberry 7/1/2010)

The user configuration file

The user configuration file represents the definition of what services are getting deployed in a server configuration.

Example:

<server-configuration name=”web-clustered”>

     <required-profiles xmlns="urn:jboss:profileservice:profile:required:1.0">
          <requires name="jboss:profile=web" />
          <requires name="jboss:profile=clustering" />
     </required-profiles>

     <hot-deployment name="jboss:profile=applications,flavor=default"
               xmlns="urn:jboss:profileservice:profile:hot-deployment:1.0">

          <source path="${jboss.server.home.url}deploy" />
          <scan-period time-unit="SECONDS">5</scan-period>
     </hot-deployment>

     <farming-deployment name="jboss:profile=application,flavor=farming"
               xmlns="urn:jboss:profileservice:profile:farming:1.0">

          <source path="${jboss.server.home.url}farm" />
          <scan-period time-unit="MINUTES">1</scan-period>     
     </farming-deployment>

</server-configuration>

There will be a clear separation between user configuration and server side configuration. Where the user configuration will only reference which (sub-)profiles should be included and activated. The <required-profiles /> define what “profiles” will get deployed during the AS startup.

Additionally this configuration should also specify user deployment folders - which usually scan the contents of a folder and deploy all deployments found.  Server-side "profiles" are immutable and won't support hot-deployment, so only <hot-deployment /> and <farming-deployment /> (if the scan-period is specified).

List of user configuration options (maybe more?)

• required-profiles      (i-want)

• scanning-profile      (immutable, but initial scanning – like AS4 and AS5)

• hot-deployment      (hot-deployment scanning profile)

• farming-deployment