Sharing EJBs and classes throught different EARs

[danieldestro]

Hi all,
I've been searching for the solution to my problem but I am clueless. I hope you guys can help me.

I have an application called GPA, with some EJBs (Session and MDB) and a web app included. All this is packed as an EAR file. Its structure is something like this:

EAR
 |-- gpa-ejb.jar (EJBs & interfaces)
 |-- gpa.war (JSPs)
 |-- lib
 | |-- all other JAR files
 |
 |-- META-INF
 |-- application.xml
 |-- jboss-app.xml

In the MANIFEST.MF file, inside gpa-ejb.jar, I set the Class-Path to some JARs located at the lib folder, that it depends on. All works fine in this app.

I also have another application called CGE. This app has an EJB, where its configured interfaces (home and remote) are the interfaces that belong to the GPA project (gpa-ejb.jar). CGE's EAR structure is very similiar to GPA's EAR structure.

But when I deploy CGE, JBoss throws the following exception:

14:07:14,312 INFO [EjbModule] Creating
14:07:14,392 INFO [EjbModule] Deploying MyCGEBean
14:07:14,402 WARN [ServiceController] Problem creating service jboss.j2ee:jndiN
ame=ejb/MyCGEBean,service=EJB
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: my.gpa.interfaces.MyGPAHome
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:199)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:187)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:289)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:235)
at org.jboss.ejb.StatelessSessionContainer.create(StatelessSessionContai
ner.java:155)

Which means: it was not able to find the CGE's EJB interfaces, that belong to GPA.

How could I indicate that this EJB (from CGE) uses the interfaces from GPA? Which is the best strategy I should use?

Note: GPA app will call this CGE EJB. One app depends on each other.

One thing I also tried was to "duplicate" the interfaces (home and remote) in a new jar file, besides other two more common interfaces, and put this jar into CGE's EAR file. But I catch a ClassCastException when GPA invokes CGE's EJB at:

MyGPAHome home = (MyGPAHome) ctx.lookup("ejb/MyCGEBean");

I am using JBoss 3.0.3.

Thank you very much.
Daniel

[danieldestro]

I made a mistake in the last code. The correct is:

Object o = ctx.lookup("ejb/MyCGEBean");
MyGPAHome home = (MyGPAHome) PortableRemoteObject.narrow( o, MyGPAHome.class );[\code]

The ClassCastException occurs in the last code line.

[kamal_tavant]

Take a look at this page
http://www.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=ClassLoadingConfiguration

I think you will either have to disable class loader isolation or use pass-by value to solve this issue. Both have their pros / cons, you need to figure out which one will work fo you.

[danieldestro]

I finally solved my problem.

What I did:

1) Created a JAR file with my shared HOME and REMOTE interfaces.
2) Deployed this JAR at server/default/deploy directory.
3) Create an EAR file for each one of the projects (GPA and CGE), without the shared interfaces.
4) Deployed the apps normally.
5) That works!