JBoss + JSF + persistance?

[smokingapipe]

I'm getting this exception with my JSF application:

2006-06-20 16:29:02,603 ERROR [org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[jboss.web].[localhost].[/ChargeMyMobile-war]] StandardWrapper.Throwable
java.lang.NullPointerException
 at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.init(FacesServlet.java:144)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1105)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:932)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:3917)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4201)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:759)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:739)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:524)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
 at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
 at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
 at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:589)

I don't even know where to begin on this.

I've been trying for the past two days just to get a "hello world" application to run, using NetBeans as my IDE, with JSF and persistent beans. Is there any guidance on this? I just get excpetions and there doesn't seem to be any indication of what I should do next.

[smokingapipe]

Another simple question: My overall goal is to use JSF to build an application with persistence. I was going to use Hibernate (which I am familiar with) but that does not seem like a good way to go, because there isn't a natural way for JSF backing beans to deal with Hibernate Sessions. It looks like using EJB within an app server is the way to go. Hence JBoss.

From reading on the web, it seems like this is possible. JBoss (apparently) supports EJB 3.0, which has a persistence layer similar to Hibernate. JBoss also ships with the Apache MyFaces JSF implementation. So it seems like you should be able to get all three in one places: JSF, EJB, and of course the persistence that goes with it.

Can anyone confirm that it is actually possible to use all these things together? I have been working on getting a Hello World app to run for the past couple of days. All I get are exceptions. Please let me know if this is possible, or should I be doing something else. Are there any simple example application templates I could start with, which will work?

I just find I'm getting exceptions which are impossible to debug unless I start diving into the enormous code base that is JBoss, etc.