Where do external jar files go in the ear?

[aslocal]

Where do you place external jar files in the ear file to use?

I've tried:
lib/
META-INF/lib
APP-INF
APP-INF/lib
.

Everytime I get a ClassNotFoundException, Any ideas?

Thanks.

[kuvera]

AFAIK there is no automatic inclusion of jar files in an EAR. You can define them in application.web:

<module>
 <java>myjar.jar</java>
</module>

And you place it in the root dir. of the EAR.

[kuvera]

Sorry, application.xml

[weston.price]

AFAIK there is no automatic inclusion of jar files in an EAR. You can define them in application.web:
Code:

<module>
<java>myjar.jar</java>
</module>


And you place it in the root dir. of the EAR.

Not a good idea. The element is to be used for J2EE application clients and should not be used as a method for deploying third party/utility jars.

The correct way to do this is to define a Classpath entry in the MANIFEST.MF file of each J2EE module (ie EJB jar file/WAR file).

Example MANIFEST.MF

Class-Path: jar1.jar jar2.jar

Note the path itself is relative to the root of the archive. So, for instance assuming you had an EAR structure such as

EAR
 -->lib
 jar1.jar
 jar2.jar

Your MANIFEST.MF should look as follows:

Class-Path: lib/jar1.jar lib/jar2.jar

Again, an entry like the one above should be placed in the MANIFEST.MF file of *each* J2EE module deployed inside your EAR file.

[kuvera]

Thank you for clearing this up for me, too.

[aslocal]

Thanks for the responses ... I tried your suggestion above, so my MANIFEST.MF looks like:

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.7.0
Created-By: 1.5.0_09-b01 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
Class-Path: lib/antlr.jar lib/axis-ant.jar lib/axis.jar lib/log4j-1.2.
 8.jar lib/commons-beanutils.jar lib/commons-digester.jar lib/commons-
 discovery-0.2.jar lib/commons-fileupload-1.1.1.jar lib/commons-fileup
 load.jar lib/commons-io-1.2.jar lib/commons-logging.jar lib/commons-v
 alidator.jar lib/ditchnet-tabs-taglib.jar lib/ant-antlr-1.6.3.jar lib
 /asm-attrs.jar lib/asm.jar lib/cglib-2.1.3.jar lib/commons-collection
 s-2.1.1.jar lib/commons-logging-1.0.4.jar lib/dom4j-1.6.jar lib/ehcac
 he-1.2.jar lib/freemarker.jar lib/hibernate-tools.jar lib/hibernate3.
 jar lib/junit.jar lib/middlegen-2.0-vo.jar lib/middlegen-entitybean-p
 lugin-2.0-vo.jar lib/middlegen-hibernate-plugin-2.0-vo.jar lib/middle
 gen-html-plugin-2.0-vo.jar lib/middlegen-jdo-plugin-2.0-vo.jar lib/mi
 ddlegen-servlet-plugin-2.0-vo.jar lib/middlegen-struts-plugin-2.0-vo.
 jar lib/jakarta-oro.jar lib/jaxb-api.jar lib/jaxb-impl.jar lib/jaxb-l
 ibs.jar lib/jaxb-xjc.jar lib/relaxngDatatype.jar lib/xsdlib.jar lib/j
 axrpc.jar lib/jstl.jar lib/mail.jar lib/saaj.jar lib/sdrc_evista.jar
 lib/sdrc_evista_cnf.jar lib/sdrc_evista_edt.jar lib/standard.jar lib/
 struts.jar lib/sdrc_evista.jar lib/sdrc_evista_cnf.jar lib/sdrc_evist
 a_edt.jar lib/teamcenter_es.jar lib/teamcenter_es_omf.jar lib/teamcen
 ter_es.jar lib/teamcenter_es_omf.jar lib/wlclient.jar lib/wsdl4j-1.5.
 1.jar lib/xdoclet-1.2.3.jar lib/xdoclet-apache-module-1.2.3.jar lib/x
 doclet-bea-module-1.2.3.jar lib/xdoclet-ejb-module-1.2.3.jar lib/xdoc
 let-hibernate-module-1.2.3.jar lib/xdoclet-java-module-1.2.3.jar lib/
 xdoclet-jboss-module-1.2.3.jar lib/xdoclet-jmx-module-1.2.3.jar lib/x
 doclet-web-module-1.2.3.jar lib/xdoclet-xdoclet-module-1.2.3.jar lib/
 xjavadoc-1.1.jar

And my lib files are in:

EAR
 -->lib
 jar1.jar
 jar2.jar

Which is the root of my EAR file. I'm still receiving this error when deploying:

09:34:28,227 WARN [EJBDeployer] Verify failed; continuing
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: COM/metaphasetech/tfw/MfailException

Or other deployments lead to similiar errors (I can see the correct jar in the lib folder, so I know it's a CP issue and not a missing file issue)

Is there something else I'm doing wrong?

Thanks.

[aslocal]

Interesting ... it works for .JAR files, but not .EAR files. For reference here's how to generate the MANIFEST.MF using Ant

http://blog.refactor.se/2006/02/13/manifestmf-classpath-from-ant/

Is there anyway to have the EJB Jar recognize the lib's in the main EAR?

Thanks, Graeme.

[weston.price]

Interesting ... it works for .JAR files, but not .EAR files.

Could you explain what you mean by this? I am assuming you added the Class-Path: entry to the EJB.jar files MANIFEST.MF.

[aslocal]

Interesting ... it works for .JAR files, but not .EAR files.

Could you explain what you mean by this? I am assuming you added the Class-Path: entry to the EJB.jar files MANIFEST.MF.

I did, but I found that to be unnecessary. Just so long as I put my lib files in the Jar file (under the root/lib) JBoss was then able to see the lib files on deploy. My manifest.mf file doesn't reflect any class path options. Does JBoss introspect that folder on default?

- Graeme.

[weston.price]

Which version of JBoss? 4.0.x might. The MANIFEST.MF way to do this is preferred being that this is the 'standard'. EE 5 cleans this up with a standard location at the EAR level.

[aslocal]

Which version of JBoss? 4.0.x might. The MANIFEST.MF way to do this is preferred being that this is the 'standard'. EE 5 cleans this up with a standard location at the EAR level.

I'm using the latest GA release 4.0.5. I'm currently not using EE 5, but the EJB 2.1 spec (I'm not sure if this matters)

- Graeme.

[weston.price]

Quick check of the code looks like it was added at some point so it will check for lib unless this check is explicitly disabled. You also have the option of overriding this in your jboss-app.xml file. It would look something along the lines of:

<jboss-app>
<library-directory>dir</library-directory>
</jboss-app>

Again this is a non-standard JBoss approach but if you aren't porting your app to another environment it's probably cool.

[aslocal]

Quick check of the code looks like it was added at some point so it will check for lib unless this check is explicitly disabled. You also have the option of overriding this in your jboss-app.xml file. It would look something along the lines of:

<jboss-app>
<library-directory>dir</library-directory>
</jboss-app>

Again this is a non-standard JBoss approach but if you aren't porting your app to another environment it's probably cool.

I see. Thanks for the help.

- Graeme.

[genman]

It's supported in 4.2

http://jira.jboss.com/jira/browse/JBAS-4037