We are upgrading from JBoss AS 4.2.3 to 5.1.  Currently, we are running a cluster of 4.2.3 instances.  We have several libraries and resources (properties, XML, XSD, etc.) that are stored a network file system visible to each instance, and shared by multiple farmed applications.  We set this up by adding a <classpath /> element in conf/jboss-service.xml that points to the directory of shared libraries, and by adding the shared resource directory to the JBOSS_CLASSPATH variable in run.sh.

As we are upgrading, I am now wondering if there is a cleaner way to do this in JBoss 5.1 such that I only have to modify artifacts under a specific server configuration (e.g., server/all/), rather than in the run script, and perhaps only in one place.  I looked at creating classloader beans to extend the classpath, but I'm not sure that's quite what I'm looking for.  Is there a general best practice approach to accomplish this?

Thanks.

Robert