I am trying to deploy a very simple EAR file which - for the time being - contains just one ejb-jar file and a bunch of dependencies. The application.xm dd contains just one entry for the ejb module, dependencies on the included libraries are declared via appropriate entries in the ejb-jars MANIFEST.MF

...
Class-Path: spring-1.1.jar, aopalliance.jar, ...

I find this a very convenient and elegant mechanism of dependency resolution which is - to the best of my knowledge and according to the petstore sample app - standardized in the EJB spec.

Yet deploying this EAR file fails with a message to the effect that a class from spring-1.1.jar could not be loaded. Adding an entry

<module>
 <java>spring-1.1.jar</java>
</module>

resolves the problem, but I think this is a misuse of the java module. Furthermore, it would require adding entries for a whole lot of dependencies.

So does JBoss 4.0.0 use the Class-Path attribute from MANIFEST.MF to resolve dependencies? Am I wrong in believing that this is a standard means of dependencies resolution? What other options do I have?

Cheers,

Olaf