Never used an app server - would it solve my problem?

klogger Jan 5, 2009 6:49 AM

Hello,

I have never used an app server in more than the most fleeting of terms. I have used Tomcat for a number of years and have now hit a problem that I am not sure how to solve. The problem is as follows:

1) I have several web apps running in Tomcat;
2) They need to share objects between them, specifically Spring Security objects that assist with login;
3) Currently I think I am hitting a classloader issue where, because Tomcat initiates the webapps with different classloaders the objects are considered to be different when I pass them around through the servletContexts.

If I used JBoss, could I pass my object from WebApp-A through JBoss, to WebApp-B and use it without getting my current ClassCastException?

I am thinking this won't work as Tomcat would still be responsible for creating the Spring Security object. I think I would need to implement all the authentication in JBoss whereas currently I am using Jasig's Central Authentication Service which runs as a war file in Tomcat.

1. Re: Never used an app server - would it solve my problem?

peterj Jan 5, 2009 11:09 AM (in response to klogger)

If you place the spring JAR file(s) somewhere other than within your WAR file, it should work. You could, for example, create an EAR, place the common JARs in the EAR's lib directory, and place your two WARs within the EAR. The whole thing could be set up using exploded deployment.
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2. Re: Never used an app server - would it solve my problem?

klogger Jan 5, 2009 4:46 PM (in response to klogger)

That sounds interesting, I shall have a think as I also have another potential solution (that I don't like much) and then look into the exploded deployment. Thanks for the reply.
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