Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question.

It is fine to hot-deploy web app, but I'm wondering what does it take to be able to hot-deploy a normal jar file.

The reason is this: we want to put Mule inside JBoss, which is done with JCA right now, but we want to make it better. While Mule is running the inbound and outbound routers and servicing the apps, when the administrator wants to add new model (which might have to add the UMO implementation jar file to Mule), we don't want to stop Mule (and JBoss), we want the new jar file "hot-deployed" so that the class files can be accessed right away.

I'm looking at the new deployer model in JBoss 5, and thinking of implementing the spi to provide a module to hot-deploy jar file.

The problem is, web app has a life cycle, which normal class does not have. The question is, how much would it take to develop a hot deployer for jar files, especially those that must be shared between different web apps? This can be used, not just for us in Mule, it would be nice to be able to deploy a jar file (e.g. patch a running system) without stopping the server.

Thanks for any hint.

ak