I am trying to deploy distributed caching for a single entity. I am running JBoss AS 5.1.0 with jdk 1.5. I have two nodes running on two separate servers in a single partition.

I see the caching work fine on each single node but the cache does not replicate/invalidate between the two nodes (I'd like to use invalidation).

Test case:
1. Ran a JUnit test that loaded the entity on node1 and node2 so it was in the cache on each node in the partition.
2. Ran a JUnit test that changed the entity on node1.
3. Ran a JUnit test that loaded the entity on node1 and node2.

From looking at logging in both of the servers I can tell that node2 has the stale version (grabbed the entity from its cache instead of reloading it). I also have looked at the database log to verify that node2 did not try to load the entity when I requested it after it was changed by node1.

I added this to my entity class:

import org.hibernate.annotations.Cache;
import org.hibernate.annotations.CacheConcurrencyStrategy;

@Cache (usage=CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL)

I added this to my persistence unit.

 <property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache" value="true"/>
 <property name="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache" value="true"/>
 <property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class" value="org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.JndiMultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory"/>
 <property name="hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cachefactory" value="java:CacheManager"/>
 <property name="hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.entity" value="mvcc-entity"/>
<!-- Removing this had no effect
 <property name="hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.query" value="timestamps-cache"/>
-->

Is there some other attribute that must be set in order to have a node notify the other nodes in the partition when a cached entity has changed? mvcc-entity has the property cacheMode set to INVALIDATION_SYNC. I figured that would do it. I also tried using pessimistic-entity but had no luck.

The only change that I have made to jboss-cache-manager-jboss-beans.xml is to set the multiplexer property to ${jboss.default.jgroups.stack:tcp} (did not want to use udp). I did this for each cache entry in this file.

For example,

 <!-- A config appropriate for entity/collection caching that uses MVCC locking -->
 <entry><key>mvcc-entity</key>
 <value>
 <bean name="MVCCEntityCache" class="org.jboss.cache.config.Configuration">

 <!-- Node locking scheme -->
 <property name="nodeLockingScheme">MVCC</property>
 <!-- READ_COMMITTED is as strong as necessary for most
 2nd Level Cache use cases. -->
 <property name="isolationLevel">READ_COMMITTED</property>
 <property name="useLockStriping">false</property>

 <!-- Mode of communication with peer caches.
 INVALIDATION_SYNC is highly recommended as the mode for use
 with entity and collection caches. -->
 <property name="cacheMode">INVALIDATION_SYNC</property>

 <!-- Name of cluster. Needs to be the same for all members -->
 <property name="clusterName">${jboss.partition.name:DefaultPartition}-mvcc-entity</property>
 <!-- Use a UDP (multicast) based stack. A udp-sync stack might be
 slightly better (no JGroups FC) but we stick with udp to
 help ensure this cache and others like timestamps-cache
 that require FC can use the same underlying JGroups resources.
 <property name="multiplexerStack">${jboss.default.jgroups.stack:udp}</property>
 -->

 <!-- Use TCP -->
 <property name="multiplexerStack">${jboss.default.jgroups.stack:tcp}</property>

 <!-- Whether or not to fetch state on joining a cluster. -->
 <property name="fetchInMemoryState">false</property>

 <!-- The max amount of time (in milliseconds) we wait until the
 state (ie. the contents of the cache) are retrieved from
 existing members at startup. Ignored if FetchInMemoryState=false. -->
 <property name="stateRetrievalTimeout">60000</property>

 <!-- Number of milliseconds to wait until all responses for a
 synchronous call have been received. -->
 <property name="syncReplTimeout">17500</property>

 <!-- Max number of milliseconds to wait for a lock acquisition -->
 <property name="lockAcquisitionTimeout">15000</property>

 <!-- Hibernate 2LC can replicate custom types, so we use marshalling -->
 <property name="useRegionBasedMarshalling">true</property>
 <!-- Must match the value of "useRegionBasedMarshalling" -->
 <property name="inactiveOnStartup">true</property>

 <!-- Disable asynchronous RPC marshalling/sending -->
 <property name="serializationExecutorPoolSize">0</property>
 <!-- We have no asynchronous notification listeners -->
 <property name="listenerAsyncPoolSize">0</property>

 <property name="evictionConfig">
 <bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionConfig">
 <property name="wakeupInterval">5000</property>
 <!-- Overall default -->
 <property name="defaultEvictionRegionConfig">
 <bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
 <property name="regionName">/</property>
 <property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
 <bean class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.LRUAlgorithmConfig">
 <!-- Evict LRU node once we have more than this number of nodes -->
 <property name="maxNodes">10000</property>
 <!-- And, evict any node that hasn't been accessed in this many seconds -->
 <property name="timeToLiveSeconds">1000</property>
 <!-- Don't evict a node that's been accessed within this many seconds.
 Set this to a value greater than your max expected transaction length. -->
 <property name="minTimeToLiveSeconds">120</property>
 </bean>
 </property>
 </bean>
 </property>
 <property name="evictionRegionConfigs">
 <list>
 <!-- Don't ever evict modification timestamps -->
 <bean class="org.jboss.cache.config.EvictionRegionConfig">
 <property name="regionName">/TS</property>
 <property name="evictionAlgorithmConfig">
 <bean class="org.jboss.cache.eviction.NullEvictionAlgorithmConfig"/>
 </property>
 </bean>
 </list>
 </property>
 </bean>
 </property>
 </bean>
 </value>
 </entry>

Thanks.