Proper manual deployment of a Java Application Server on Ubuntu Server 8.10 - Linux

Question

I am currently preparing to deploy a JBoss AS into production for the first time. My Linux distribution is Ubuntu Server 8.10 . My original plan was to use aptitude to install JBoss. Currently JBoss AS 4 is the highest version available and my requirements are to use JBoss AS 5. So, I will need to install this manually.

I ask the following because I am under the belief that most of the automated installs using tools like apt-get and aptitude do all sorts of modifications, different than what you see from downloading the JBoss AS standalone.

• What is the best way to layout my directory structure?
• What about logs, should they map to any particular location?
• What is the best way to manage start and stop scripts on Ubuntu Server 8.10 for a Java Application Server?
• Any particular security concerns?

Answer 1

What about logs, should they map to any particular location?

Traditionally, you use /var/log/, or a directory therein.

What is the best way to manage start and stop scripts on Ubuntu Server 8.10 for a Java Application Server?

Ubuntu 8.10 still uses sysvinit for it's setup. Find the runlevel you need, and add a small initscript for run-parts.

Any particular security concerns?

Is there a reason you've selected Ubuntu 8.10 as the platform? It's only going to receive support (security patches, bug fixes) for another 12 months.

If you want to know what an Ubuntu package does differently than you would:

1. apt-get source package-name
2. Open package-name.*.diff.gz
3. Make sure all the changes apply to files in debian/
4. review the build options in package-name/debian/rules
5. review patches to the source itself in package-name/debian/patches

That should pretty much demonstrate for you what all they changed.

Answer 2

If you want to build JBoss 5 in a similar way to the JBoss 4 package does, you should grab the source data which is used to build the ver4 package. The specific details relating to this package will be there.

You can find links to this and other resources relating to the packages at packages.ubuntu.com. There are also lots of guides for this (building dpkgs) on the Debian site, which is where the format originated.