A quick look at some console enhancements added into this Apache Geronimo 2.1
The Geronimo Administration Console is a Web based interface that provides a convenient, user friendly way to administer many aspects of the Geronimo Server. Once you have the Apache Geronimo server started (see Tools and commands) you can access the Administration Console by pointing your browser to the following URL:
The Administration Console log in page is depicted in the following figure.
Log in by specifying system as the username and manager as the password. Once you are logged in you will be redirected to the console's welcome page. The console has two main areas, a navigation panel on the left and a main content area on the right.
The navigation panel on the left provides easy access to the individual tasks, it is always present and allows easy transition from task to task. The main content area on the right is where the real work happens, this area will change as you select the different tasks in the navigation panel on the left. Each view contains one or more portlets that typically include a link for help in the header, see the following figure as an example.
As briefly explained in the previous section, the navigation panel provides access to the different tasks for administering the resources in Geronimo. This navigation panel is organized in the following main groups:
#Welcome
#Server
#Services
#Applications
#Security
#Embedded DB
#Debug Views
This is the welcome page you see when you log in. It provides a general description of what the Geronimo Administration Console is as well as some shortcut links to common tasks such as:
Deploy Applications
Web Server Ports
Server InformationThis page also provide links to:
Organized under the Server group you will find statistical information as well as links for configuring and administering the different servers. This group is organized as follows:
#Information
#Java System Info
#Server Logs
#Shutdown
#Web Server
#Thread Pools
#Apache HTTP
#Monitoring
#JMS Server
This portlet displays server information such as the version, start time and up time. In addition, it also provides information about the JVM such as Java Version, Vendor, Node, and Server Memory Usage.
This portlet displays the values of the system properties available to the server process.
This option provides four portlets, Log Manager, Server Log Viewer, Web Access Log Viewer and Derby Log Viewer.
A shutdown will shutdown the server and cause the JVM to exit. To continue using the Geronimo Console after a shutdown, Geronimo must be restarted.
This option provides two portlets, Web Server Manager and Network Listeners.
This portlet lists all the thread pools defined in the server. It shows the pool size and allows you to monitor individually each of the listed thread pools. By monitoring these threads you can gather statistical information such as pool max, lowest recorded, highest recorded and threads in use.
This portlet is a wizard that walks you through the process of configuring Apache Geronimo to use a remote Apache 2 HTTP server. To configure the remote HTTP server you will need to install the mod_jk Apache module on the remote server. Based on a series of questions the wizard will guide you through the configuration process.
The Geronimo monitoring plug-in is broken down between server and client plug-ins, referred to as the 'Agent' and 'Console' respectively. When properly setup, these plug-ins provide both local and remote real-time JSR77 compliant statistic monitoring, as well as historical tracking of any exposed statistic with visual representations drawn in the form of graphs through the Dojo Toolkit's dojoX Charting packages. Click here for more details on the Monitoring plugin.
This option provides two portlets, JMS Server Manager and JMS Network Listeners.
Organized under this group you will find links for configuring the following services:
#Repository
#Database Pools
#JMS Resources
This portlet provides two functionalities. It assists in adding an archive into the Repository. Secondly it displays the artifacts installed in the server's repository. The layout of the repository is the same as that used by Apache Maven making it possible to easily copy files over. From this portlet you can also install new artifacts.
This portlet displays all the available database pools and their status. Only server-wide database pools can be edited in this portlet, database pools deployed as part of a single application cannot, you will have to change the deployment plan in the application instead.
From this portlet you can edit the available, system-wide, database pools. There is also a usage link with examples of how to use the pool from your application.
This portlet includes a database pool creation wizard for new pools and also lets you import database pools from JBoss 4 and WebLogic 8.1.
This portlet lists all the JMS resource groups and states available in the Geronimo server, that is queues and factories. From this portlet you can create new JMS resource groups, this portlet provides two wizards, one for ActiveMQ and one for another JMS provider. For the latter you will have to provide the specific resource adapter RAR needed to connect to that particular provider.
Organized under this group you will find links for installing and administering applications.
#Web App WARs
#System Modules
#Application EARs
#EJB JARs
J2EE Connectors
#App Clients
#Deploy New
#Plugins
#Plan Creator
This portlet displays the installed Web Applications and their status. From this portlet you can also stop, start and uninstall the available Web Applications.
In addition, there is a new feature added "Expert Mode" that allows users more advanced options. Expert mode, which is commonly seen as the expert user checkbox, allows you to enable all actions for components. This can be understood as an override feature that will fully enable the user to perform options (Stop, Restart, Uninstall) on components which would otherwise be grayed out and cause the application server to malfunction.
This portlet displays the installed System Modules and their status. From this portlet you can also stop, start and uninstall the available System Modules.
In addition, this portlet makes use of the "Expert Mode" feature as described here.
This portlet displays the installed Application EARs and their status. From this portlet you can also stop, start and uninstall the available Application EARs.
In addition, this portlet makes use of the "Expert Mode" feature as described here.
This portlet displays the installed EJB JARs and their status. From this portlet you can also stop, start and uninstall the available EJB JARs.
In addition, this portlet makes use of the "Expert Mode" feature as described here.
This portlet displays the installed J2EE Connectors and their status. From this portlet you can also stop, start and uninstall the available J2EE Connectors.
In addition, this portlet makes use of the "Expert Mode" feature as described here.
This portlet displays the installed Application Clients and their status. From this portlet you can also stop, start and uninstall the available Application Clients.
In addition, this portlet makes use of the "Expert Mode" feature as described here.
This portlet allows you to deploy new applications to the Apache Geronimo server. Web applications require deployment plans, which are either packaged with the war file or kept in a separate file which is typically called geronimo-web.xml.
This portlet allows you to install or create Geronimo plugins. From this portlet you can select a remote plugins repository and search for available plugins and install them or export to plugins just about any module you have already installed in Geronimo. In addition you can create custom assembly server packages built with only the modules you specify.
This portlet features assisting you in creating a Geronimo Deployment Plan. Currently only supporting WAR files. For details visit the Plan Creator section.
#Users and Groups
#Keystores
#Certificate Authority
#Security Realm
This option provides two portlets, Console Realm Users and Console Realm Groups.
This portlet walks you through the process of configuring keystores to use with SSL connectors. From this portlet you can add or edit keystores, add Trust Certificates and create private keys.
This portlet allows you to create a Certification Authority (CA) in Geronimo and issue certificates in reply to Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs). Click here for more detailed instructions.
This portlet displays all available security realms and their status. Only server-wide security realms can be edited in this portlet, security realms deployed as part of a single application cannot, you will have to change the deployment plan in the application instead.
From this portlet you can edit the available, system-wide, security realms. There is also a usage link with examples of how to use the realm from your application.
This portlet also includes a security realm creation wizard for creating new realms.
Organized under this group you will find links:
This portlet displays information about the internal database, such as:
This option provides two portlets, DB VIewer and Run SQL.
Organized under this group you will find links:
#JMX Viewer
#LDAP Viewer
#ClassLoader Viewer
#JNDI Viewer
#Dependency Viewer
This portlet provides a tree like representation for you to browse the different types of MBeans. Each MBean will be represented as a tree node that shows its object name representation. All MBeans will give you a list of MBeans grouped by its domain.
This portlet lets you connect to any LDAP server and browse its content but not edit it. This portlet comes predefined to access the LDAP embedded in Geronimo, make sure the service is running before you connect to the server.
This view can be used to all the classloader involved in server and the classes it loads.
This view can be used to view JNDI context for various modules.
This view can be used to all the modules and its dependencies.