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Running Geronimo on Harmony

This article describes the ways and known issues to run Geronimo v2.0.2 using Apache Harmony as a JVM.

This article has the following structure:

• #General note
• #Unresolved issues
• #Geronimo configuration
  • #Configure the server to use Harmony RMI Registry provider for JNDI
  • #Use TLS instead of SSL
  • #Change default keystore type
  • #Customize the server startup
  • #Use HTTPS web interface
  • #Configure Deployer to use Harmony RMI Registry provider for JNDI
• #Harmony configuration
  • #Use DRLVM
• #Other issues

General note

This article was written using the following environment:

Geronimo v2.0.2 Jetty full J2EE version (geronimo-jetty6-jee5-2.0.2-bin.zip)
Harmony snapshot r610339, (Jan 9 2008), Windows/ia32/msvc 1310, debug build
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, 32-bit, English

With other versions and in a different environment, the behavior may differ.

Unresolved issues

Here's the brief summary of all the unresolved issues that require attention:

• HARMONY-5191 – Harmony doesn't have SSL implementation (investigated, workarounded).

• GERONIMO-3757 – Geronimo uses JKS keystore that Harmony doesn't support (investigated, workarounded).

• HARMONY-5462 – Harmony doesn't support -javaagent VM option (investigated, workarounded).

• Web interface and console don't work through HTTP (uninvestigated, workarounded).

• HARMONY-4014 – Geronimo takes up all the CPU resources available.

• Application takes up all the memory specified in -Xms option (uninvestigated).

• Application fails to terminate properly – pressing Ctrl-C starts shutdown process that is never finished (uninvestigated).

Geronimo configuration

Configure the server to use Harmony RMI Registry provider for JNDI

Harmony places JNDI providers in org.apache.harmony.jndi package tree, not in com.sun.jndi like Sun Java does, so you have to point Geronimo into the right direction to locate and properly access the RMI Registry provider.

For that, edit var/config/config.xml file, adjust NamingProperties GBean configuration as follows:

Use TLS instead of SSL

Harmony doesn't have SSL implementation (see HARMONY-5191), so the following statements have to be added to var/config/config.xml file to instruct Geronimo to use TLS instead of SSL:

Change default keystore type

Geronimo uses JKS keystore that Harmony doesn't support. For now, there's no way to workaround this problem except by patching the Geronimo source code and replacing the keystore manually. See GERONIMO-3757 for details.

Customize the server startup

You may either edit the Geronimo startup scripts or run the server from the command line, but in either case you should consider the following adjustments:

1. Harmony doesn't accept the -javaagent option (HARMONY-5462), so you have to omit it. Or, you may remove bin/jpa.jar file from Geronimo distribution – this way the -javaagent option would be omitted by the Geronimo startup script.

2. Geronimo v2.0.2 needs access to Internet for applications like SPECjAppServer2004 to be deployed – it tries to fetch XML schemas from http://java.sun.com site. So if you're going to deploy applications like that, and you're behind a firewall, you should add the appropriate -Dhttp.proxyHost= and -Dhttp.proxyPort= options to the Geronimo command line. This problem is caused by OPENEJB-700 bug and should disappear after that bug is fixed and the fix is propagated to a new version of Geronimo.

3. SPECjAppServer2004 and other applications may require additional specification of JNDI naming conventions for EJB, like this: -Dopenejb.jndiname.failoncollision=true -Dopenejb.jndiname.format={ejbName}

4. Harmony generally needs more memory. So make sure to add the corresponding -Xms and -Xmx options.

Your final startup line may look like this:

Use HTTPS web interface

Web interface and console only work through HTTPS port (https://localhost:8443/). When working through HTTP port (http://localhost:8080/) large portions of interface are not drawn correctly. This is still to be investigated.

Configure Deployer to use Harmony RMI Registry provider for JNDI

The Geronimo Deployer doesn't use the var/config/config.xml file (see above), so the JNDI configuration needs to be supplied through the system properties, like this:

Harmony configuration

Use DRLVM

You should use DRLVM (Harmony VM) to run Geronimo.

Harmony also supports IBM J9 VM, but Geronimo doesn't work with it, as Geronimo relies on java.util.concurrent package that requires a proper implementation of sun.misc.Unsafe class that is missing in IBM J9 VM.