J2EE Application Clients in NetBeans IDE

Configuring the User and Group on the Application Server

In our example, only users from the bank_users can access our enterprise bean. We'll create the bank_users group's users in the file security realm on the SJS Application server.

1. Start the application server by right-clicking its node in the Runtime window and choosing Start/Stop Server.
2. Right-click the application server node and choose Show Admin Console. Log into the admin console and select Configuration > Security > Realms > file in the left navigation bar.
3. Click the Manage Users button in the center frame of the admin console. Under Current Users, click the New button.
4. Type manager for the User ID, password for the Password, and bank_users for the Group List. Then click OK.

1. Download the completed enterprise application and unzip it somewhere on your system.
2. Press Ctrl-Shift-O to open the Secure project. Make sure the Open Required Projects checkbox is selected. The IDE should open three projects:
   • Secure
   • Secure-EJBModule
   • Secure-WebModule
3. Right-click the Secure project and choose Run Project. The IDE builds and deploys the project and opens the AccountState servlet in the external browser.
4. Enter the user name (manager) and password (password) in the dialog box and click OK. The servlet should return the following output:

   In account manager is 250$

Setting Up the Application Client Project

1. Choose File > New Project (Ctrl-Shift-N) and select the Java Application template from the General category. Click Next.
2. Name the application SecureClient and specify a location for the project. Leave the rest of the settings at their default values and click Finish. The IDE creates the project and opens secureclient.Main.java in the Source Editor.
3. Right-click the SecureClient project's Libraries node and choose Add JAR/Folder to add the following to the classpath:
   • The j2ee.jar file from your application server's lib directory
   • The dist/jar directory from the Secure-EJBModule project

Coding the Application Client

The Call Enterprise Bean command is not available in general Java application projects, so you have to enter the code that gets a reference to the enterprise bean's remote interfaces yourself.

1. In Main.java, add the following code in bold to the main method:

   ...
       public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
           // TODO code application logic here
           Context ctx = new InitialContext();
           Object objRef = ctx.lookup("java:comp/env/ejb/AccountStatusBean");
           AccountStatusRemote account =
                   ((AccountStatusRemoteHome)PortableRemoteObject.narrow(objRef,
   AccountStatusRemoteHome.class)).create();
           System.out.println(account.getStatus("somename"));
       }
   ...

2. Press Alt-Shift-F to generate any needed import statements.

Creating the Application Client Deployment Descriptors

1. Create a folder called conf in the SecureClient/src folder.
2. Create an XML file called application-client.xml in the SecureClient/src/conf folder. (If you create the file using the New XML wizard, use the Well-Formed XML Document option.)
3. Change the body of application-client.xml to the following:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <application-client version="1.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
   http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/application-client_1_4.xsd">
     <display-name>SecureClient</display-name>
     <ejb-ref>
       <ejb-ref-name>ejb/AccountStatusBean</ejb-ref-name>
       <ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
       <home>ejb.AccountStatusRemoteHome</home>
       <remote>ejb.AccountStatusRemote</remote>
     </ejb-ref>
   </application-client>
   
   

   This code just sets the display name of the module and registers the EJB reference for AccountStatusBean.

4. Create an XML file called sun-application-client.xml in the SecureClient/src/conf folder.
5. Change the body of sun-application-client.xml to the following:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <!DOCTYPE sun-application-client
   PUBLIC '-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Application Server 8.1 Application Client 1.4//EN'
   'http://www.sun.com/software/appserver/dtds/sun-application-client_1_4-1.dtd'>
   <sun-application-client>
     <ejb-ref>
       <ejb-ref-name>ejb/AccountStatusBean</ejb-ref-name>
       <jndi-name>ejb/AccountStatusBean</jndi-name>
     </ejb-ref>
   </sun-application-client>
   

   This code just maps the EJB reference to an actual bean on the application server whose JNDI name is ejb/AccountStatusBean.

6. Save the files.

Configuring the Enterprise Application Deployment Descriptor

1. In the Projects window, expand the Configuration Files node for the Secure project, right-click application.xml, and choose Edit.
2. Add the following code in bold to the root application element:

   ...
     </module>
     <module>
       <java>SecureClient.jar</java>
     </module>
     <security-role>
   ...

3. Save the file.

Packaging the Application Client JAR File in the Enterprise Application

1. Right-click the Secure project node and choose Properties.
2. Select Build > Packaging in the left panel of the dialog box.
3. In Additional Content to Include, click Add Project and add the project directory for the SecureClient project.

Configuring the Build Script

Now we have to make some changes to the build script to package the deployment descriptors and run it as a J2EE application client.

1. In the Files window, expand the SecureClient node and double-click build.xml.
2. Add the following targets to build.xml:

       <!--
         Makes sure the IDE can find the Application Server install directory
         and sets the appclient executable name depending on platform
       -->
       <target name="-pre-init">
         <fail unless="com.sun.aas.installRoot">
           J2EE home property - neither j2ee.home nor com.sun.aas.installRoot(NetBeans) is set.
         </fail>
         <property name="j2ee.home" value="${com.sun.aas.installRoot}" />
         <condition property="appclient.name" value="appclient">
           <and>
             <os family="unix"/>
             <os family="Linux"/>
           </and>
         </condition>
         <condition property="appclient.name" value="appclient.bat">
            <and>
              <os family="Windows"/>
            </and>
         </condition>
         <condition property="package-appclient.name" value="package-appclient">
           <and>
             <os family="unix"/>
             <os family="Linux"/>
           </and>
         </condition>
         <condition property="package-appclient.name" value="package-appclient.bat">
           <and>
             <os family="Windows"/>
           </and>
         </condition>
       </target>
   
       <!--
         Target that copies J2EE app client deployment descriptors to jar
       -->
       <target name="-pre-jar">
         <!-- copy EJB interfaces -->
          <copy  todir="${build.classes.dir}">
            <fileset dir="${file.reference.build-jar}">
              <include name="**/*.class"/>
            </fileset>
          </copy>
          <!-- copy configuration files -->
          <mkdir dir="${build.classes.dir}/META-INF" />
          <copy  todir="${build.classes.dir}/META-INF">
            <fileset dir="${src.dir}/conf">
              <include name="*.xml"/>
            </fileset>
          </copy>
       </target>
   
       <target name="run" depends="init,compile">
          <exec executable="${j2ee.home}/bin/${appclient.name}">
            <arg line="-client ${dist.jar}"/>
          </exec>
       </target>
   
       <target name="package-appclient" depends="init">
           <exec executable="${j2ee.home}/bin/${package-appclient.name}" dir="${dist.dir}"/>
       </target>
   

3. Save the file.