Can I set the classloader policy for WebSphere in the ibm-web-bnd.xmi file?

Question

I have a JEE application that runs on WAS 6. It needs to have the class loader order setting to "Classes loaded with application class loader first", and the WAR class loader policy option set to "Single class loader for application".

Is it possible to specify these options inside the EAR file, whether in the ibm-web-bnd.xmi file or some other file, so the admin doesn't need to change these setting manually?

Since the app is deployed via an automated script, and the guy who is in charge of deployment is off site, and also for some other political reasons, this would greatly help!

Answer 1

Thanks to @Matthew Murdoch's answer, I was able to come up with a solution. Here it is, in case it helps someone else.

I created a deployment.xml like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<appdeployment:Deployment xmi:version="2.0" xmlns:xmi="http://www.omg.org/XMI" xmlns:appdeployment="http://www.ibm.com/websphere/appserver/schemas/5.0/appdeployment.xmi" xmi:id="Deployment_1241112964096">
  <deployedObject xmi:type="appdeployment:ApplicationDeployment" xmi:id="ApplicationDeployment_1241112964096" startingWeight="1" warClassLoaderPolicy="SINGLE">
    <classloader xmi:id="Classloader_1241112964096" mode="PARENT_LAST"/>
    <modules xmi:type="appdeployment:WebModuleDeployment" xmi:id="WebModuleDeployment_1241112964096" startingWeight="10000" uri="AGS.war">
      <classloader xmi:id="Classloader_1241112964097"/>
    </modules>
  </deployedObject>
</appdeployment:Deployment>

Make sure to change the name of your WAR file(s) to match (mine is called AGS.war).

I also changed the numbers in the xmi:id attributes, to be sure they are unique, though I'm not sure it it really matters that they be unique across applications.

Then, I put the deployment.xml file in the root of my EAR file, via ANT:

    <ear destfile="${artifactsDir}/${earName}.ear" appxml="${projectName}_EAR/application.xml">
        <fileset dir="${artifactsDir}" includes="${warName}.war"/>
        <fileset dir="${projectName}_EAR/" includes="deployment.xml"/>
    </ear>

Answer 2

Edit (2): The WebSphere Application Server Toolkit (AST) is a tool you can use to enhance an EAR file with this information (see for example the 'Configure an Enhanced EAR' section in this document).

Edit (1): This post suggests that the 'Classes loaded with application class loader first' (the PARENT_LAST setting) can be set in the deployment.xml file within the EAR.

If you have control over the automated deployment scripts this can be done. Below is some wsadmin jython code for setting the web module class loader order to 'Classes loaded with application class loader first' (interestingly the setting is called PARENT_LAST which is what it was labelled in previous versions of the admin console...).

wsadmin example (jython):

def getWebModule(config, applicationName):
    webModules = config.list('WebModuleDeployment').
         split(system.getProperty('line.separator'))
    for webModule in webModules:
        if (webModule.find(applicationName) != -1):
            return webModule
    return None

applicationName = "<Your application name here>"

webModule = getWebModule(AdminConfig, applicationName)
if (webModule != None):
    AdminConfig.modify(webModule, "[[classloaderMode PARENT_LAST]]")
    AdminConfig.save()
else:
    print "Error: Cannot find web module for application: " + applicationName