Environment specific properties in JBOSS AS7

Question

We have 4 servers that run JBOSS AS7:

• dev
• test
• acc
• prod

On each jboss, a simple webapp will run. This webapp will use spring and requires some properties to be set like:

webservice.endpoint=interface.url.com
webservice.port=7676

The properties will differ for each environment. The way we handle this at this moment is as follows:

I have a JAR file with a single file in it, config.properties. This property file contains all my properties. I turn this jar into a global jboss module and configure it in my domain.xml (or standalone.xml) to be included. This works, because spring can access the properties when making beans.

However, it seems overly complicated to turn properties into a jar, into a module. I was thinking I should maybe use system properties to achieve this? My question is: is this a good place to put all the environment specific, application specific properties? Will they be loaded into the JVM so everyone can access them at will (especially Spring, which uses the ${myProperty} notation to access properties). Additionally, when I add properties using the console in my browser, were are they stored? I cannot see them in domain.xml or host.xml.

Answer 1

if you go with the JAR solution : - use an unique classifier for each environments. You will have x properties files : dev_config.properties / test_config.properties, etc...

this way you can just set an unique JAVA_OPTS that set the environment in which you are. then you get the right properties file :

using : System.getenv("ENV") or System.getProperty("ENV")

if ("DEV".Equals(System.getenv("ENV"))
  here you load ==> the dev_config.properties

to load the properties into a JAR it is really easy with this maven plugin.

<plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                        <id>packaging-deployment_manifests_bundle</id>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>attached</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <descriptors>
                        <descriptor>descriptors/deployment_manifests_bundle.xml</descriptor>
                            </descriptors>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>

if you go with the environment_variables : I never tried this solution in my projects, I always went with the properties file solution. but if you have just a few variables to set, this could be even quicker... you can access those variables with :

import java.util.Map;

public class EnvMap {
    public static void main (String[] args) {
        Map<String, String> env = System.getenv();
        for (String envName : env.keySet()) {
            System.out.format("%s=%s%n",
                              envName,
                              env.get(envName));
        }
    }
}

Adding data in the environments variables can be OK if it is nothing sensitive, like passwords and the likes. It is easier IMO to obfuscate data in a properties file. So if security is at stake, this is a point to consider.