sagara's Blog

Setting HTTP basic security in Maven Jetty plug-in

2013-01-25T21:56:00.000+05:30

Recently I had to test HTTP basic security for one of my web application project, just to save my time I didn't want to use any standalone server during development instead I tried to configure Maven Jetty plug-in to support HTTP basic security. Here I have given the procedure which I followed.

1.) Configure Maven Jetty plugin in project pom.xml file.

It's required to add a UserRealm under plug-in configuration section. Jetty provides number of in-built UserRealms, here I used HashUserRealm for simplicity which use in-memory HashMaps to store users and roles.

 <plugin>  
                     <groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>  
                     <artifactId>maven-jetty-plugin</artifactId>  
                     <configuration>  
                          <scanIntervalSeconds>3</scanIntervalSeconds>  
                          <webAppConfig>  
                               <contextPath>/</contextPath>  
                          </webAppConfig>  
                          <userRealms>  
                               <userRealm implementation="org.mortbay.jetty.security.HashUserRealm">  
                                    <name>basic security</name>  
                                    <config>jetty-users.properties</config>  
                               </userRealm>  
                          </userRealms>  
                     </configuration>  
                </plugin>  
           </plugins>

Then add a property file called jetty-users.properties which contains user names, passwords and user roles.

 sagara=sagara,ADMIN

2.) Configure web.xml file of the web application.

In this example we allow users with ADMIN role to access any URL within the application.

 <security-constraint>  
           <display-name>authorizedUsers</display-name>  
           <web-resource-collection>  
                <web-resource-name>ALL URLs</web-resource-name>  
                <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>  
           </web-resource-collection>  
           <auth-constraint>  
                <role-name>ADMIN</role-name>  
           </auth-constraint>  
      </security-constraint>  
      <login-config>  
           <auth-method>BASIC</auth-method>  
           <realm-name>basic security</realm-name>  
      </login-config>  
      <security-role>  
           <description>administrator access</description>  
           <role-name>ADMIN</role-name>  
      </security-role>

Release of Axis2 1.6.2 and Sandesha2 1.6.2 , Rampart 1.6.2

2012-05-04T10:16:00.003+05:30

The Apache Axis2 team is pleased to announce the general availability of the following releases:

Axis2 1.6.2
Sandesha2 1.6.2
Rampart 1.6.2

Apache Axis2 is a complete re-design and re-write of the widely used Apache Axis engine and is a more efficient, more scalable, more
modular and more XML-oriented Web services framework. It is carefully designed to support the easy addition of plug-in "modules" that extend
its functionality for features such as security and reliability.

Apache Rampart is an Axis2 module that implements the specifications in the WS-Security stack.

Apache Sandesha2 provides WS-ReliableMessaging support for Axis2.

Axis2 1.6.2 is a maintenance release that contains more than 45 fixes.

Rampart 1.6.2 is a maintenance release containing number of bug fixes and compatible with the Axis2 1.6.2 release.

Sandesha2 1.6.2 is a maintenance release that is compatible with the Axis2 1.6.2 release.

The new versions are available for download at the following locations:

http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/core/download.cgi
http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/rampart/download/1.6.2/download.cgi
http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/sandesha/download.cgi

As always, we welcome any and all feedback at:

java-dev@axis.apache.org - for developer-related questions/concerns
java-user@axis.apache.org - for general questions, usage, etc.

NOTE - Axis2 1.6.2 compatible with Axis2 Transports 1.0.0 version

Code generation and WSDL exposed over HTTPS

2012-05-03T18:50:00.000+05:30

In one of my previous post I explained how to use WSDL2JAVA tool behind a proxy together with basic authentication. Another such useful scenario is code generation for a WSDL which exposed over HTTPS protocol. In this case we have to provide key store details to the WSDL2JAVA tool. Basically it expect following two Java system properties.

 javax.net.ssl.trustStore  
 javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword

Once you know those properties you can use WSDL2JAVA tool as follows.

 wsdl2java.sh -uri https://localhost:8443/services/SimpleService?wsdl -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=path/keystorename.keystore -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=keypassword

How easy to test your web service over HTTPS

2012-05-02T15:57:00.002+05:30

I have seen many times people having issues with testing web services over HTTPS. This is not an unexpected behavior because number of improvements have been introduced from Axis2 1.5 release for HTTPS transport. With older versions it is possible to use HTTPS transport with Simple HTTPServer and some people already familiar with it too, but recent Axis2 releases no longer support for this option and it is compulsory to use Servlet transport in order to enable HTTPS.

Above modifications doesn't effect much on production systems because it's always recommend to use an Application server for production systems. When it come to development stage this changes required to use a Servlet container to test HTTPS services, Apache Tomcat is one of the good choice for this.

In this post I will discuss how to use Maven Jetty Plug-in to test Axis2 HTTPS transport very easily, all you need is to follow few steps that I have given below.

Step -1 Configure Axis2 for HTTPS transport.

It is required to define AxisServletListener in your axis2.xml for HTTPS transport, in case if you want to use both HTTP ad HTTPS it is possible to define AxisServletListener as two entries with two ports this guide provide more details about this. If you don't have axis2.xml file copy it from binary distribution and replace existing " transportReceiver " with following entries.

  <transportReceiver name="http"  
     class="org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServletListener">  
     <parameter name="port">8080</parameter>  
   </transportReceiver>  
   <transportReceiver name="https"  
     class="org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServletListener">  
     <parameter name="port">8443</parameter>  
   </transportReceiver>

Step - 2 Generate KeyStore.

Usually this is kind of a time wasting task but fortunately you can use keytool-maven-plugin to auto-generate keystore in each run. The only required step is add following entries into your POM file and it will save your time a lot.

       <plugin>  
         <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>  
         <artifactId>keytool-maven-plugin</artifactId>  
         <executions>  
           <execution>  
             <phase>generate-resources</phase>  
             <id>clean</id>  
             <goals>  
               <goal>clean</goal>  
             </goals>  
           </execution>  
           <execution>  
             <phase>generate-resources</phase>  
             <id>genkey</id>  
             <goals>  
               <goal>genkey</goal>  
             </goals>  
           </execution>  
         </executions>  
         <configuration>  
           <keystore>${project.build.directory}/jetty-ssl.keystore</keystore>  
           <dname>cn=localhost</dname>  
           <keypass>axis2key</keypass>  
           <storepass>axis2key</storepass>  
           <alias>axis2key</alias>  
           <keyalg>RSA</keyalg>  
         </configuration>  
       </plugin>

Spacial Note - Above approach is not an replacement for production server configurations . It is highly recommend to follow standard procedures to configure production servers for HTTPS.

Step - 3 Configure and Run the service.

Now you need to add SSL Connectors for the Jetty configuration by adding following entries.

  <plugin>  
         <groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>  
         <artifactId>maven-jetty-plugin</artifactId>  
         <configuration>  
           <webAppConfig>  
             <contextPath>/</contextPath>  
           </webAppConfig>  
           <connectors>  
             <connector  
               implementation="org.mortbay.jetty.security.SslSocketConnector">  
               <port>8443</port>  
               <maxIdleTime>60000</maxIdleTime>  
               <keystore>${project.build.directory}/jetty-ssl.keystore</keystore>  
               <password>axis2key</password>  
               <keyPassword>axis2key</keyPassword>  
             </connector>  
             <connector  
               implementation="org.mortbay.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector">  
               <port>8080</port>  
               <maxIdleTime>60000</maxIdleTime>  
             </connector>  
           </connectors>  
         </configuration>  
       </plugin>

Run "mvn Jetty:run " this will start jetty server with both HTTP and HTTPS connectors . Now you can access to the WSDL content over HTTPS. According to above example you can fine WSDL file here.

Step- 04 - Configure Client.

Since now you can access to the WSDL file you are free to use any of your client side preferences to create a WS client , you may generate stub or possible to write service/operation clients. Before you invoke your service you need to perform one more extra step, that is provide your key store details to Java run time . In simply we can use above generated keystore with our client too.

Add following two lines before you invoke your client.

 System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.trustStore","[location]/jetty-ssl.keystore");  
 System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword", "axis2key");

You can download full source code for this sample from here.

Axis2 clustering on Tomcat

2012-05-01T16:32:00.000+05:30

In this post I will discuss how to setup a Axis2 cluster using two Tomcat servers. It's not my intention to describe Axis2 cluster architecture or cluster configuration language, if you need such details refer provided references at the end of this post. Axis2 cluster implementation is based on pure API which you can implement using any Java multicast communication framework, by default Axis2 provide a cluster implemantation based on Tomcat Cluster Communication Module also known as Apache Tribes. Following diagram illustrate the design we are going to discuss in this post but I skip load balancer setup for simplicity but in real world scenario you could use load balancer such as Apache2 server or WSO2 Load Balancer that support for more advanced options.

Pre-requirements

1. Apache Tomcat server. ( Version 7.x.x preferable. )

2. Apache Axis2 WAR distribution (Version 1.6.2 preferable.)

Here I use same machine to setup two Tomcat server instances hence it's required to change server configuration of one instance. Let's say Node-1 having default configuration and Node-2 having custom configuration. Open the server.xml file and change server port, port nubers of HTTP and AJP Connectors as follows.

Node-1 (default configuration)

 <Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">  
 <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443" />  
 <Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" />

Node-2

 <Server port="9005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">  
 <Connector port="9090" protocol="HTTP/1.1" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="9443" />  
 <Connector port="9009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="9443" />

Now install Axis2 WAR distribution on both server instances and stop both servers to edit axis2 configuration file. Open axis2.xml file and edit cluster settings as follows.

Node -1

     <parameter name="AvoidInitiation">false</parameter>   
     <parameter name="domain">sample.cluster.domain</parameter>  
     <parameter name="mcastBindAddress">127.0.0.1</parameter>  
     <parameter name="localMemberHost">127.0.0.1</parameter>  
     <parameter name="localMemberPort">4000</parameter>

Node -2

     <parameter name="AvoidInitiation">false</parameter>   
     <parameter name="domain">sample.cluster.domain</parameter>  
     <parameter name="mcastBindAddress">127.0.0.1</parameter>  
     <parameter name="localMemberHost">127.0.0.1</parameter>  
     <parameter name="localMemberPort">4001</parameter>

Note that in a real network setup it's required to edit mcastBindAddress, localMemberHost settings in addition to localMemberPort value but in my local machine only localMemberPort has changed. After this has done start the Node -1, if there is no issue in your setup you could able to see log messages as follows on node-1 server console.

 [INFO] Initializing cluster...  
 [INFO] Cluster domain: sample.cluster.domain  
 [INFO] Using multicast based membership management scheme  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:13 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.transport.ReceiverBase bind  
 INFO: Receiver Server Socket bound to:/127.0.0.1:4000  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:13 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl setupSocket  
 INFO: Setting cluster mcast soTimeout to 500  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:13 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Sleeping for 1000 milliseconds to establish cluster membership, start level:4  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:14 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Done sleeping, membership established, start level:4  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:14 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Sleeping for 1000 milliseconds to establish cluster membership, start level:8  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:15 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Done sleeping, membership established, start level:8  
 [WARN] Local member advertising its IP address as 127.0.0.1. Remote members will not be able to connect to this member.  
 [INFO] Local Member 127.0.0.1:4000(sample.cluster.domain)  
 [INFO] No members in current cluster  
 [INFO] Cluster initialization completed.  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:15 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDirectory  
 INFO: Deploying web application directory /home/sagara/dev/servers/axis2-clustering/tomcat/node1/webapps/ROOT  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:15 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start  
 INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-8080"]  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:15 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start  
 INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-8009"]  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:15 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start  
 INFO: Server startup in 3068 ms

Now start the Node -2 and monitor log messages on Node-2 console

 [INFO] Initializing cluster...  
 [INFO] Cluster domain: sample.cluster.domain  
 [INFO] Using multicast based membership management scheme  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:50 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.transport.ReceiverBase bind  
 INFO: Receiver Server Socket bound to:/127.0.0.1:4001  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:50 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl setupSocket  
 INFO: Setting cluster mcast soTimeout to 500  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:50 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Sleeping for 1000 milliseconds to establish cluster membership, start level:4  
 [INFO] New member 127.0.0.1:4000(sample.cluster.domain ) joined cluster.  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:51 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Done sleeping, membership established, start level:4  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:51 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Sleeping for 1000 milliseconds to establish cluster membership, start level:8  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:51 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.io.BufferPool getBufferPool  
 INFO: Created a buffer pool with max size:104857600 bytes of type:org.apache.catalina.tribes.io.BufferPool15Impl  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:52 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.McastServiceImpl waitForMembers  
 INFO: Done sleeping, membership established, start level:8  
 [WARN] Local member advertising its IP address as 127.0.0.1. Remote members will not be able to connect to this member.  
 [INFO] Local Member 127.0.0.1:4001(sample.cluster.domain )  
 [INFO] Members of current cluster  
 [INFO] Member1 127.0.0.1:4000(sample.cluster.domain )  
 [INFO] Trying to send initialization request to 127.0.0.1:4000(sample.cluster.domain )  
 [INFO] Received configuration initialization message  
 [INFO] Trying to send initialization request to 127.0.0.1:4000(sample.cluster.domain )  
 [INFO] Received state initialization message  
 [INFO] Cluster initialization completed.  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:52 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDirectory  
 INFO: Deploying web application directory /home/sagara/dev/servers/axis2-clustering/tomcat/node2/webapps/ROOT  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:52 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start  
 INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-9090"]  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:52 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start  
 INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["ajp-bio-9009"]  
 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:52 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start  
 INFO: Server startup in 13334 ms

Additionally now you should able to see following log messages on Node-1 server console.

 Apr 30, 2012 6:37:50 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.io.BufferPool getBufferPool  
 INFO: Created a buffer pool with max size:104857600 bytes of type:org.apache.catalina.tribes.io.BufferPool15Impl  
 [INFO] New member 127.0.0.1:4001(sample.cluster.domain) joined cluster.  
 [INFO] Received GetConfigurationCommand initialization request message from 127.0.0.1:4001(sample.cluster.domain)  
 [INFO] Received GetStateCommand initialization request message from 127.0.0.1:4001(sample.cluster.domain)

If you have followed me up to this point you have successfully setup a Axis2 cluster with two nodes. Now you can deploy any cluster aware web service on this cluster. For testing purposes let's write following POJO service and will deploy on both servers. I have given service code and service.xml below.

 package sample;  
 import org.apache.axis2.context.MessageContext;  
 public class Count {  
   public int count() {  
     int count;  
     MessageContext mc = MessageContext.getCurrentMessageContext();  
     Object ob = mc.getConfigurationContext().getProperty("count");  
     if (ob == null) {  
       count = 1;  
     } else {  
       count = (Integer) ob;  
       count++;  
     }  
     mc.getConfigurationContext().setProperty("count", count);  
     return count;  
   }  
 }

Note that we use ConfigurationContext to store our count values, ConfigurationContext is replicate among cluster members.

 <service name="count">   
   <parameter name="ServiceClass">sample.Count</parameter>  
   <operation name="count">  
   <messageReceiver class="org.apache.axis2.rpc.receivers.RPCMessageReceiver" />  
   </operation>  
 </service>

In order to test our cluster aware service we need a Web service client, for the simplicity I will use a browser and Axis2 REST support. Since we skip the load balancer setup following two different URLs can be use to invoke services . Once you invokes services on both servers you can notice that the count value is shared among two Axis2 instances clearly.

 http://localhost:8080/axis2/services/count/count  
 http://localhost:9090/axis2/services/count/count

References

Axis2 JMS transport and ActiveMQ

2012-04-21T19:14:00.001+05:30

In this post I will describe how to configure Axis2 JMS transport properly and test web services through JMS transport. For the simplicity I will use Apache ActiveMQ as the JMS server and will use ActiveMQ admin console as a JMS client to send and receive messages. In my future posts I will describe how to use ActiveMQ Maven plug-in with Axis2 and also how to test Axis2 JMS transports with few other implementations such as Apache QPID and WSO2 Message Broker.

First, If you don't have a ActiveMQ installation already, download the binary distribution from here and start the ActiveMQ server. If it's started properly make sure you can access to admin console through the following URL, we will use this admin console as a JMS client.

 http://0.0.0.0:8161/admin

The next step is add requited dependencies and configure JMS transport in Axis2. Here I use Axis2 Simple HTTP server but same steps can be used with any other application server too.

(1) Add following dependencies to the "lib" directory of Axis2.

1. axis2-transport-jms-1.x.x (axis2-transport-jms-1.7.0-SNAPSHOT.jar or axis2-transport-jms-1.7.0 )
2. axis2-transport-base-1.x.x (axis2-transport-base-1.7.0-SNAPSHOT.jar or axis2-transport-base- 1.7.0)
3. geronimo-j2ee-management_1.1_spec-1.0.x (geronimo-j2ee-management_1.1_spec-1.0.1.jar)
4. geronimo-jms_1.1_spec-1.1.x (geronimo-jms_1.1_spec-1.1.1.jar)
5. activemq-core-5.1.x (activemq-core-5.1.0.jar)
6. coomons-io-2.1 (coomons-io-2.1.jar)

You can find above dependencies on Axis2 transport project here or you can find latest development snapshots from Apache build server here.

(2) Like in any other Axis2 transport your next task is to configure particular transport through the axis2.xml file by adding underline TransportListener and TransportSender. For the JMS transport you can add following settings.

 <transportReceiver name="jms" class="org.apache.axis2.transport.jms.JMSListener">  
   <parameter name="default" locked="false">             
     <parameter name="java.naming.factory.initial" locked="false">org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory</parameter>  
     <parameter name="java.naming.provider.url" locked="false">tcp://localhost:61616</parameter>      
     <parameter name="transport.jms.ConnectionFactoryJNDIName" locked="false">QueueConnectionFactory</parameter>  
   </parameter>  
 </transportReceiver>

 <transportSender name="jms" class="org.apache.axis2.transport.jms.JMSSender">  
   <parameter name="default" locked="false">             
     <parameter name="java.naming.factory.initial" locked="false">org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory</parameter>  
     <parameter name="java.naming.provider.url" locked="false">tcp://localhost:61616</parameter>      
     <parameter name="transport.jms.ConnectionFactoryJNDIName" locked="false">QueueConnectionFactory</parameter>  
   </parameter>  
 </transportSender>

Axis2 Transport user guide provide advanced configuration details such as separate configuration for JMS Queue and Topic etc.

(3) Start Axis2 server, If JMS transport is configured properly it is possible to see log message about JMS transport as follows.

 [INFO] JMS Sender started  
 [INFO] JMS ConnectionFactory : default initialized  
 [INFO] JMS Transport Sender initialized...  
 ..................  
 [INFO] JMS ConnectionFactory : default initialized  
 [INFO] JMS Transport Receiver/Listener initialized...  
 [INFO] Listening on port 8080  
 [INFO] JMS listener started  
 [INFO] Task manager for service : Version [re-]initialized  
 [INFO] Started to listen on destination : Version of type Queue for service Version  
 [INFO] Task manager for service : CalculatorService [re-]initialized  
 [INFO] Started to listen on destination : CalculatorService of type Queue for service CalculatorService  
 [INFO] Task manager for service : mtomService1Axis [re-]initialized  
 [INFO] Started to listen on destination : mtomService1Axis of type Queue for service mtomService1Axis  
 [INFO] [SimpleAxisServer] Started  
 [SimpleAxisServer] Started

Now you have configured Axis2 JMS transport properly and it's possible to use any JMS client to invoke web services deployed on Axis2. Let's try to invoke getVersion operation on Version web service through ActiveMQ admin console. Again in a browser go to the ActiveMQ admin console through the http://0.0.0.0:8161/admin URL, now you have to select "Send" tab to reach the send wizard. This wizard expect 3 basic inputs from you as input message, JMS destination ( in this case destination queue) and reply-to location. By looking at Axis2 server startup logs you can find hint about JMS destination bind to each web service, you can ensure availability of this JMS destination in ActiveMQ console too.

  [INFO] Started to listen on destination : Version of type Queue for service Version

For our test scenario let's use following properties.

Destination - Version
Reply-To - VersionResponse ( This destination is not available on ActiveMQ at this point, it will be created when the repose messages arrive to the JMS server)
In put message - Use following message
Correlation ID - Add a random number

 <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:axis="http://axisversion.sample">  
   <soap:Header/>  
   <soap:Body>  
    <axis:getVersion/>  
   </soap:Body>  
 </soap:Envelope>

Now you can see the response message by browsing "VersionResponse" Queue as follows.

How to use Axis2 WSDL2JAVA with proxy authentication

2012-04-13T18:56:00.001+05:30

Securing WSDL using basic authentication is a common practice for number of enterprise web service providers. Also in some business domains it's required to secure various WSDL URLs among business partners so that partners can access service contracts according to their business agreements by providing a user name and a password. As the most popular Java web service stack lot of people keep asking to enable basic authentication to WSDL2JAVA tool so that they can access WSDL files secured through basic authentication.

Now you can use following two options to specify proxy user name and password.

 -http-proxy-user [user name]      - Proxy user name for basic authentication.  
 -http-proxy-password [password]   - Proxy password for basic authentication.

The following examples show how to use above option in command line.

 wsdl2java.sh -http-proxy-user user-name -http-proxy-password password -uri http://localhost/axis2/services/Version?wsdl

 wsdl2java.sh -http-proxy-user user-name -http-proxy-password password -wv 2.0 -uri http://localhost/axis2/services/Version?wsdl2

Also these two options supported in Wsdl2Java Maven plug-in too.

 axis2.wsdl2code.http-proxy-user  - User name for proxy server.  
 axis2.wsdl2code.http-proxy-password - Password for proxy server.

Test Axis2 JAX-WS MTOM service using SoapUI

2012-03-24T21:37:00.006+05:30

In this post I have described how to write a MTOM aware JAX-WS service and how to use SoapUI to invoke this service. Consider a service called PictureService that uploads images through a web service, it uses a bean called PictureInfo that contains two fields as textual name of the image and image binary data.

 @XmlRootElement  
 public class PictureInfo {  
   private String name;  
   protected DataHandler imageData;  
   public String getName() {  
     return name;  
   }  
   public void setName(String name) {  
     this.name = name;  
   }  
   @XmlMimeType("application/octet-stream")  
   public DataHandler getImageData() {  
     return imageData;  
   }  
   public void setImageData(DataHandler imageData) {  
     this.imageData = imageData;  
   }  
 }

As you can see in the above code snippet getImageData() method annotated using XmlMimeType that instructs JAXB runtime to consider this particular filed as a MIME content. You can find web service interface and implementation in the following code snippet.

 @WebService(name = "pictureService")  
 public interface PictureService {  
   boolean uploadPicture(PictureInfo pictureInfo);  
 }

 @WebService(endpointInterface = "org.apache.axis2.sample.pictureservice.PictureService", serviceName = "pictureService")  
 public class PictureServiceImpl implements PictureService {  
   @Override  
   public boolean uploadPicture(PictureInfo pictureInfo) {  
     DataHandler dh = pictureInfo.getImageData();  
     try {  
       File F = new File("../data/"+ pictureInfo.getName() + ".jpg");  
       FileOutputStream fs = new FileOutputStream(F);  
       dh.writeTo(fs);  
       fs.flush();  
       fs.close();  
       return true;  
     } catch (Exception e) {  
       e.printStackTrace();  
     }  
     return false;  
   }  
 }

After compiling above classes it's required to package them as a jar file. Usually this is a straight forward task with a build tool like Maven. For the simplicity I used Axis2 simple HTTP server that shipped with binary distribution to deploy this sample application but it is possible to use any application server together with Axis2 WAR distribution. In case of Simple HTTP server use following steps to deploy the service properly.

Create a directory called "servicejars" under the Axis2 repository and place above created service jar file there. Axis2 deployment engine scan this directory in order to deploy JAX-WS services.
Create a directory called "data" as same level as "bin" directory, this directory used to store images uploaded by users.
Start Axis2 simple HTTP server.

It should be possible to access generated WSDL file through http://localhost:8080/axis2/services/pictureService?wsdl address.

Now create a SoapUI project by providing the above URL in the usual way as you create SoapUI project for any other web service. In the left side project explore window, find the automatically created "Request 1" message that should be under uploadPicture operation then open the request editor for this message. At this point you have need to perform following two tasks.

1. Set "Enable MTOM" property value to true because default value of this property is false. ( you can see message properties in a window located in left bottom side of your screen)

2. Fill sample values and attach a image using "Add an attachment" menu option. Before you send this message make sure value of "cid:" field is match with ContentID of the attachment. I have given a screen shot of such example here. After executing above method you can see uploaded image stored within "data" directory of the server.

Apache BarCamp Colombo 2012

2012-02-15T07:35:00.002+05:30

Axis2 archetype to create web application and Maven Jetty/Tomcat plug-ins.

2012-02-02T13:34:00.002+05:30

Axis2 provides number of web service deployment options. Unlike some other frameworks Axis2 can be integrate as a framework in a web application or can be used as a container to hold number of web services. Sometimes back Deepal wrote a nice tutorial to explain how to use Axis2 in a web application you can read his post here.

From Axis2 version 1.7.0 onwards we have introduced a new Maven archetype to create Axis2 embedded web applications. Following are the necessary step to use this archetype.

1.) It's possible to get list of available archetypes by invoking archetype:generate goal as follows. [ refer NOTE -1 ]

 mvn archetype:generate

2.) Select the number corresponds to "org.apache.axis2.archetype:quickstart-webapp (Maven archetype for creating a Axis2 web Service as a webapp)" . Then provide other input parameters such as group name, artifact name etc.

 541: local -> org.apache.axis2.archetype:quickstart (Maven archetype for creating a Axis2 web Service)  
 542: local -> org.apache.axis2.archetype:quickstart-webapp (Maven archetype for creating a Axis2 web Service as a webapp)  
 Choose a number or apply filter (format: [groupId:]artifactId, case sensitive contains): 171: 542  
 [INFO] snapshot org.apache.axis2.archetype:quickstart-webapp:1.7.0-SNAPSHOT: checking for updates from quickstart-webapp-repo  
 Downloading: http://repository.apache.org/snapshots//org/apache/axis2/archetype/quickstart-webapp/1.7.0-SNAPSHOT/quickstart-webapp-1.7.0-20120131.070321-34.jar  
 10K downloaded (quickstart-webapp-1.7.0-20120131.070321-34.jar)  
 Downloading: http://repository.apache.org/snapshots//org/apache/axis2/archetype/quickstart-webapp/1.7.0-SNAPSHOT/quickstart-webapp-1.7.0-20120131.070321-34.pom  
 1K downloaded (quickstart-webapp-1.7.0-20120131.070321-34.pom)  
 Define value for property 'groupId': : sample  
 Define value for property 'artifactId': : sampleWebApp  
 Define value for property 'version': 1.0-SNAPSHOT: 1.0  
 Define value for property 'package': sample:  
 Confirm properties configuration:  
 groupId: sample  
 artifactId: sampleWebApp  
 version: 1.0  
 package: sample  
 Y:  
 [INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 [INFO] Using following parameters for creating project from Archetype: quickstart-webapp:1.7.0-SNAPSHOT  
 [INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 [INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: sample  
 [INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: sampleWebApp  
 [INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0  
 [INFO] Parameter: package, Value: sample  
 [INFO] Parameter: packageInPathFormat, Value: sample  
 [INFO] Parameter: package, Value: sample  
 [INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0  
 [INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: sample  
 [INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: sampleWebApp  
 [INFO] project created from Archetype in dir: /home/apps/sampleWebApp  
 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 [INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL  
 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 [INFO] Total time: 57 seconds  
 [INFO] Finished at: Tue Jan 31 13:28:46 IST 2012  
 [INFO] Final Memory: 30M/238M  
 [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now you can import generated Maven project to any of your favorite IDE but console is sufficient to run default service.

Generated project's POM file is already configured for Maven Jetty plug-in and It's possible to see following entries.

     <plugin>  
         <groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>  
         <artifactId>maven-jetty-plugin</artifactId>  
         <configuration>  
           <webAppConfig>  
             <contextPath>/</contextPath>  
           </webAppConfig>  
         </configuration>  
       </plugin>

3.) Run Jetty server using following command. [ NOTE -2 ]

 mvn clean jetty:run

4.) Above command will start Jetty server and deploy current Maven project as a web application in this case it deploy available web services too. You can access WSDL file for deployed web service using following URL.

 http://localhost:8080/services/SimpleService?wsdl

5.) You can use Axis2's WSDL2JAVA or tool like a SoapUi to generate web service client for above service alternatively you can test above service using your browser in a RESTfull manner.

 http://localhost:8080/services/SimpleService/helloService?msg=sagara

You should able to see following response in your browser.

 <ns:helloServiceResponse><ns:return>Hello sagara</ns:return></ns:helloServiceResponse>

6.) If you are happy with your service you can create a WAR archive using mvn package command and possible to deploy in real app server instance.

Axis2 Webapp archetype use Jetty as the default server but it's possible to use Tomcat as follows.

7.) Add tomcat-maven-plugin to the POM file and configure it properly.

 <plugin>  
      <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>  
      <artifactId>tomcat-maven-plugin</artifactId>  
       <configuration>  
              <useSeparateTomcatClassLoader>  
               true  
             </useSeparateTomcatClassLoader>                       
        </configuration>  
   </plugin>

8.) Now all you need is to execute run goal as follows.

 mvn clean tomcat:run

9.) Also if you plan to deploy your service in a Tomcat instance you can you use deploy goal to deploy your service.

 mvn tomcat:deploy

Following are two sample configurations to use with deploy goal.

      <plugin>  
           <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>  
            <artifactId>tomcat-maven-plugin</artifactId>  
            <configuration>  
                <useSeparateTomcatClassLoader>  
                  true  
                </useSeparateTomcatClassLoader>               
                <path>/ws</path>  
               <warFile>target/wepAppSample-1.0.war</warFile>  
               <username>tomcat</username>  
               <password>tomcat</password>  
             </configuration>  
       </plugin>

         <plugin>  
               <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>  
               <artifactId>tomcat-maven-plugin</artifactId>  
               <configuration>  
                <useSeparateTomcatClassLoader>  
                 true  
                </useSeparateTomcatClassLoader>  
               <server>TomcatServer</server>  
                <path>/ws</path>  
               <warFile>target/wepAppSample-1.0.war</warFile>                
              </configuration>  
          </plugin>

NOTE -1
Until Axis2 1.7.0 version get released this archetype is not available on public Maven repos but you can point to Apache snapshot repository as follows.

 mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeRepository=http://repository.apache.org/snapshots/

NOTE -2
Until Axis2 1.7.0 version get released it's required to add following snapshot repository to the project's POM file in order to grab snapshot artifacts.

         <repositories>  
           <repository>     
            <id>snapshots</id>  
            <url>http://repository.apache.org/snapshots</url>  
           </repository>    
         </repositories>

JAX-WS processing using Axis2 tools

2012-01-22T21:41:00.001+05:30

JAX-WS wsgen and wsimport tools were designed to generate portable artifacts so that those artifacts can be use with any JAX-WS vendor runtime also these tools distribute as a part of JDK. Traditionally Axis2 does not provide any JAX-WS tools, instead it's possible to execute artifacts generated by wsgen and wsimport tools within Axis2. Recently number of users are requested to enable JAX-WS processing through Axis2 tools such as WSDL2JAVA and JAVA2WSDL. Starting from 1.7.0 version Axis2 provides first class JAX-WS processing support for both WSDL2JAVA and JAVA2WSDL tools. Also it's possible use wsgen and wsimport tools with Axis2 in the usual manner.

There is a new command line option introduced as "jws" that enables switching between Axis2 native processing and JAX-WS processing. Once the "jws" option available the tool will switch to JAX-WS processing from default Axis2 native processing .

To provide other input options it is possible to use some of the existing WSDL2JAVA/JAVA2WSDL options or possible to use wsgen/wsimport options if those option names are not conflict with Axis2 tools option names. If such option name conflict occurs Axis2 option will get the priority.

WSDL2JAVA options

Option (Axis2)	Option (wsimport)
-uri [url or path]	-uri [url or path]	A url or path to a WSDL
-o [path]	-d [path]	Specify a directory path for the generated code
-p [pkg name]	-p [pkg name]	Specify a custom package name for the generated code
-http-proxy-host [host name]	-httpproxy [host:port]	specify a HTTP proxy server
-http-proxy-port [port]	-httpproxy [host:port]	specify a HTTP proxy server

Examples :

 wsdl2java.sh -jws -uri SimpleService.wsdl

 wsdl2java.sh -jws -uri SimpleService.wsdl -o out

 wsdl2java.sh -jws -uri SimpleService.wsdl -d out

JAVA2WSDL options

Option (Axis2)	Option (wsimport)
-cn [fully qualified class name]	-cn [fully qualified class name]	fully qualified class name
-o [path]	-d [path]	Output directory
-cp [class path uri]	-cp [class path uri]	list of classpath entries

Examples :

 java2wsdl.sh -jws -cn sample.UserService

 java2wsdl.sh -jws -cn sample.UserService -d out

 java2wsdl.sh -jws -cn sample.UserService -o out

Axis2 Simple HTTP server Maven plugin

2012-01-20T00:23:00.002+05:30

As I mentioned in my last blog post this post covers one of the new feature of upcoming Axis2 1.7.0 version. Recently we have done number of improvements for Axis2 Maven support. There are three new Maven related modules introduced as follows.

simple-server-maven-plugin - A Maven plug-in that allows to run Axis2's simple HTTP server as a maven plug-in.
quickstart archetype - Maven archetype to develop and package Axis2 native (AAR) web services.
quickstart-webapp - Maven archetype to develop and package Axis2 web services as a web application(WAR).

In this post I discuss how to use simple-server-maven-plugin and it's configuration options. At the moment simple-server-maven-plugin provides single goal as "axis2:run".

You can add simple-server-maven-plugin into your Maven POM file as follows.

     <plugin>  
         <groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>  
         <artifactId>simple-server-maven-plugin</artifactId>  
         <version>${axis2.version}</version>  
     </plugin>

Note : At the moment this plug-in available only with 1.7.0-SNAPSHOT version and until this get released with official Apache releases you have to do one extra step as mentioned here[1].

As you may know Axis2 services expect single meta data file called services.xml under a directory named META-INF. By default it expect to place this meta data files under the "src/main/resources/services" directory. In order to deploy multiple service META-INF should place inside a another directory. As an example /src/main/resources/services/SimpleService/META-INF/services.xml. Also by default it facilitates to place Axis2 modules (.mar) under src/main/resources/modules directory. Following picture shows one such a example directory structure.

Once you have completed above steps you can run Axis2 Simple HTTP server using run goal.

 mvn clean axis2:run

Now It's possible to access available service listing page by http://localhost:8080 URL.

simple-server-maven-plugin support for following configuration options.

Option
repoPath	Path to Axis2 repository by default run goal creates Axis2 repository inside the project's target directory.
confPath	Path to Axis2.xml configuration file.
stdServiceSrcDir	Directory to place service meta (META-INF/services.xml) information. This directory supports multiple service deployment. Default value is "src/main/resources/services".
moduleSrcDir	moduleSrcDir - Directory to place Axis2 modules (.mar) default value is "src/main/resources/modules"

Hope this plug-in save web service development time greatly and also this can be used to automate unit test easily.

[1] - Since above plug-in still not available on official Maven repositories it is required to add following SNAPSHOT repository to your POM file. But this is not required after Axis2 1.7.0 release.

    <pluginRepositories>  
           <pluginRepository>     
            <id>apache-snapshots</id>     
            <url>http://repository.apache.org/snapshots</url>  
           </pluginRepository>    
      </pluginRepositories>

What is new in Axis2 1.7.0 - 1

2011-11-16T04:16:00.001+05:30

I conducted a Fast Feather talk during the ApacheCon NA 2011 to give a overview about new features of upcoming Axis2 1.7.0 release. I started to write series of blog post mentioning new features of new release I will explain each of these features in detail and try to provide samples too.

As the starting post I attached a slide that shows overview of most of the new features.

What is new in Axis2 1.7.0 rlease - 1

View more presentations from sagara10.

SOAP encoding and Axis2

2011-10-20T12:55:00.007+05:30

As of today SOAP encoding only exists due to some historical reasons non of the standard web service framework supports for SAOP encoding that includes Axis2, Metro and CXF. Some people still tend to use SAOP encoding without knowing why WS frameworks discourage to use it or some have to use it when they implement web service clients. Usually I can see number of such queries on axis2-user list time to time. Here I discuss few workarounds useful when you dealing with SAOP encoding.

What is SOAP encoding

When authors of SOAP specification write it for first time they wanted to define a common way to describe messages but at that time XMLSchema was not completed and not in main stream too. Hence they came up with idea of SOAP Encoding as an extension of the SOAP specification that defines how a data value should be encoded in an XML.

SOAP encoding define it's own namespace as http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/ and set of rules to follow. SOAP encoding introduced number of interoperability and validation issues. Tim Ewald described some of those issues in his article here.WS-I also highly discourage to use encoding systems in their basic profile.

SAOP encoding in server side

If you use code first approach there is nothing to worry Axis2 runtime generate WSDL that does not use SOAP encoding at all. But if you use contract first approach you need to make sure that you don't use SOAP encoding in your service contract instead XMLSchema provides very powerful type system for your messages.

SOAP encoding array concept is still used by many people, if you have such legacy WSDL file you could easily redesign your types using XMLSchema. Following example describes one such scenario.

First let's see SAOP encoding sample.

 <complexType name="ArrayOfStrings">  
  <complexContent>  
   <restriction base="SOAP-ENC:Array">  
    <attribute ref="SOAP-ENC:arrayType"  
          wsdl:arrayType="xsd:string[]"/>  
   </restriction>  
  </complexContent>  
 </complexType>

Now same thing can be easily rewritten using XMLSchema as follows.

 <complexType name="ArrayOfStrings"  
  <element name="item" type="xsd:string" maxOccurs="20"/>  
 </complexType>

SOAP encoding in client side

Sometimes it is required to access services that has service description with SOAP encoding constructs. By default Axis2 code generation tool called WSDL2JAVA fail on generating codes for such WSDL files. But as a workaround you could use XMLBeans data binding to generate clients codes for above WSDLs. XMLBeans simply generate Java beans for all the types available on schema . In this case it generate beans for all the types available on SOAP encoding schema here.

You can invoke code generation tool with XMLbeans data binding as follows.

 wsdl2java.sh -uri service.wsdl -d xmlbeans

Conclusion

As we discussed the best practice is avoid use of SOAP encoding when you design web services.In case if you are a consumer of service that use SAOP encoding in their WSDL, Axis2 XMLBeans data binding provide a great solution for you.

Apache Community building event within WSO2Con 2011

2011-09-11T23:02:00.004+05:30

We are planning to have a free Apache Community building event within
the WSO2Con conference next week (13th September to 15th September) in
Colombo, Sri Lanka. We would like to invite contributors /committers
on Apache Axis2, Apache WS, Apache ODE, Apache Synapse to take a part
of this event. Number of committers from above projects will be there
and it's a good chance to communicate with them and get your first
step on those mentioned projects. Also you can join with us using any
Freenode IRC client on #axis2 channel or use #Axis2 on Twitter.

This Community event sponsored by WSO2 and will be held on same conference venue. WSO2 is a leading and long-standing contributor of number of world class Apache projects that includes Axis2 , Synapse, WS, Woden etc. Most of WSO2 committers will participate to this event and it's a rear chance to meet them face to face and discuss your issues , suggestions etc. Also those who want to contribute also can get their hands dirty with those project's first step. No one can tell, isn't it your first step to be a Apache committer ? you better give a try and see .

you can find location and other details from here http://wso2.com/events/wso2con-2011-colombo/

One last thing , within WSO2 we not only develop and release products under Apache licence instead we use Apache like open development model, WSO2 engineering lists are completely open for anyone and we are encouraging community contribution.

How to get best use of AXIS2 Object support.

2011-07-31T18:14:00.001+05:30

Axis2 web service framework offers number of development approaches to match various user requirements instead of limiting to support one or two specifications. This is a one distinct feature that Axis2 go beyond from some other web service frameworks. If someone want to deploy a web service very quickly using POJOs without touching XML or SOAP, AXIS2 ADB is the ideal solution for him. ADB Object support is a one of the great feature and we have done some nice set of recent improvements too. I will discuss few tips within this post that users should know in order to get best use of Axis2 ADB Object support.

 Public Object objectService(Object obj){  
 System.out.println(obj)  
 return obj;  
 }

Since above method takes Object type as an argument and return type it should possible to send any java primitive or POJO as a parameter value. As an example for a sample String massage it is possible to have following payload.

 <ns2:obj   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"   
           xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"   
           xsi:type="xs:string">  
        Hello World  
 </ns2:obj>

In case of POJO message it is possible to have following payload.

 <ns2:obj xmlns:ns1="http://sample/xsd"   
                 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"   
                 xsi:type="ns1:Student">  
             <ns1:age>20</ns1:age>  
             <ns1:id>200</ns1:id>  
             <ns1:name>saman</ns1:name>  
            </ns2:obj>

In above messages “xsi:type” attribute carries type system information that is required in marshalling and unmarshalling. When you send a POJO value server need to aware with the schema information associate with that particular POJO type otherwise marshalling/unmarshalling process will not possible. Typically Axis2 run-time only aware with the types associate with a particular service method, if you send above second message you will get an exception something similar to below because server can’t identify type system associate with incoming message.

 Exception in thread "main" org.apache.axis2.AxisFault: Unknow type {http://sample/xsd}Student

the solution here is use a parameter called “extraClass” within your services.xml file.

e.g -

 <parameter name="extraClass">sample.Item,sample.Student</parameter>

The above parameter will instruct run-time to register type details of give classes and generate schema as well . Without schema generation it is not possible to write WS clients that capable of send and receive messages with above POJOs. That is what you all need in server side now you can test your service using a tool like SoapUI.

In client side easiest and quickest way to write a client is generate code using WSDL2JAVA tool , again by default WSDL2JAVA tool also ignore extra sachem type available on WSDL file when generating codes. But it is possible to change this behaviour by adding option
“-g” that instruct to generate codes for all the schema types available . You can use following command to generate client side codes for sample application .

 axis2-1.7.0-SNAPSHOT/bin/wsdl2java.sh -uri http://localhost:8080/services/SimpleObjectService?wsdl -g

Now you have generated POJOs in your client side you can use them with your Object service as follows.

 Student student = new Student();  
 student.setName("saman");  
 student.setId(200);  
 student.setAge(20);  
 req.setObj(student);  
 ObjectServiceResponse res = stub.objectService(req );  
 System.out.println(res.get_return());

W3C Document support in Axis2

2011-07-26T15:28:00.009+05:30

Recently we have implemented W3C Document support for Axis2 ADB data binding. Now it is possible to use W3C Dom Document as a input parameter , return type or as a field of a java bean.
Let’s consider following web service method as an example.

 public Document simpleDomService(Document doc) {  
    printInCommingDocument(doc);  
    return doc;  
  }

It takes W3C DOM Document as a parameter and return the same value. In order to support this method Axis2 run time should construct DOM Document from incoming payload and need to be serialized into out going payload in both server and client sides.
In server side based on Java refection Axis2 run-time identify parameters and return type of DOM Document and perform required conventions. But in client side this become bit of a complex task because they is no standard way to represent DOM Document in a WSDL. Axis2 generate xs:any type for DOM Document and this is represented as a OMElement in generated code.
With above limitation if you have a Dom Document first you need to convert into a OMElement , you could use following code segment to convert DOM to OM.

 OMFactory fac = OMAbstractFactory.getOMFactory();  
 OMElement domDoc = BeanUtil.convertDOMtoOM(fac, getDomDocument());

The other option is without constructing a DOM Document, directly construct a OMElement and pass it to the server side. If the server side method parameter type is DOM Document Axis2 run-time can construct a DOM Document for that particular service. As an example following code segment use String to construct OMElement. Refer Axiom user guide to find out other options.

 public static OMElement getOmDocument() throws XMLStreamException {  
    return AXIOMUtil  
        .stringToOM("sample content using Axiom");  
  }

After a successful invocation you receive a OMElement as the return value , sometimes you may want to convert this incoming value in to a DOM back . In such scenarios following code segment can be used.

 public static org.w3c.dom.Document getDomDocument(OMElement element){  
    OMFactory doomFactory = DOOMAbstractFactory.getOMFactory();  
    StAXOMBuilder doomBuilder = new StAXOMBuilder(doomFactory,  
        element.getXMLStreamReader());  
    return (org.w3c.dom.Document) doomBuilder.getDocument();  
  }

Here is the complete client side code

     // create a OMElement using Axiom tools.  
     OMFactory fac = OMAbstractFactory.getOMFactory();  
     OMElement domDoc = BeanUtil.convertDOMtoOM(fac, getDomDocument());  
     // create a pure Axiom based document  
     OMElement omDoc = getOmDocument();      
     SimpleDomServiceStub stub = new SimpleDomServiceStub();  
     SimpleDomService req = new SimpleDomService();  
     Document doc = new Document();  
     req.setDoc(doc);  
     //1st call  
     doc.setExtraElement(domDoc);  
     SimpleDomServiceResponse res = stub.simpleDomService(req);  
     res.get_return().getExtraElement().serialize(System.out);  
     //2nd call  
     System.out.println();  
     doc.setExtraElement(omDoc);  
     res = stub.simpleDomService(req);  
     res.get_return().getExtraElement().serialize(System.out);

Note :
1.) Some of above features based on Axiom based DOM API implementation called DOOM. But DOOM is not a complete implementation of W3C DOM and you may find some limitation.
2.) Above features available with upcoming Axis2 1.7.0 release and right now you can try with 1.7.0-SNAPSHOT.
3.) Download sample project from here. You can run “mvn jetty:run “ to start embedded Jetty server and WSDL content can be found here http://localhost:8080/services/SimpleDomService?wsdl.

Release of Axis2 1.6.0, Sandesha2 1.6.0 and Rampart 1.6.0

2011-06-10T21:48:00.001+05:30

Today we officially announced the Apache Axis2 1.6.0 release together with Sandesha2 1.6.0 and Rampart 1.6.0 releases. From Axis2 1.5.4 release we started to release all related projects together so that users can upgrade whole stack at once instead of each component time to time. Also this process guarantee great compatibility among relegated projects. Going forward starting from Axis2 1.6.0 version we moved to use common version numbers for related projects so that users can easily find compatible dependencies.

In 2011 Axis2 community becoming more active , we released Axis2 1.5.4 in 17th Jan 2011 and just after 6 months now we released 1.6.0 major release and also 1.5.5 maintenance ( yet to be announced) release simultaneously.

This is the release note.

The Apache Axis2 team is pleased to announce the general availability

of the following releases:

- Axis2 1.6.0

- Sandesha2 1.6.0

- Rampart 1.6.0

Apache Axis2 is a complete re-design and re-write of the widely used

Apache Axis engine and is a more efficient, more scalable, more

modular and more XML-oriented Web services framework. It is carefully

designed to support the easy addition of plug-in "modules" that extend

its functionality for features such as security and reliability.

Apache Rampart is an Axis2 module that implements the specifications

in the WS-Security stack.

Apache Sandesha2 provides WS-ReliableMessaging support for Axis2.

Axis2 1.6.0 is a major release that contains more than 65 fixes.

Rampart 1.6.0 is a major release containing lots of bug fixes and

compatible with the Axis2 1.6.0 branch.

Sandesha2 1.6.0 is a major release that is compatible with the Axis2

1.6.0 branch.

The new versions are available for download at the following locations:

http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/core/download.cgi#a1.6.0

http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/rampart/download/1.6.0/download.cgi

http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/sandesha/download.cgi#a1.6.0

As always, we welcome any and all feedback at:

java-dev@axis.apache.org - for developer-related questions/concerns

java-user@axis.apache.org - for general questions, usage, etc.

NOTE - Axis2 1.6.0 compatible with Axis2 Transports 1.0.0 version but

it is recommended to upgrade to scheduled Axis2 Transport 1.6.0

version once it available.

End of another chapter .....

2011-04-22T10:34:00.001+05:30

Four years ago I started my carrier as a Software Engineer at IFS R&D , IFS is a great S/W company with excellent culture but I couldn't settle with their technical stack. Six months later I decided to join with a very young S/W service company at that time called Aeturnum. Last three and half years I spent as a Aeturnum employe because I found lot of challenging tasks and very friendly working culture.

Instead of defining technical limitations senior people always allow us to come up with innovative solutions and encouraged us to study and leverage cutting edge technologies. I don't think majority of other companies grant such freedom or opportunities. Aeturnum also maintaining a very friendly working culture starting from top management. In my point of view letting people to take self responsibilities is much more successful management practice . During last three years I got privilege to involve with lot of best projects from US clients and one of the great in house product called Athiva that leverage concepts of modern SOA and cloud platforms.

From my undergraduate age I had passion with Free and Open Source Software development, In Aeturnum I had enough freedom to contribute to open source projects and also to participate FOSS events. If I didn't get such support I don't think I can be a Apache Committer in 2009. Other than that company encourage and gave excellent support to organize open source events within the company (even financial support) for the benefit of all employes. Aeturnum Apache Week, FireFox launch parties are some of the great events we organized.

As every good thing comes to an end today I'm in a position to leave Aeturnum to reach my future endeavors. I wish all the best and great future to Aeturnum and all of my friends there !!

Apache Woden 1.0M9 released

2011-02-21T15:42:00.003+05:30

Apache Woden is a Java library for reading, manipulating, creating and writing WSDL 2.0 documents also facilitates to convert WSDL 1.1 documents to WSDL 2.0. Apache Woden provide API for WSDL 2.0 spec and two implementations based on W3C DOM and Apache Axiom OM . Woden primarily used with some other Apache projects like Axis2 and ServiceMix . Last week Woden team manged to release long waiting 1.0M9 version and it provides lot of new features and improvements over older versions. I have mentioned some of those important features here.

Until this release Woden project used both Maven and Ant partially for project building. With this release Woden source completely refactored to into several Maven modules according to the functionality and underline implementation. Maven dependencies/ Unit tests also have refactored according to each module.
A serialization approach for WSDL 2.0 Component model was introduced with this release this was a one significant missing piece. Now its possible to serialize WSDL 2.0 documents in both Component and Element model.
Woden tool module is another attractive module that facilitate convert existing WSDL 1.1 documents into WSDL 2.0 documents. This is a vital tool if someone want to migrate from WSDL 1.1 to WSDL 2.0. Woden Converter Maven plug-in and Woden Converter Ant Task are also useful additions.
With this release Woden no longer depends on Apache Xerces and possible to plug any JAXP implementations. I have noticed some user issues on Axis2 list when deploying axis2 on JBoss 4/5 due to incompatibility issues of Apache Xerces libraries.
Private QName class was moved to a new module so that it doesn't make conflicts with standard QName class.
Woden no longer depends on Apache Xerces and possible to plug any JAXP implementation and work properly with JDK default implementation .
Replaced Woden's simple logging mechanism by Commons logging API. This gives flexibilities to users to control debug levels.
Equal methods implementation for component model
Improved API for OM implementation.

JasperReports 3.6 development cookbook

2010-08-24T18:23:00.001+05:30

Few months ago I contributed to review a book called "JasperReports 3.6 development cookbook" as a technical reviewer, recently the book was published and I thought to write few words about the book. When I receive the first few chapters for review, I went through them quickly and first thing came into my mind was those days I was stuck with JasperReports as a beginner, which is around 2007. At that time there were few books available for JasperReports but all of them try to introduce basics of JasperReports, once I jump in to implement a real world reports for a client project I realized those books not that much helpful to me, sometimes I stuck for few days in very small area, I already post few blog posts based on those experience.

The main exciting feature of "JasperReports 3.6 development cookbook" is author targets developers who want to implements real world business reports not beginners or students. The book covers number of recipes and addresses various areas of business reporting, unlike introductory level books developers can keep this book exactly like a cook book and use those recipes when ever they want to implement such requirements or they can modify those recipes according to their requirements.

Also this book provide well organized steps by steps guidelines for each recipe, those who have very basic knowledge about JasperReports also can study and try out these recipes without any trouble. Author does not expect much experience from readers, he describe from very basic level such as environment settings, database settings etc.

The only drawback according to my point of view is this book is not that much helpful for those who entirely new to JasperReports and reporting area, but there are couple of good books available to fill that gap.

In summary this is a great book that not belong to category of 'read and throw’ because this covers many day to day techniques essential for Java based business reporting. But if you are beginner it's better to refer any other JasperReports book or refer JasperReports documentation before study this book so that you can get best usage from this.

Web service introduction

2010-04-07T02:00:00.001+05:30

Web service introduction

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Web service introduction 2

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Roadmap for Axis2M

2010-03-29T19:32:00.009+05:30

Recently Andreas Veithen one of the team member of Apache Axis and Synapse projects have written a nice article about Axis2 Spring integration and compare available 3rd party modules for that. He has reviewed WSo2 WSF- Spring and Axis2M-Spring module with their positive and negative points.

Since I'm the core developer of Axis2M project those feedback are very important to me and I thought it's better to write something about the road map of Axis2M Spring project.

Very initial objectives of Axis2M Spring project are listed below.

Provide a simple approach to deploy Axis2 services using Spring context.
Provide a simple approach to deploy Axis2 modules using Spring Context.
The above two should be similar to approaches used by the other WS stacks , as a example services and modules can be define as any number of top level beans.
Provide the Spring Namespace support for service and module deployment.
For module deployment provide a Spring factory approach so that POJO beans can be used as the module components such as Handlers and Module , at the run time required legacy components are populated with the help of configuration settings of Spring context.
Support for Spring OXM package as a new data binding option , this will introduce two new data binding support for Axis2 as Castor and XStream.
Provide several new Maven archetypes for quick start-up of Axis2 integrated user projects.

Axis2M M2 version supports for above seven features and due to some design limitation and time limitation Axis2 configuration and WSDL support left out from M2 version . Here is my current plan for above these scenarios.

Axis2 Configuration based on SpringContext (axis2.xml)

In this case I'm completely agree with Andreas comments about the approach used by the WSF-Spring project . Due to this design issue Axis2M don't use WSF-Spring approach and use traditional axis2.xml based approach for this version. According to me the main reason was WSF-Spring simply tried to replace each of axis2.xml file's element using a Spring bean without care much about the use of modularity or dependency injection. This is the plan on my mind for Axis2M Axis2 configuration.

Since Axis2 is a very matured project some of the developers already familiar with axis2.xml based configuration, due to this reason Axis2M keep the traditional approach so that users can use axis2.xml to define configuration . But Axi2M will introduce a approach to define configuration on Spring context as beans and those Spring beans override the axis2.xml configuration if it exists.
Instead of a single top level configuration bean, each of the configuration sub element such as message receivers , message builders can be define as a top level beans. At the start-up time, the framework will detect those beans related to Axis2 configuration and inject them in to the Axis2 configuration. It's also possible to override the setting define in the axis2.xml file.
Provide the Spring Namespace support for those configuration beans.
Provide a way to use POJOs as legacy configuration components. As an example a user can write pure java bean then in the configuration level possible to convert it in to a Axis2 legacy components such as message receivers or message builders etc. Axis2M already employ this approach for Module deployment but design a smiler approach for Axis2 configuration is a one challenge to achieve. Also this approach will not work for all the configuration beans. One of the good example is Spring-Integration (SI) project that convert POJOs in to EIP components like routers , transformers etc.

Axis2M WSDL handling

Axis2 provides only two options for WSDL handling either user can utilize automatic WSDL generation feature or he can provide a existing WSDL file. But IMO a Axis2-Spring integration project should provide more control options to users and should utilize configuration context too. Axis2M future plan is to provide a approach that similar to approach used by the Spring-WS project for WSDL handling. As an example a user can provides one portion of the WSDL content dynamically using Spring context while remaining portions of the WSDL is based on default automatic WSDL generation or provided raw WSDL file .

BTW Axis2 WSDLSupplier only supports for WSDL 1.1 , implementing above approach for both WSDL 1.1 and WSDL 2.0 is also a challenge and require some modification from Axis2 side too.

Other than above two Andreas listed several important features as his wish list , Axis2M will try for them in future.

But I like to add two more features , even very initial stage of Axis2M project I wanted to support Servlet + Spring + JAX-WS use case in the same way as CXF or Metro does. but AFAIK still some issues exists in the Axis2 side, some of them discussed in following places link-1, link-2.

Secondly it is very practical to integrate Axis2-Spring integration with Spring- security project (Acegi) so that users can utilize existing Acegi security for their web services too, but this need very careful design. This post describe one possible solution to integrate Acegi with Apache Rampart module.

FOSS-ed on wheels A9

2010-02-15T22:42:00.003+05:30

Two weeks ago i got chance to participate to a wonderful event called "FOSS-ed on wheels A9" organized by SL FOSS community , we are running number of event under same brand name of ""FOSS-ed on wheels" all over the country during last there years , but this is a milestone event of this series. We held one event in the one end of the A9 road : Kandy and second event held in the other end of the A9 road : Jaffna.

As usually folks of Computer Society Uni of Peradeniya organized the first event, but most important event is the second one held in Jaffna Uni. This is the first time we got chance to travel on famous A9 road after 30 years of war and AFAIK this is the first FOSS event held in North , we had over 400 participants for this event most of them are Uni students and IT teachers.I hope we can see more FOSS events in Jaffna with this wonderful start

Here you can find my presentation presented in this A9 series .

Foss Tools

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Apache Woden presentation at Apache Asia Conference

2010-02-11T21:26:00.004+05:30

Apache Woden is a Java based read/write parser for W3C WSDL 2.0 specification, also provide set of utilities to migrate from WSDL 1.1. There are lot of new features and enhancements available with upcoming Woden M9 version. During the Apache Asia 2009 conference held in Colombo , Sri Lanka I got a chance to introduce some of those features, if you interested you can find my slides from here.

Also this slide demonstrate how you can use WSDL 2.0 to develop your web services in both code first and contract first approaches using Apache Axis2 web service engine.

WSDL 2.0 and Apache Woden

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