7.4.4. Enable EJB and MDB Property Substitution in an Application

A new feature in Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform allows you to enable property substitution in EJBs and MDBs using the @ActivationConfigProperty and @Resource annotations. Property substitution requires the following configuration and code changes.
  • You must enable property substitution in the JBoss EAP server configuration file.
  • You must define the system properties in the server configuration file or pass them as arguments when you start the JBoss EAP server.
  • You must modify the code to use the substitution variables.

Procedure 7.7. Implement Property Substitution in an MDB Application

The following code examples are based on the helloworld-mdb quickstart that ships with JBoss EAP 6.3 or later. This topic shows you how to modify that quickstart to enable property substitution.
  1. Configure the JBoss EAP server to enable property substitution.

    The JBoss EAP server must be configured to enable property substitution. To do this, set the <annotation-property-replacement> attribute in the ee subsystem of the server configuration file to true.
    1. Back up the server configuration file. The helloworld-mdb quickstart example requires the full profile for a standalone server, so this is the standalone/configuration/standalone-full.xml file. If you are running your server in a managed domain, this is the domain/configuration/domain.xml file.
    2. Start the JBoss EAP server with the full profile.
      For Linux:
      EAP_HOME/bin/standalone.sh -c standalone-full.xml
      For Windows:
      EAP_HOMEbin\standalone.bat -c standalone-full.xml
    3. Launch the Management CLI using the command for your operating system.
      For Linux:
      EAP_HOME/bin/jboss-cli.sh --connect
      For Windows:
      EAP_HOME\bin\jboss-cli.bat --connect
    4. Type the following command to enable annotation property substitution.
      /subsystem=ee:write-attribute(name=annotation-property-replacement,value=true) 
    5. You should see the following result:
      {"outcome" => "success"}
    6. Review the changes to the JBoss EAP server configuration file. The ee subsystem should now contain the following XML.
      <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:ee:1.2">
          <spec-descriptor-property-replacement>false</spec-descriptor-property-replacement>
          <jboss-descriptor-property-replacement>true</jboss-descriptor-property-replacement>
          <annotation-property-replacement>true</annotation-property-replacement>
      </subsystem>
  2. Define the system properties.

    You can specify the system properties in the server configuration file or you can pass them as command line arguments when you start the JBoss EAP server. System properties defined in the server configuration file take precedence over those passed on the command line when you start the server.
    • Define the system properties in the server configuration file.
      1. Start the JBoss EAP server and Management API as described in the previous step.
      2. Use the following command syntax to configure a system property in the JBoss EAP server:
        /system-property=PROPERTY_NAME:add(value=PROPERTY_VALUE) 
        For the helloworld-mdb quickstart, we configure the following system properties:
        /system-property=property.helloworldmdb.queue:add(value=java:/queue/HELLOWORLDMDBPropQueue)
        /system-property=property.helloworldmdb.topic:add(value=java:/topic/HELLOWORLDMDBPropTopic)
        /system-property=property.connection.factory:add(value=java:/ConnectionFactory)
      3. Review the changes to the JBoss EAP server configuration file. The following system properties should now appear in the after the <extensions>.
        <system-properties>
            <property name="property.helloworldmdb.queue" value="java:/queue/HELLOWORLDMDBPropQueue"/>
            <property name="property.helloworldmdb.topic" value="java:/topic/HELLOWORLDMDBPropTopic"/>
            <property name="property.connection.factory" value="java:/ConnectionFactory"/>
        </system-properties>
    • Pass the system properties as arguments on the command line when you start the JBoss EAP server in the form of -DPROPERTY_NAME=PROPERTY_VALUE. The following is an example of how to pass the arguments for the system properties defined in the previous step.
      EAP_HOME/bin/standalone.sh -c standalone-full.xml -Dproperty.helloworldmdb.queuejava:/queue/HELLOWORLDMDBPropQueue -Dproperty.helloworldmdb.topic=java:/topic/HELLOWORLDMDBPropTopic -Dproperty.connection.factory=java:/ConnectionFactory
  3. Modify the code to use the system property substitutions.

    Replace hard-coded @ActivationConfigProperty and @Resource annotation values with substitutions for the newly defined system properties. The following are examples of how to change the helloworld-mdb quickstart to use the newly defined system property substitutions within the annotations in the source code.
    1. Change the @ActivationConfigProperty destination property value in the HelloWorldQueueMDB class to use the substitution for the system property. The @MessageDriven annotation should now look like this:
      @MessageDriven(name = "HelloWorldQueueMDB", activationConfig = {
          @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "destinationType", propertyValue = "javax.jms.Queue"),
          @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "destination", propertyValue = "${property.helloworldmdb.queue}"),   
          @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "acknowledgeMode", propertyValue = "Auto-acknowledge") })
      
    2. Change the @ActivationConfigProperty destination property value in the HelloWorldTopicMDB class to use the substitution for the system property. The @MessageDriven annotation should now look like this:
      @MessageDriven(name = "HelloWorldQTopicMDB", activationConfig = {
          @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "destinationType", propertyValue = "javax.jms.Topic"),
          @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "destination", propertyValue = "${property.helloworldmdb.topic}"),   
          @ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName = "acknowledgeMode", propertyValue = "Auto-acknowledge") })
    3. Change the @Resource annotations in the HelloWorldMDBServletClient class to use the system property substitutions. The code should now look like this:
      @Resource(mappedName = "${property.connection.factory}")
      private ConnectionFactory connectionFactory;
      
      @Resource(mappedName = "${property.helloworldmdb.queue}")   
      private Queue queue;
      
      @Resource(mappedName = "${property.helloworldmdb.topic}")
      private Topic topic;
      
    4. Modify the hornetq-jms.xml file to use the system property substitution values.
      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
      <messaging-deployment xmlns="urn:jboss:messaging-deployment:1.0">
          <hornetq-server>
              <jms-destinations>
                  <jms-queue name="HELLOWORLDMDBQueue">
                      <entry name="${property.helloworldmdb.queue}"/>
                  </jms-queue>
                  <jms-topic name="HELLOWORLDMDBTopic">
                      <entry name="${property.helloworldmdb.topic}"/>
                  </jms-topic>
              </jms-destinations>
          </hornetq-server>
      </messaging-deployment>
  4. Deploy the application. The application will now use the values specified by the system properties for the @Resource and @ActivationConfigProperty property values.