Java EE 8 Preview Mode

By default, this JBoss EAP 7.2 Beta release uses Java EE 7 APIs.

You can preview Java EE 8 functionality by setting the ee8.preview.mode system property to true when starting the JBoss EAP server. For example:

$ EAP_HOME/bin/standalone.sh -Dee8.preview.mode=true

This enables support for the following Java EE 8 standards:

Java EE 8 Security Support

Java EE 8 includes support for JSR 375, which defines portable, plug-in interfaces for authentication and identity stores, and a new injectable-type SecurityContext interface that provides an access point for programmatic security. You can use the built-in implementations of these APIs, or define custom implementations.

JBoss EAP 7.2 Beta now supports JSR 375.

Enable SASL Authentication for the Management Interfaces Using the CLI Security Commands

SASL authentication can now be enabled for the management interfaces using the security enable-sasl-management CLI command. This command creates all of the non-existing resources necessary to configure authentication.

For more information, see Enable SASL Authentication for the Management Interfaces Using the CLI Security Command in How to Configure Server Security.

Enable HTTP Authentication Using the CLI Security Commands

HTTP authentication can now be enabled for the Undertow security domain and the management interfaces using the security CLI commands.

For more information, see Enable HTTP Authentication for Applications Using the CLI Security Command and Enable HTTP Authentication for the Management Interfaces Using the CLI Security Command in How to Configure Server Security.

Enhanced Help

The management CLI help functionality has been updated to provide easier access to help information. The help command now features tab completion and can also show help information for management CLI operations and command actions.

See the Management CLI Guide for more information on using the management CLI help command.

Indicator for Required Attributes

When using tab completion in the management CLI, attributes that are required for the current operation are marked with a * character.

/subsystem=naming/binding=test:add( [TAB]
!              class          module
binding-type*  environment    type
cache          lookup         value

In the above example, pressing Tab after entering /subsystem=naming/binding=test:add( lists the available attributes and indicates that binding-type is a required attribute for this operation.

Viewing Multi-page Output

When you run the management CLI in interactive mode and the operation results in multiple pages of output, the command processor pauses the screen at the end of the first page. This allows you to page through the output one line or page at a time. The occurrence of multiple pages of output is indicated by a line of text displaying --More(NNN%)-- at the end of the output.

See the Management CLI Guide for the options available if you encounter multiple page output when running a management CLI command.

Using for-done Control Flow

You can use for-done control flow in the management CLI to iterate over a collection returned from an operation and execute commands on each item in the collection.

For more information, see Use for-done Control Flow in the Management CLI Guide.

Output Operation Responses in JSON Format

You can configure the management CLI to output operation responses in pure JSON format by setting the output-json element to true in the EAP_HOME/bin/jboss-cli.xml file or by passing the --output-json flag in when starting the management CLI. By default, operation responses are displayed in DMR format.

Redirecting Output

Instead of printing output from a management CLI operation to the terminal, you can redirect the output using the following operators:

For more information, see Redirect Output in the Management CLI Guide.

Unified Deployment Command

The management CLI deployment command allows you to manage your deployments using a unified interface to deploy, undeploy, enable, disable or list information about the deployments.

For more information, see Deploy an Application to a Standalone Server Using the Management CLI and Deploy an Application in a Managed Domain Using the Management CLI in the Configuration Guide.

Printing CLI Output in Color

You can now configure the management CLI to print the CLI log output in color based on the log message output type. For more information about the available colors and how to enable and disable color printing, see Configuring the Management CLI in the Management CLI Guide.

Topology View

In a managed domain, you can now see an overview of the hosts, server groups, and servers in the domain, and the status of each server. This is available from the Runtime tab by selecting Topology.

Breadcrumb Bar

When viewing resources, a breadcrumb bar is available at the top that allows you to easily switch between resources. From the breadcrumb bar, you can also open the resource in a separate window or switch to expert mode to browse the management model.

Navigation Enhancements

This release introduces a new interface for navigating JBoss EAP resources. You can use the arrow keys to navigate through the resource finder, pin frequently used items to stay at the top of the list, filter to quickly find items, and view the main attributes of a resource from its preview.

Deployment Enhancements

This release adds more support for deploying and managing your applications through the management console. You can drag and drop to add or replace deployments, browse deployment content to preview text and images, download deployments, and create exploded deployments.

Enable SSL Wizard for the Management Console

A wizard is now available to help you enable SSL for the HTTP management interface, which is used by the management console. Using the wizard, you can optionally create a truststore for mutual authentication as well as choose from the following keystore scenarios:

To access the wizard for a standalone server, select the Runtime tab, click View on the appropriate server, select HTTP Management Interface and click the Enable SSL button.

To access the wizard for a managed domain, select the Runtime tab, click Hosts and select the appropriate host, select View → Management Interface → HTTP and click the Enable SSL button.

Enable SSL Wizard for Undertow HTTPS Listeners

A wizard is now available to help you enable SSL for Undertow HTTPS listeners. Using the wizard, you can optionally create a truststore for mutual authentication as well as choose from the following keystore scenarios:

To access the wizard for a standalone server, click the Configuration tab, select Subsystems → Web (Undertow) → Server, click View on the appropriate server, select Listener → HTTPS Listener, select the appropriate HTTPS listener and click the Enable SSL button.

To access the wizard for a managed domain server, click the Configuration tab, click Profiles and select the appropriate profile, select Web (Undertow) → Server, click View on the appropriate server, select Listener → HTTPS Listener, select the appropriate HTTPS listener and click the Enable SSL button.

Configuring Logging Profiles

You can now use the management console to configure logging profiles in the logging subsystem.

Configuring the Security Manager Subsystem

It is now supported to configure the security-manager subsystem from the management console.

Additional Subsystem Configuration

The following subsystems have been enhanced to include additional configuration options, available from the Configuration tab:

Additional Subsystem Monitoring Support

This release provides new and enhanced monitoring support for the following subsystems, available from the Runtime tab:

Forwarded HTTP Extension

This JBoss EAP 7.2 Beta release introduces the Forwarded handler, which implements RFC 7239, allowing servers behind a reverse proxy to receive peer and local addresses within the header.

Typically, this handler should not be used in conjunction with any of the X-Forwarded-* headers enabled on the reverse proxy. This means that you should either use this handler or enable the proxy-address-forwarding attribute in Undertow listeners.

Session Manager Operations

The following operations to get detailed session information are now available from the management CLI at /deployment=DEPLOYMENT_NAME/subsystem=undertow.

Undertow Byte Buffer Pools

You can now use Undertow byte buffer pools to allocate pooled NIO ByteBuffer instances. All listeners have a byte buffer pool and you can use different buffer pools and workers for each listener. Byte buffer pools can be shared between different server instances.

For more information, see Configuring Byte Buffer Pools in the Configuration Guide.

Setting the Default Cookie Version

Undertow now provides a way to set the default cookie version to use for cookies created by the application. For information about the new default-cookie-version attribute, see servlet-container Attributes in the Configuration Guide.

Allowing Unescaped Characters in a URL

You can now configure Undertow to allow non-escaped characters in a URL by setting the allow-unescaped-characters-in-url attribute for the HTTP, HTTPS, and AJP listeners. When this attribute is set to true, the listener processes any URL containing non-escaped, non-ASCII characters. When set to false, the listener rejects any URL containing non-escaped, non-ASCII characters with an HTTP Bad Request 400 response code.

For more information about listener attributes, see Undertow Server Attributes in the Configuration Guide.

PROXY Protocol

Undertow now supports the PROXY protocol Version 1, as defined by The PROXY protocol Versions 1 & 2 specification. This option is disabled by default and must only be enabled for listeners that are behind a load balancer that supports the same protocol. It is configured using the new proxy-protocol attribute on the Undertow HTTP and HTTPS listeners.

For more information about listener attributes, see Undertow Server Attributes in the Configuration Guide.

EJB and JNDI over HTTP/HTTPS with HTTP Load Balancer

Performing EJB and JNDI invocations using the HTTP protocol, so that requests are mapped directly to HTTP requests, is now fully supported in JBoss EAP 7.2 Beta. In addition, you can invoke EJBs over an HTTP load balancer. For more information, see EJB Invocation Over HTTP in the Developing EJB Applications.

Disallowing DOCTYPE Declarations in JSF Deployments

You can use the management CLI to disallow DOCTYPE declarations in JSF deployments.

For more information, see Disallowing DOCTYPE Declarations in the Configuration Guide.

New Datasource Attribute

The datasource-class-info attribute provides the list of datasource connection properties that can be set for the datasource class.

For more information, see the Datasource Attributes table in the Configuration Guide.

Scattered Cache Mode

The infinispan subsystem now supports scattered cache mode. Scattered mode is similar to distributed mode in that it uses a consistent hash algorithm to determine ownership. However, ownership is limited to two members, and the originator, or node receiving the request for a given session, always assumes ownership for coordinating locking and cache entry updates. The cache write algorithm used in scattered mode guarantees that a write operation results in only a single RPC call. This can potentially reduce contention and improve performance following a cluster topology change.

For more information, see Clustering Modes in the Configuration Guide.

Externalize HTTP Sessions Using the Remote Cache Store

A new method of externalizing HTTP sessions to JBoss Data Grid is included in this release. This method utilizes a remote cache container in the infinispan subsystem of JBoss EAP that has a client SSL context defined for security.

You can configure remote cache containers from the management CLI and the management console.

For more information, see Externalize HTTP Sessions to JBoss Data Grid in the Configuration Guide.

New Worker Attribute

In previous releases of JBoss EAP, the core threads size was always equal to the max threads size. This meant that threads would never die, even if the task-keepalive attribute was set. In this release, the number of threads for the core thread pool can be configured separately using the task-core-threads attribute, allowing the keepalive setting to work as expected.

For more information, see Configuring a Worker and IO Subsystem Attributes in the Configuration Guide for JBoss EAP.

JSON and XML Formatter

You can use the JSON and XML log formatters to format log messages in JSON and XML.

For more information, see Log Formatters in the Configuration Guide.

Connect to Red Hat AMQ Using the Integrated Artemis Resource Adapter

You can configure the integrated Artemis resource adapter to connect to a remote installation of Red Hat AMQ 7, which then becomes the JMS provider for your JBoss EAP 7.2 Beta applications. This allows JBoss EAP to be a client for the remote Red Hat AMQ 7 server.

For more information, see Configuring the Artemis Resource Adapter to Connect to Red Hat JBoss AMQ 7 in Configuring Messaging for JBoss EAP.

Predefined Modules

A set of predefined modules, org.jboss.modules, which includes all of the JBoss Modules API, is supported in JBoss EAP 7.2 Beta when you use the default module loader. This special module is always available and is provided by JBoss Modules. The standard Java Platform Module System (JPMS) modules, which are provided in Java 9 and later, are also available by their standard names. When using JDK 8, the JDK 9 modules are emulated by JBoss Modules.

For more information, see Predefined Modules in the Configuration Guide.

KUBE_PING Integrated Natively In JBoss EAP

Previously, the KUBE_PING JGroups discovery protocol was implemented only in the JBoss EAP OpenShift image. KUBE_PING is now implemented natively in JBoss EAP, so users creating their own custom container images are now able to natively use KUBE_PING for clustered applications. For more information on using KUBE_PING, see the Clustering reference in Getting Started with JBoss EAP for OpenShift Container Platform.

JAX-RS Client Support for HTTP Redirects

JAX-RS ClientHttpEngine implementations based on the Apache HttpClient support HTTP redirection. For more information, see HTTP Redirect in Developing Web Services Applications.