Add value by removing waste!

Today I had to stay at home from work since my daughter is sick from school, poor thing. But since I had some time over I found my old blog, very interesting reading old posts about JBoss and EJB3 from 2007. Thought it could be fun to publish something new since the last post was posted in 2014. So I made it easy for myself and linked this post to another blog I wrote some years ago :), which is about removing waste. Go ahead and read it, it's good to think about!

Add value by removing waste

IPhone app to save time!

Try my new app on app store. It is great if you want to save time. TimeSaver offers you: 
- An easier life not having to remember hours and minutes. 
- A fast and easy way to save your time at work. 
- An easy way to list and edit any saved time. 
- Time reports of current week or month, with only one touch. 
- Time reports for any given time interval.
- Total time at work for any period of time.
- Average time at work per day.
- Option to include daily lunch time.
- Privacy - all data is stored in your phone.

Unfortunately I have not had time to update this, so it is not available on app store anymore. Maybe I will find some time and do the updates that is needed sometime.  

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timesaver/id797104444

Google Verktygsfält

Google Verktygsfält

JBoss Clustering 4.2

Easiest way is use the 'all' server instance that already is configured for clustering in jboss.

If you have not used the 'all' instance then copy these three files from 'all' server to your server instance and it should work:

• cluster-service.xml (all/deploy directory)
  
• jbossha.jar (all/lib directory)
• jgroups.jar (all/lib directory)
  

JBoss Monitoring and Performance

JBoss page how to slim your JBoss AS
Tuning JBoss on linux article

Memory and thread Montoring (see chapter 10 in JBoss 4.2 Server configuration guide)

MBean
In the JMX-console: jboss.system:type=ServerInfo MBean (view interesting attributes like FreeMemory, ActiveThreadCount etc.)

Checklist
(Read more about this in the book "JBoss Seam - Simplicity and Power beyond Java EE")
1. Use "Call by reference" (see JBoss Reference)
2. Optimize JVM (start using the -server option)
- Give at least 75 percent of the physical RAM to the JVM ( JAVA_OPT in bin/run.sh)
- set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -XX:PermSize=256m -XX:MaxPermSize=512
- Using the same value for Xms and Xmx will force JVM to use specified value (in this case 1GB)
- -Xms2g and -Xmx2g would force JVM use 2G of RAM for example
3. Garbage Collector (use parallel GC) or what might be best for you JVM/application
- Run parallel GC
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -XX:+UseParallelGC -XX:+UseParallelOldGC
4. Reduce logging (see JBoss page how to slim your JBoss AS)
5. Tuning the HTTP Thread Pool (see JBoss page how to slim your JBoss AS)
6. Client- or Server-Side State Saving (really depends on your application and RAM vs. Mhz)
There are more things you can do like using Second-Level Cache and Clustering.

Flying Saucer renderer in JBoss Seam Fix

Used the iText and The Flying Saucer xhtml renderer to generate pdf's in my JBoss Seam application.

Problem: Everything worked fine. A pdf was generated in my app but the application context was somehow corrupt after the pdf generation and I could not continue using the app unless I redeployed it on JBoss AS again. I noticed that this happened after I had instanciated the org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextRenderer.

Found the fix for this in the JBoss Seam forum (thanks Calvin, you saved my day :)).

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a fix for the problem. Set this system property before instantiating your first instance of ITextRenderer:

Code:

System.setProperty("xr.util-logging.loggingEnabled", "false");

The problem seems to be caused by Flying Saucer reconfiguring the log manager by calling LogManager.readConfiguration. Flying Saucer shouldn't really be doing this because it blows away any existing log configuration, but on the other hand it's odd that Seam (or maybe JBoss?) behaves this way when logging is reconfigured.
--Calvin
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4106412#4106412

JBoss Seam debug info

Enable/disable seam debug page and faclet debug

Seam - components.xml (debug = ture/false)

Facelets - web.xml (facelets.DEVELOPMENT = true/false)

Entity Inheritance

• Java EE API
  
• Creating Entity Objects for SINGLE_TABLE Inheritance Type
• Creating Entity Objects for JOINED Inheritance Type
• Creating Entity Objects for TABLE_PER_CLASS Inheritance Type
• BEA - 12.6. Inheritance

Java EE load balancing, clustering

• JBoss application server 4.2.2 clustering guide
  
• J2EE clustering with JBoss
  
• Java Performance Tuning
• Pure load balancer
  

Design Patterns

• Java Design Patterns Reference and Examples

Transactions (EJB3)

Transactions in EJB3 and Seam

• ACID
• Put all transactions in your EJBs (not in servlets)
  
• Container or Bean Managed (default in Seam)
  
• Container-managed-transactions (CMTs) preferred in Java EE. The Java EE container will handle comitting, rolling back, starting the transaction, etc. (no coding for the transactions).
  
• 6 types of transactions to choose from (default is REQUIRED)
  
• MANDATORY
• REQUIRED
• REQUIRES_NEW
• SUPPORTS
• NOT_SUPPORTED
• NEVER
• Example: Set this annotation before a method to use a transaction independent of an already-active transaction. Will attempt to commit in the end of the method.

  @TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRES_NEW)
     public void addUser(User user) {
         em.persist(user);
     }

• Bean-managed transactions (BMTs) allows a much more fine-grained control of transactions. (It is recommended to not use BMTs unless you cannot achieve the goals you are looking for using the CMT option.
  

EJB3 EntityManager

Persisting Entities

• entityManager.persist(object);
• Can automatically generate a primary key
• Throws IllegalArgumentException if its parameter is not an entity type
• Throws TransactionRequiredException (Thrown by the persistence provider when a transaction is required but is not active).
• If the Entity Manager is an extended persistent context, it is legal to call persist() outside a transaction scope.
  

Finding entities

• There are 3 ways to find entities
• find(), getReference() and createQuery()
• The find() and getReference() methods works in the same way, they take the entity's class as a parameter and the primary key (Long).
  

find(Class entityClass, Object primaryKey);
getReference(Class entityClass, Object primaryKey);

Example:
Person person = null;
person = entityManager.find(Person.class, 5);

• Two differences between find() and getReference() methods

1. find() returns null if the entity is not found and the getReference() method throws a EntityNotFoundException.
2. find() method initializes the state, based on the lazy-loading policies of each property, getReference() does not do that.

• Both methods throws IllegalArgumentExceptions and they can be invoked outside the scope of transaction, but the object returned will be detached (unless entity manger is an extended persistent context).
• With the createQuery() method it is possible to use EJB QL, HQL.
• Summary: all the objects found using these three methods will remain managed as long as the persistent context in which you accessed them remains active.
  

Updating entities

• To update an object while it is while it is managed by the persistent context is very easy. All updates on returned object (from find(), getReference(), createQuery()) will be synchronized automatically (depending on the flush mode). This is true as long as an active persistence context is still associated with the transaction. (Read more about Transaction Attribute (defaults to Required) but can be set in either ejb-jar deployment descriptor or on the EJB's bean class using @TransactionAttribute)
  

Merging entities

• To merge state changes made to a detached entity back into persistent storage.

Example (person is a detached entity):
Person copy = entityManager.merge(person);

• There are two different scenarios for the merge method, depending on if the entity manager is already managing the person entity with the same ID or not.
  
• If the entity manager isn't managing the person entity with same ID, a full copy of the person parameter is made and returned from the merge() method. Now this copy will be managed by the entity manager and any additional setter methods called on it will be synchronized with the database (when flush).
• If the entity manager is already managing the person entity with the same ID, then the contents of the person parameter is copied into this managed object instance. The merge() operation will return this managed instance and the person parameter will remain detached and unmanaged.

Removing entities

• entityManager.remove(person);
• person instance will not be managed any longer and will become detached
  
• Associated entities may also be removed based on cascading rules
• remove() can only be undone using persist() again
  

Refresh entity

• Use entityManager.refresh(person) if you are concerned that the managed person entity is not up-to-date with the database. Will overwrite any changes of the managed entity with the one in the database.
  
• Related entities may also be refreshed based on the setup cascading policy.

Contains

• Use entityManager.contains(person) if you want to know if "person" is currently managed by the persistent context.

Clear

• Use entityManager.clear() if you want to detach all managed entity instances from a persistence context. (Any changes made to managed entities are lost). Avoid this by calling flush() before clear().

FlushModeType

• Flush is made automatically before any query (besides find() and getReference()) by the entity manager.
• Change default behaviour by using Flushmode.COMMIT instead of default AUTO.
• Using COMMIT means that changes are flushed only when the transaction commits, not before any query.
• Set FlushType by calling the entityManager.setFlushType() method

Transactions (read more here)

Monitoring JBoss Tool

Hyperic HQ — Systems Management Software

Have not tried this, but will for sure have a closer look when I have got time.

http://www.hyperic.com/downloads/

Use JBoss loader

In file:
server\default\deploy\jbossweb-tomcat55.sar\META-INF\jboss-service.xml

Change this attribute to "true" to use the JBoss loader, this was needed for our application to be able to read resources from the classpath.

true

Exceptions

hibernate.PersistentObjectException: detached entity passed to persist

Solution:
object = entityManager.merge(object);

Changes to "object" will be synchronized to database when flushed next time. Force flush using entitityManager.flush()

HQL (Hibernate Query Language)

• HQL Documentation (Red Hat) - A good place to start

• From the Hibernate reference (chapter 14)
  

• Joins (SQL) (INNER, OUTER - Wikipedia)
• inner join essentially combines the records from two tables A and B based on a given join predicate (considered default join)
  
• left outer join for tables A and B always contains all records of the "left" table (A)
• right outer join - Every record from the "right" table (B) will be in the joined table at least once.

JSF Links

• JSF FAQ - Java Exception Issues
• ajax4jsf Developers Guide
• JSF Tutorial (list of tags etc)
• Multiple checkboxes in DataTable
  

JBoss Seam links

Useful Seam Links:

• 15 best Seam Tutorials
  
• Seam Wiki
• Seam Blog
• Seam Hotel Demo
• Seamless JSF, Part 1: An application framework tailor-made for JSF
• Seamless JSF, Part 2: Conversations with Seam
• Seamless JSF, Part 3: Ajax for JSF
• Seam Annotation
• Configuring Seam (SFSB timeout)
  
  

JFokus

Intro: Open Source now and in the future
Simon Phipps, Sun

Talked about the benefits with Open Source. And how it is hard to gain value from taking a snapshot and adding own functionalities without giving the new source code back to the community. You would become the "Regression test slave" as Phipps expressed it. Open Source: "Earn the living by giving back".

Talked a bit about:
ODF (OpenDocument Format)
OpenOffice.org.

Software Patents, compared them to the fact that:
"American have guns because American have guns" and so do they have Patents.

Interoperability is a buzz word that Phipps did not really believed in. He did not have very hight thought of Web Services. So he wanted to introduce a new buzz word "Substitutability". It should be easy to throw out a piece of software and put in a new piece without suffering.


- Open Standards
- OpenSolaris
- OpenSPARC.net




Introduction to Java EE 5 and EJB 3

Mike Keith - Wrote "Pro EJB 3" Book.

This was mainly an introduction to EJB3s and a comparison to EJB 2.1.

Mike showed how EJB3s are simplified by using:
- Annotations
- Dependency Injection
- Simplified Web Services
- New Java Persistence API


JPA - Java Persistence API
Mike Keith

JPA was created as part of EJB3 within the JSR 220
Released May 2006 as part of Java EE 5

Key points
- javax.persistence

- Annotations makes everything much easier, but it is still possible to use XML. (@Entity, @Id etc.)

- Persistence Context - Think of a hash table where all entities are a set of "managed" entity instances.

- EntitiyManager API
-- persist() - Insert a state of an entity into the DB
-- remove(), find(), merge() etc .
The entityManager is injected into the object using it.

- Queries - Dynamic and Static
-- Query API - getResultList() etc.


- ORM

- JPA can used in Java SE as well.

Recommended tools in Eclipse: Dali JPA Tools


Secure Coding Antipatterns: Avoiding vulnerabilities

Marting Englund, Sun

Went through 6 antipatterns - things not to do while coding java thinking about security. Many examples was related to for example applets where the user have access to the source code, but how often are they used in security related solutions these days. Anyway, the 6 antipatterns were:

1. Assuming Objects are Immutable
- Attacker can change signers of a class
How to prevent: Make a copy of mutable output and input parameters (deep cloning)

2. Checks on untrusted source
- Use subclass, e.g. extend File
How to prevent: Create a new object from the untrusted source. Is it really a File object or was it a subclass.

3. Ignoring Changes to Superclasses
All changes propagate to the subclass which might open security holes.

4. Neglecting to validate inputs
- Embedded requests bypassing security checks
Requests examples: GET http://.... or Queries
Good solution: Public method that takes care of all the security (validation) and then calls the Native method.

5. Misusing Public Static variables
- Attackers can replace values whenever, the variable becomes public in the whole JVM.
Good Solution: Use private static or even better Enum.

6. Believe a constructor exception destroys the object
Solution: Use intitialized flag, check the flag in all relevant methods


Following these 6 anitpatterns should make your code more secure. Not really sure it is needed all the time though.


check out:

java.sun.com/security/seccodeguide.html (a new version to be released soon)

My SOA mind map

My way to remember what SOA is about

SOA Basic Design Principles (ASIG)

• Abstraction – Reduce and factor out details to focus on higher conceptual representation of an object (OO principle)
• Standardization – The service need to use open standards and communicate in a formulized way
• Independence – Each service needs to be a black box! The service will run independent of each other and could be deployed on different environments.
• Generalization – The service needs to be fine grained enough to be efficient but course grained enough to be reusable.

SOA Features (FRISC)

• Flexibility – Loosely coupled services are very flexible as they can be used in a number of systems
• Reusability – The holy grail of system development. The ability to develop application components in a way that they can be reused by other applications.
• Interoperability – Standardized way of communication between business services.
• Scalability – Services are independent of each other and so can easily be scaled individually where required.
• Cost efficient – Reuse of existing business services reduce need for duplication and development and testing in new applications that re-uses these services (e.g. Service to get Postcodes)