Start JBoss 7 as a service on Linux

I also took a shot at a script for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. JBoss version is 7.1.1. I wanted a script that really tests for successful JBoss startup and that is able to shut down JBoss relatively gracefully. My starting point was the JBoss script included in the bin/init.d directory in the JBoss 7.1.1 download. I adapted this with some bits from other scripts on this page as well as other Ubuntu init scripts. Note that Ubuntu uses dash as its default init-script interpreter, not bash as apparently expected by the JBoss script. Of medium importance is that the logging takes place in /var/log/jboss-as instead of ${JBOSS_HOME}/standalone/log. The log is also used to determine if JBoss started up successfully.

jboss-as-standalone.sh

#!/bin/sh
#
# JBoss standalone control script
#
# Provided in JBoss AS 7.1.1
# Modified for Ubuntu Server 10.04 by koma
#
# chkconfig: - 80 20
# description: JBoss AS Standalone
# processname: standalone
# pidfile: /var/run/jboss-as/jboss-as-standalone.pid
# config: /etc/default/jboss-as
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          jboss-as
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $remote_fs $network
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $remote_fs $network
# Should-Start:      $named
# Should-Stop:       $named
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start JBoss AS
# Description:       Start JBoss Application Server.
### END INIT INFO
#

# Inspired by tomcat6 init script, might be somewhat redundant
#PATH=???
NAME=jboss-as
DESC="JBoss AS"
DEFAULT=/etc/default/$NAME

# Source function library.
#. /etc/init.d/functions
# Ubuntu has it here (but probably different !)
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

# Load Java configuration.
# Ubuntu has it in /etc/default
[ -r /etc/default/java ] && . /etc/default/java
export JAVA_HOME

# Load JBoss AS init.d configuration.
if [ -z "$JBOSS_CONF" ]; then
# Ubuntu: seems more logical there
  JBOSS_CONF="/etc/default/jboss-as"
fi

[ -r "$JBOSS_CONF" ] && . "${JBOSS_CONF}"

# Set defaults.

if [ -z "$JBOSS_HOME" ]; then
  JBOSS_HOME="/var/local/jboss-as"
fi
export JBOSS_HOME

# might be unbeautiful
# this made chown fail because JBOSS_USER was empty
if [ -z "$JBOSS_USER" ]; then
  JBOSS_USER="jboss"
fi
export JBOSS_USER

if [ -z "$JBOSS_PIDFILE" ]; then
  JBOSS_PIDFILE=/var/run/jboss-as/jboss-as-standalone.pid
fi
export JBOSS_PIDFILE

#if [ -z "$JBOSS_CONSOLE_LOG" ]; then
#  JBOSS_CONSOLE_LOG=/var/log/jboss-as/console.log
#fi
# use JBOSS_LOG_DIR from jboss script instead
if [ -z "$JBOSS_LOG_DIR" ]; then
  JBOSS_LOG_DIR=/var/log/jboss-as
fi
export JBOSS_LOG_DIR

# We need this to be set to get a pidfile !
if [ -z "$LAUNCH_JBOSS_IN_BACKGROUND" ]; then
  LAUNCH_JBOSS_IN_BACKGROUND=true
fi
export LAUNCH_JBOSS_IN_BACKGROUND

if [ -z "$STARTUP_WAIT" ]; then
  STARTUP_WAIT=120
fi

if [ -z "$SHUTDOWN_WAIT" ]; then
  SHUTDOWN_WAIT=120
fi

if [ -z "$JBOSS_CONFIG" ]; then
  JBOSS_CONFIG=standalone.xml
fi

JBOSS_SCRIPT=$JBOSS_HOME/bin/standalone.sh

prog='jboss-as'


start() {
  log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC"
  id $JBOSS_USER > /dev/null 2>&1
  if [ $? -ne 0 -o -z "$JBOSS_USER" ]; then
    log_failure_msg "User $JBOSS_USER does not exist..."
    log_end_msg 1
    exit 1
  fi
  if [ -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE ]; then
    read ppid < $JBOSS_PIDFILE
    if [ `ps --pid $ppid 2> /dev/null | grep -c $ppid 2> /dev/null` -eq '1' ]; then
      log_progress_msg "$prog is already running"
      log_end_msg 0
      exit 0
    else
      rm -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE
    fi
  fi
  mkdir -p $JBOSS_LOG_DIR
  # not sure: clear boot.log ... dunno if good, dunno if hardcoding boot.log good
  cat /dev/null > ${JBOSS_LOG_DIR}"/boot.log"
  # same as for boot.log, but we need to clear server.log to get proper launch detection (grepping later)
  cat /dev/null > ${JBOSS_LOG_DIR}"/server.log"
  chown -R ${JBOSS_USER}: $JBOSS_LOG_DIR

  mkdir -p $(dirname $JBOSS_PIDFILE)
  chown ${JBOSS_USER}: $(dirname $JBOSS_PIDFILE) || true

  if [ ! -z "$JBOSS_USER" ]; then
    start-stop-daemon --start -b -u "$JBOSS_USER" -c "$JBOSS_USER" -d "$JBOSS_HOME" -p "$JBOSS_PIDFILE" -x ${JBOSS_HOME}/"bin/standalone.sh" -- -Djboss.server.log.dir="$JBOSS_LOG_DIR"
  else
    log_failure_msg "Error: Environment variable JBOSS_USER not set or empty."
    log_end_msg 1
    exit 1
  fi

  count=0
  launched=false

  until [ $count -gt $STARTUP_WAIT ]
  do
    grep 'JBoss AS.*started in' ${JBOSS_LOG_DIR}"/server.log" > /dev/null 
    if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then
      launched=true
      break
    fi
    sleep 1
    count=$((count+1));
  done

  if [ $launched=true ]; then
    if [ -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE ] && [ -s $JBOSS_PIDFILE ]; then
      log_progress_msg "Successfully started $DESC."
    else
      log_progress_msg "Successfully started $DESC, but problems with pidfile."
    fi
  else
    log_failure_msg "Launching $DESC failed."
    # If the pidfile exists, try to kill the process
    if [ -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE ] && [ -s $JBOSS_PIDFILE ]; then
      read kpid < $JBOSS_PIDFILE
      log_progress_msg "Pidfile detected. Please take care of process $kpid manually."
    fi
    log_end_msg 1
    exit 1
  fi

  # success
  log_end_msg 0
  return 0
}

stop() {
  log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC"
  count=0;

  if [ -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE ]; then
    read kpid < $JBOSS_PIDFILE
    kwait=$SHUTDOWN_WAIT

    # Try issuing SIGTERM

    kill -15 $kpid
    until [ `ps --pid $kpid 2> /dev/null | grep -c $kpid 2> /dev/null` -eq '0' ] || [ $count -gt $kwait ]
    do
      sleep 1
      count=$((count+1));
    done

    if [ $count -gt $kwait ]; then
      kill -9 $kpid
    fi
  fi
  rm -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE
  log_end_msg 0
  return 0
}

status() {
  if [ -f $JBOSS_PIDFILE ]; then
    read ppid < $JBOSS_PIDFILE
    if [ `ps --pid $ppid 2> /dev/null | grep -c $ppid 2> /dev/null` -eq '1' ]; then
      log_success_msg "$prog is running (pid $ppid)"
      exit 0
    else
      log_success_msg "$prog dead but pid file exists"
      exit 1
    fi
  fi
  log_success_msg "$prog is not running"
  exit 3
}

reload() {
  log_begin_msg "Reloading $prog ..."
  start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --chuid jboss --exec ${JBOSS_HOME}/bin/jboss-cli.sh -- --connect command=:reload
  log_end_msg $?
  exit $?
}

case "$1" in
  start)
      start
      ;;
  stop)
      stop
      ;;
  restart)
      $0 stop
      $0 start
      ;;
  status)
      status
      ;;
  reload)
      reload
      ;;
  *)
      ## If no parameters are given, print which are avaiable.
      echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart|reload}"
      exit 1
      ;;
esac

And the accompanying configuration (put it in /etc/default/jboss-as ):

# JBoss AS configuration
JBOSS_HOME="/var/local/jboss-as"
JBOSS_USER=jboss

What works (commands, use sudo service jboss-as <command> after linking the script from /etc/init.d/jboss-as):

• Startup (blocking until the server started successfully)
• Stopping (also blocking)
• Restart
• Status

What isn't tested:

• If reloading works properly
• What happens if JBoss fails
• What happens for several other possible fails

I didn't dive into several topics yet, especially:

• What does set +e / set -e do exactly and is it required (it's used in other scripts)
• What are the semantics of the log_*_msg functions and where should those be used
• How to properly do the logging stuff (passing the location to JBoss)
• If the jboss-cli.sh script could and should be used for more things (like startup/running detection)
• If it's really necessary to have standalone.sh run as a process all the time
• If the return values are appropriate

Note that I'm definitely no shell script guru - I'm rather quite clueless. So if you find any stupidisms in the code or got any ideas for improvements, I'd be glad to hear them.

There is a directory in the jboss distribution located in bin/init.d with a shell script you can place in init.d to launch jboss as a service. The script is called jboss-as-standalone.sh