Setting Up a Development Environment

Setting Up a Development Environment

This chapter gives guidelines for setting up an application development environment in the Eclipse GlassFish. Setting up an environment for creating, assembling, deploying, and debugging your code involves installing the mainstream version of the Eclipse GlassFish and making use of development tools. In addition, sample applications are available.

The following topics are addressed here:

Installing and Preparing the Server for Development

For more information about Eclipse GlassFish installation, see the Eclipse GlassFish Installation Guide.

The following components are included in the full installation.

  • JDK

  • Eclipse GlassFish core

    • Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 11 or newer

    • Jakarta EE 10 compliant application server

    • Administration Console

    • asadmin utility

    • Other development and deployment tools

    • Open Message Queue software

    • Apache Derby database

    • Load balancer plug-ins for web servers

The NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) bundles the GlassFish edition of the Eclipse GlassFish, so information about this IDE is provided as well.

After you have installed Eclipse GlassFish, you can further optimize the server for development in these ways:

High Availability Features

High availability features such as load balancing and session failover are discussed in detail in the Eclipse GlassFish High Availability Administration Guide. This book describes the following features in the following sections:

Development Tools

The following general tools are provided with the Eclipse GlassFish:

The following development tools are provided with the Eclipse GlassFish or downloadable from Oracle:

The following third-party tools might also be useful:

The asadmin Command

The asadmin command allows you to configure a local or remote server and perform both administrative and development tasks at the command line. For general information about asadmin, see the Eclipse GlassFish Reference Manual.

The asadmin command is located in the as-install/bin directory. Type asadmin help for a list of subcommands.

The Administration Console

The Administration Console lets you configure the server and perform both administrative and development tasks using a web browser. For general information about the Administration Console, click the Help button in the Administration Console. This displays the Eclipse GlassFish online help.

To access the Administration Console, type http://`host:4848` in your browser. The host is the name of the machine on which the Eclipse GlassFish is running. By default, the host is localhost. For example:

http://localhost:4848

The Migration Tool

The Migration Tool converts and reassembles Jakarta EE applications and modules developed on other application servers. This tool also generates a report listing how many files are successfully and unsuccessfully migrated, with reasons for migration failure. For more information and to download the Migration Tool, see http://java.sun.com/j2ee/tools/migration/index.html.

Code Editors

There is several advanced editors with an integration with GlassFish or generic Jakarta EE servers. Sometimes you have to install additional extensions, sometimes all you need is just some configuration.

Debugging Tools

You can use several debugging tools with the Eclipse GlassFish. For more information, see Debugging Applications.

Profiling Tools

You can use several profilers with the Eclipse GlassFish. For more information, see Profiling Tools.

Sample Applications

The samples are available from https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/glassfish-samples.

Most Eclipse GlassFish samples have the following directory structure:

  • The docs directory contains instructions for how to use the sample.

  • The pom.xml file defines Maven targets for the sample.

  • The src/ directory contains source code for the sample.