Adding System.setProperty("org.jboss.as.embedded.ejb3.BARREN", "true") to the code above fixes the NPE problem and embedded container starts successfully but fails to deploy classes with the following error:
ERROR [org.jboss.msc.service.fail] (MSC service thread 1-2) MSC00001: Failed to start service jboss.deployment.unit.classes.STRUCTURE: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit.classes.STRUCTURE: Failed to process phase STRUCTURE of deployment "classes"
at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:119)
at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.startService(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1811)
at org.jboss.msc.service.ServiceControllerImpl$StartTask.run(ServiceControllerImpl.java:1746)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
Caused by: org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitProcessingException: Failed to mount deployment content
at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.module.DeploymentRootMountProcessor.deploy(DeploymentRootMountProcessor.java:91)
at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentUnitPhaseService.start(DeploymentUnitPhaseService.java:113)
... 5 more
Caused by: java.util.zip.ZipException: invalid CEN header (bad signature)
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.open(Native Method) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java:127) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:135) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:99) [rt.jar:1.6.0_26]
at org.jboss.vfs.spi.JavaZipFileSystem.<init>(JavaZipFileSystem.java:97)
at org.jboss.vfs.spi.JavaZipFileSystem.<init>(JavaZipFileSystem.java:83)
at org.jboss.vfs.VFS.mountZip(VFS.java:408)
at org.jboss.vfs.VFS.mountZip(VFS.java:434)
at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.DeploymentMountProvider$Factory$ServerDeploymentRepositoryImpl.mountDeploymentContent(DeploymentMountProvider.java:95)
at org.jboss.as.server.deployment.module.DeploymentRootMountProcessor.deploy(DeploymentRootMountProcessor.java:87)
... 6 more
16:49:12,128 INFO [org.jboss.as.server] (pool-9-thread-1) JBAS015870: Deploy of deployment "classes" was rolled back with failure message {"JBAS014671: Failed services" => {"jboss.deployment.unit.classes.STRUCTURE" => "org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit.classes.STRUCTURE: Failed to process phase STRUCTURE of deployment \"classes\""}}
16:49:12,129 INFO [org.jboss.as.controller] (pool-9-thread-1) JBAS014774: Service status report
JBAS014777: Services which failed to start: service jboss.deployment.unit.classes.STRUCTURE: org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service jboss.deployment.unit.classes.STRUCTURE: Failed to process phase STRUCTURE of deployment "classes"