Hmmm, why do you wanna use a SharedJBossCacheRegionFactory? It's much better if you use a MultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory and let the system use the default config file which works perfectly unless you have a good reason not to use that configuration (see http://anonsvn.jboss.org/repos/hibernate/core/tags/hibernate-3.5.6-Final/cache-jbosscache/src/main/resources/org/hibernate/cache/jbc/builder/jbc-configs.xml)