Thanks for all the feedback (and for escalating this question to a more advanced forum). Here's what I've found this morning. 1. Added the port-component-name and still got the same error. (does the name value have to match another attribute somewhere else?) 1a. Yes, there is a closing tag, it just escaped my cut-paste. 2. I tried using the DTD and my EJB now deploys successfully. My JUnit tests are now failing with an access authorization error but I will assume that is a separate configuration problem with the test user certificate. 3. After discussing with co-workers, I removed the "xmlns" attribute from the jboss tag of my instance document (jboss.xml), so the jboss tag is now no longer attached to a namespace (it is now global?) and again the EJB deploys successfully and I get the same access errors as with the DTD solution. Is this de-namespacing of the instance document a "bad" thing to do? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4192533#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...