The doc says: Tables are automatically created the first time JBoss Portal starts. When deployed for the first time, JBoss Portal checks for the existence of the initial tables, which have not been created yet. I guess if I want to use my database, I should create a database with tables which would be used by my business logic, then place my xxx-ds.xml to deploy dir. When the portal server starts, it will append its tables in the database. Is that right? I want to customize my security. I know that portal can achieve this at runtime by admin portlet or before runing by xml configuration. The second approach may be the more appropriate for me. But I found that role and user must be stored in database. If the above is true, it seems that what I can do is inserting roles and users into the tables after all the tables were created for the first time. But where is the point? Or is there a better way? Thanks! taocore View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4170515#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...