Most likely JackRabbit is relying on the javax.jcr.* classes that are not deployed to JBoss by default. They don't seem to be included in the JackRabit RAR as well. JackRabbit defines this as it's connection-defintion. Since we can't find it, we can't create the connection. Verify where these classes are supposed to exist in the JackRabbit documentation. There is usually one of two places: 1) The server/lib directory 2) Inside the RAR View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3977129#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...