[wildfly-dev] Embedding a WF instance in the CLI

Wed May 14 10:43:53 EDT 2014

Moving a thread to the dev list.

This is about some prototyping I've been doing on weekends 'cause I'm 
bored with my regular tasks. I've been playing with direct local 
administration of a WF installation via the CLI without requiring a 
socket-based connection. The general use case is initial setup type 
activities where the user doesn't want to have to launch a WF server or 
HC process and potentially have it be visible on the network. 
https://issues.jboss.org/browse/WFLY-3288 is one use case; another is a 
desire some folks have expressed in being able to do configuration 
without first having to edit any xml to avoid port conflicts on 9990 or 
9999.

This isn't a major initiative or big priority or anything at this point. 
Just something I find interesting and perhaps you will too.

On 5/14/14, 8:54 AM, Alexey Loubyansky wrote:
> Neat :) Yes, figuring out the module path is biting everywhere.
> For file system path command line arguments there is a specialized
> FileSystemPathArgument.
>

Thanks; I'll switch to that.

>
> On 05/13/2014 10:54 PM, Brian Stansberry wrote:
>> Copying Heiko Braun as he expressed some interest in the topic.
>>
>> BTW, I played with this a bit more last weekend and was able to start an
>> embedded server inside the CLI easily enough. See [1] for very raw
>> prototype stuff. You can run bin/jboss-cli.sh (no -c) and then
>>
>> [disconnected/] embed-server
>>
>> There are a couple issues I see, besides the HC stuff I mentioned in my
>> last message.
>>
>> 1) If the CLI is started in a non-modular environment via java -jar
>> bin/client/jboss-cli-client.jar, we'd have to shade jboss-modules into
>> the jar. And then the embed-server command would need params specifying
>> the location of JBOSS_HOME, possibly module path etc. But it could embed
>> a server installed in any accessible filesystem location.
>>
>> But what I did at [1] is based on bin/jboss-cli.sh, where the CLI is
>> running from a WF dist in a modular environment and the embedded server
>> modules are coming from the CLI's own module path. It would be more
>> effort to support embedding a server based on some other module path.
>> Maybe it's no big deal; maybe it's really hard. :)
>>
>> 2) The console logging from the embedded server goes to stdout mixed in
>> with the CLI output. Maybe that's good, maybe it's bad.
>>
>> [1] https://github.com/bstansberry/wildfly/tree/cli-embed
>>
>> On 4/28/14, 10:04 AM, Brian Stansberry wrote:
>>> I was poking around at this for an hour or so over the weekend.
>>>
>>> The standalone case seems pretty straightforward. Seems the existing
>>> embedded server API could work readily enough. The
>>> org.jboss.as.embedded.StandaloneServer interface already provides a
>>> ModelControllerClient.
>>>
>>> The domain case is much harder, as the CLI wants a HostController, not a
>>> ProcessController. I'd really like this to use an in-VM client, not a
>>> remote one, so I don't like having the CLI embed a PC and then the HC is
>>> an external process. My thoughts of the morning are to allow inverting
>>> the HC/PC relationship for this kind of usage. That is, remove
>>> controlling the HC lifecycle from the charge of the PC component. CLI
>>> launches HC, and then the HC creates an in-process PC-ish component (not
>>> a separate process) to manage the server lifecycles. There could be all
>>> sorts of problems with that; it's just the thought for the morning.
>>>
>>> On 4/25/14, 11:49 AM, Alexey Loubyansky wrote:
>>>> Embedding the AS is the best starting point to achieve that! And more
>>>> fun, I agree :)
>>>>
>>>> On 04/25/2014 06:28 PM, Darran Lofthouse wrote:
>>>>> And to think my reason for opening the Jira was just for a common
>>>>> way to
>>>>> mask password inputs where java.io.Console is not available ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>> On 25/04/14 17:09, Brian Stansberry wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/25/14, 10:40 AM, Alexey Loubyansky wrote:
>>>>>>> Wow! Indeed :)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There could be an embedded scope - true, i.e. commands available
>>>>>>> only
>>>>>>> this mode, like add-user, module mgmt related stuff, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Those commands wouldn't need to be only in that mode though. The
>>>>>> implementation of all of them would be based in the server; the
>>>>>> "client"
>>>>>> aspect of the CLI would just use the management interface. The
>>>>>> difference between an embedded mode and what we have now would
>>>>>> just be
>>>>>> in how the "client" side gets its ModelControllerClient -- what we
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> now vs starting an embedded server and getting some sort of in-vm
>>>>>> client.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But it would still mean the server/controller would have to actually
>>>>>>> provide implementations of that functionality and expose it to the
>>>>>>> management tools like the CLI in the embedded mode.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yep.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I like this idea as a concept - direct local management. W/o any
>>>>>>> remote
>>>>>>> connect/re-connect/disconnect burden.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Extending the CLI with custom modules is on the list too. It's
>>>>>>> probably
>>>>>>> easier to implement at this point.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Likely so, but maybe less fun. ;) I copied you on a PRD-related
>>>>>> thread
>>>>>> where I briefly get into this general area too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Alexey
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 04/25/2014 05:00 PM, Brian Stansberry wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi Alexey,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Wanted to point the discussion on this JIRA out to you as it gets
>>>>>>>> into
>>>>>>>> some fairly fundamental brainstorming that you may find
>>>>>>>> interesting.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>>>>>> Subject: [JBoss JIRA] (WFLY-3288) Update add-user to use AESH or
>>>>>>>> move it
>>>>>>>> into the CLI
>>>>>>>> Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 09:44:35 -0400 (EDT)
>>>>>>>> From: Darran Lofthouse (JIRA) <issues at jboss.org>
>>>>>>>> To: brian.stansberry at redhat.com
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>      [
>>>>>>>> https://issues.jboss.org/browse/WFLY-3288?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12963854#comment-12963854
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ]
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Darran Lofthouse commented on WFLY-3288:
>>>>>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That could be very interested, won't go into too much detail in
>>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>>> Jira as it is not directly related shortly I am switching to the
>>>>>>>> SSL
>>>>>>>> related tasks we have outstanding including the out of the box
>>>>>>>> enablement we talked about in Brno - managing an embedded instance
>>>>>>>> could
>>>>>>>> be useful there as well to get it all op based.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I can see this task may end up coming back my way combined with the
>>>>>>>> other stuff ;-)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Update add-user to use AESH or move it into the CLI
>>>>>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>                 Key: WFLY-3288
>>>>>>>>>                 URL: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/WFLY-3288
>>>>>>>>>             Project: WildFly
>>>>>>>>>          Issue Type: Feature Request
>>>>>>>>>      Security Level: Public(Everyone can see)
>>>>>>>>>          Components: Domain Management, Scripts
>>>>>>>>>            Reporter: Darran Lofthouse
>>>>>>>>>             Fix For: Awaiting Volunteers
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Within the add-user utility it is difficult to handle situations
>>>>>>>>> where
>>>>>>>>> we do not have access to a java.io.Console which is the easiest
>>>>>>>>> way to
>>>>>>>>> handle password reading without an echo to the user e.g. in Cygwin
>>>>>>>>> Switching to AESH would allow us to use the implementation
>>>>>>>>> there to
>>>>>>>>> handle this.
>>>>>>>>> Alternatively it may actually make sense to make add-user a
>>>>>>>>> special
>>>>>>>>> mode of the CLI, we may at some point want to switch to runtime
>>>>>>>>> operations being executed on the server so porting to the CLI
>>>>>>>>> could be
>>>>>>>>> the first step to make this possible.
>>>>>>>>> Overall this is going to require further discussion so the
>>>>>>>>> comments
>>>>>>>>> here are just a starting point.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> This message is automatically generated by JIRA.
>>>>>>>> If you think it was sent incorrectly, please contact your JIRA
>>>>>>>> administrators
>>>>>>>> For more information on JIRA, see:
>>>>>>>> http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>

-- 
Brian Stansberry
Senior Principal Software Engineer
JBoss by Red Hat