JBoss 5.

x Tuning/Slimming

Introduction

The following slimming recommendations are for a standard JBoss AS 5.1.0 GA

(Community) "All" configuration and can be used for Jboss EAP 5.1.0 (Enterprise). Slimming
is very application specific, so this is by no means a universal document. If you have
documented the process for slimming other services for JBoss 5.x please add to them here.

Slimming

Remove EJB3 services

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

ejb3-connectors-jboss-beans.xml
ejb3-container-jboss-beans.xml
ejb3-interceptors-aop.xml
ejb3-timerservice-jboss-beans.xml
profile-service-secured.jar --> Note : this folder is not in Jboss EAP 5.1.0

In server/<node>/deployers/ remove

jboss-ejb3-endpoint-deployer.jar
ejb3-deployers-jboss-beans.xml --> Note : this file is in Jboss EAP 5.1.0 but not Jboss AS 5.1.0

WARNING : Do not remove

deployers/ejb3.deployer/jboss-ejb3-deployer.jar

and deployers/ejb3.deployer/META-INF/ejb3-deployers-jboss-beans.xml,

they are used to support annotations for EJB client.

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Remove EJB2 services

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

ejb2-container-jboss-beans.xml
ejb2-timer-service.xml (Note that EJB3 deployments may fail without this service. See this forum post)

Remove JUDDI
In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

juddi-service.sar

Remove Key Generator

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

uuid-key-generator.sar

Remove JMS (Java Message Service)

In server/<node>/conf/props/ remove:

messaging-roles.properties
messaging-users.properties

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

messaging
jms-ra.rar
quartz-ra.rar (this is just JMS resource to the Quartz scheduler)

In server/<node>/deployers/ remove:

messaging-definitions-jboss-beans.xml

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In server/<node>/conf/standardjboss.xml remove (comment out):

everything about jms (maybe optionnal because profile web and default use

the same standardjboss.xml file and profile web have no JMS support)

In server/<node>/conf/jbossts-properties.xml remove (comment out):

<property name="com.arjuna.ats.jta.recovery.XAResourceRecovery.JBMESSAGING1"
value="org.jboss.jms.server.recovery.MessagingXAResourceRecovery;java:/DefaultJMSProvider"/>
</properties>

Remove JBoss Mail

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

mail-service.xml
mail-ra.rar

Remove JBoss Scheduling

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

schedule-manager-service.xml
scheduler-service.xml

Remove Hypersonic DB
In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

hsqldb-ds.xml

Remove Bsh Deployer

In server/<node>/deployers/ remove:

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bsh.deployer

Turn off hot deployment

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

hdscanner-jboss-beans.xml

Remove JBossWS

In server/<node>/conf remove:

jax-ws-catalog.xml

In server/<node>/conf/props/ remove:

jbossws-roles.properties
jbossws-users.properties

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

jbossws.sar
jbossws-console.war

In server/<node>/deployers/ remove

jbossws.deployer

Remove Seam
In server/<node>/deployers/ remove

seam.deployer
webbeans.deployer

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

admin-console.war - takes too much resources in JBoss 5.x, remove it even if you use Seam

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Remove IIOP/Corba

In server/<node>/conf/ remove

"jacorb.properties

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

iiop-service.xml

In server/<node>/deployers/ejb3.deployer/META-INF remove

ejb3-iiop-deployers-jboss-beans.xml

In server/<node>/lib remove

jacorb.jar

In server/<node>/conf/jndi.properties, replace the line :

java.naming.factory.initial=org.jboss.iiop.naming.ORBInitialContextFactory

with this new line

java.naming.factory.initial=org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory

Remove other services

In server/<node>/deployers/ remove

xnio.deployer - not used in JBoss 5.x default configuration for JBoss remoting anyway

In server/<node>/deploy/ remove:

jboss-xa-jdbc.rar - if you do not use XA datasources

jmx-remoting.sar - remote (RMI) acces to JMX, you can still access JMX by jmx-console
jmx-console.war - if you do not use JMX console
profileservice-secured.jar - secured remote access to profileservice

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sqlexception-service.xml - pretty useless in JBoss 5.x

xnio-provider.jar - not used in JBoss 5.x default configuration for JBoss remoting

In server/<node>/deployers/ remove:

hibernate-deployer-jboss-beans.xml - deployment of HAr archives only, you can still use Hibernate in EJBs
after you remove this

Also, feel free to remove the corresponding .jars for the services slimmed above from jboss/
common/lib.

Remove Unused Invokers

It depends, which invoker you would like to use: jrmp, pooled, unified, http. The best way is
to chose one and disable the others.

TODO: how to switch invokers (such as switching JMX from JRMP to HTTP).

HTTP Invokers

If you want to remove the HTTP invokers (which are used if you 'tunnel' your requests through HTTP)
simply remove the according deployments/directories from the $JBOSS_HOME/server/<profile>/deploy/
directory.
Please be aware that HTTP invokers are something different than the Tomcat HTTP Connector (the HTTP
invokers need the HTTP connector but the HTTP connector does not need the HTTP invokers).
HTTP Invoker for JNDI, EJB and JMX
Simply remove the http-invoker.sar (web, default, standard) or httpha-invoker.sar (all, production)
directory from your configuration all together.
If using a clustered configuration, then remove httpha-invoker.sar
HTTP Invoker for JMS
Remove the /deploy/jms/jbossmq-httpil.sar directory completely.

JMX Invoker

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If you want to remove the JMX invoker, remove $JBOSS_HOME/server/<profile>/deploy/jmx-invoker-

service.xml.
By removing the JMX invoker you will not be able to perform a remote shutdown or any sort of
programmatic remote management. You will not be able to use twiddle and shutdown scripts!
The JMX invoker depends on the JRMP invoker. You can remove the JMX invoker and keep the JRMP
invoker, but you can't remove the JRMP invoker without removing the JMX invoker also.
The legacy Web Management Console depends on the jmx-invoker service. You can remove the
$JBOSS_HOME/server/<profile>/deploy/management directory in order to clean up deployment errors
from this dependency. This Web Console is deprecated by the Admin Console as of EAP 5 and is
maintained for legacy purposes only.
Securing the JMX Invoker
Rather than remove the jmx invoker, you can also secure it by uncommenting
the line in jmx-invoker-service.xml that looks like: <!-- <interceptor
code="org.jboss.jmx.connector.invoker.AuthenticationInterceptor" securityDomain="java:/jaas/jmx-
console"/> -->
This will require authentication to use the JMX invoker service, but the password will still be
unencrypted. You can implement a simple hashing method as shown in the security guide.

Pooled Invoker

This provides a socket connection pool for remote EJB calls.

If you want to remove the Pooled invoker, in server/<node>/deploy/legacy-invokers-service.xml remove
(comment out): PooledInvoker

JRMP Invoker

The org.jboss.invocation.jrmp.server.JRMPInvoker class is an MBean service that provides the RMI/JRMP

implementation of the Invoker interface. The JRMPInvoker exports itself as an RMI server so that when it is
used as the Invoker in a remote client, the JRMPInvoker stub is sent to the client instead and invocations
use the RMI/JRMP protocol.
If you want to remove the JRMP invoker, in server/<node>/deploy/legacy-invokers-service.xml remove
(comment out): JRMPInvoker
You also have to disable jmx-invoker-service.xml. See above.

IIOP Invoker

JBoss IIOP supports CORBA/IIOP access to enterprise beans deployed in a JBoss Application Server, as
defined by the EJB specification.
If you want to remove the IIOP invoker, in server/<node>/conf/standardjboss.xml remove (comment out):
invoker-proxy-binding iiop

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Note: There may be other invokers bound to different ports. If you don't need them you may
remove them. Otherwise secure them if they are reachable by folks you don't fully trust.

Remove Clustering

In server/<node> remove:

deploy-hasingleton/
farm/

In server/<node>/deploy remove:

cluster/

To eliminate an otherwise harmless error message in the logs about a missing farm
directory, in server/<node>/conf/bootstrap/profile.xml edit the "BootstrapProfileFactory" bean
and delete or comment out the following:

<!-- Optional list of URIs that will be kept in sync across the cluster.
Requires deploy/cluster/farm-deployment-jboss-beans.xml to be
deployed as well.
-->
<property name="farmURIs">
<list elementClass="java.net.URI">
<value>${jboss.server.home.url}farm</value>
</list>
</property>

To switch JBoss Messaging to non-clustered operation, in server/<node>/deploy/messaging

edit the <somename>-persistence-service.xml file and

turn off clustering:

<attribute name="Clustered">false</attribute>
delete or comment out the dependency on the JGroups channel factory

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<depends optional-attribute-name="ChannelFactoryName">
jboss.jgroups:service=ChannelFactory</depends>

The above describes a complete elimination of clustering features. Finer grained elimination
of features can be accomplished by not completely deleting server/<node>/deploy/cluster
but rather only deleting some of the deployments therein. For example, doing all of the
above but leaving

server/<node>/deploy/cluster/jboss-cache-manager.sar and
server/<node>/deploy/cluster/jgroups-channelfactory.sar

will allow HttpSession replication to work.

Tuning

Reduce memory usage:

There's one very simple change that you could do to bring down the memory used by JBoss
AS 5.1.0. By default, JBoss AS5 has some debug level MBeans (which are in most cases
meant for JBoss server developer's use) enabled. These MBeans are too much in number
and are known to increase memory usage. What you can do is, change the following from
JBOSS_HOME/server/< servername>/conf/bootstrap/deployers.xml:

<bean name="Deployers">
<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX(name=jboss.deployment:service=DeployersImpl,
exposedInterface=org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImplMBean.class, registerDirectly=true)
</annotation>
<constructor><parameter><inject bean="jboss.kernel:service=KernelController"/></parameter></
constructor>
<!-- Accept any implementor of deployer -->
<incallback method="addDeployer"/>
<uncallback method="removeDeployer"/>
<property name="mgtObjectCreator"><inject bean="ManagedObjectCreator"/></property>

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</bean>

to:

<bean name="Deployers">
<!-- Uncomment the following @org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX to enable registering
MC beans as MBeans. These MBeans provide debug level information about which deployers were selected for
processing the deployment and what attachments were added to the deployment. More details

http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&t=155074&start=10#4233874
-->
<!--
<annotation>@org.jboss.aop.microcontainer.aspects.jmx.JMX(name="jboss.deployment:service=DeployersImpl",
exposedInterface=org.jboss.deployers.plugins.deployers.DeployersImplMBean.class, registerDirectly=true)
</annotation>
-->
<constructor><parameter><inject bean="jboss.kernel:service=KernelController"/></parameter></constructor>
<!-- Accept any implementor of deployer -->
<incallback method="addDeployer"/>
<uncallback method="removeDeployer"/>
<property name="mgtObjectCreator"><inject bean="ManagedObjectCreator"/></property>
</bean>

Notice the commented out the "annotation" element in that section. More details can be
found in this JIRA https://jira.jboss.org/browse/JBAS-6987. This fix has been done in JBoss
AS 6.0 series.

Related forum discussions:

http://community.jboss.org/message/555231#555231

http://community.jboss.org/message/566236#566236

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