GWT 1.6 JNDI and MS SQL configuratio

We’re now using GWT 1.6 at my work and we wanted to configure our applications to use JNDI.  Although there are a few blog posts on this topic, each left out a bit of information that would have been helpful in getting the system to work.  So I decided to put up a post here that goes step-by-step through my installation to help others who might have the same issues I did.  Where ever possible, I will also reference the original posts I had found, in case you’d like to look there.

My setup

First things first – here are the tools I’m using

• Eclipse Ganymede with GWT Plugin
• GWT 1.6
• JTDS 1.2.2

Steps

1.  Create jetty-web.xml file in war/WEB-INF/
2.  Copy the following into jetty-web.xml

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!DOCTYPE Configure PUBLIC “-//Mort Bay Consulting//DTD Configure//EN” “http://jetty.mortbay.org/configure.dtd”>
<Configure class=”org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext”>
<New id=”website” class=”org.mortbay.jetty.plus.naming.Resource”>
<Arg>java:comp/env/jdbc/dataSourceName</Arg>
<Arg>
<New class=”net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbcx.JtdsDataSource”>
<Set name=”DatabaseName”>(databaseName)</Set>
<Set name=”ServerName”>(serverName)</Set>
<Set name=”User”>(User)</Set>
<Set name=”Password”>(Password)</Set>
</New>
</Arg>
</New>
</Configure>

<?xml version=”1.0″?>

<!DOCTYPE Configure PUBLIC “-//Mort Bay Consulting//DTD Configure//EN” “http://jetty.mortbay.org/configure.dtd”>

<Configure>

<New id=”website”>

<Arg>java:comp/env/jdbc/power_plus_dot_com</Arg>

<Arg>

<New>

<Set name=”DatabaseName”>power_plus_dot_com</Set>

<Set name=”ServerName”>sqlCluster</Set>

<!–<Set name=”url”>jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://sqlCluster:1433/power_plus_dot_com;user=website_user;password=dmfdWt2k</Set>–>

<Set name=”User”>website_user</Set>

<Set name=”Password”>dmfdWt2k</Set>

</New>

</Arg>

</New>

</Configure>

3.  Add Jetty Plus and Jetty Naming to your classpath

For this step, I created a new folder off the root of my GWT project called, “dependency”.  Please note that jetty-naming has a dependency on activation and mail.  So, the .jar files I have to import into my project are:

• jetty-plus-6.1.12.jar
• jetty-naming-6.1.12.jar
• activation-1.1.jar
• mail-1.4.jar

I want to deploy these applications to Tomcat, so I configured the launcher to include these on the classpath,  Run->Run Configurations…->Classpath->User Entries->Add JARS…

While configuring the laucher, add the following under Arguments->VM Arguments

-Djava.naming.factory.initial=org.mortbay.naming.InitialContextFactory

4.  In my code, I now get the connection with the following:

Context lContext = new InitialContext();

DataSource lDataSource = (DataSource) lContext.lookup(“java:comp/env/jdbc/dataSourceName”);

Connection connection = lDataSource.getConnection();

Alternate

If you want to use connection pooling or a different database, here is a link to the Jetty page that shows some sample configs: http://docs.codehaus.org/display/JETTY/DataSource+Examples

The most informative BLOG entry I found: http://humblecode.blogspot.com/2009/05/gwt-16-using-jndi-datasource.html

Dangerous AC Power

Last night I had a real scare. I have work-issued Dell Inspiron notebook that I frequently use in the evenings. Last night, I went to do some work and when I plugged in the replacement AC Adapter, it LITERALLY blew up. Complete with column of fire(Albeit a little one), and burning ember.

It would not have been bad except that it was right in my face, so that little spark seemed a huge flame. I’m just glad that didn’t happen overnight, or I would Likely have more than an ember burn in my couch.

Hello world!

Well, this first blog post kept the same title.  Considering that I plan on blogging about programming and development, I thought the title appropriate.  So, for this first post I thought I would introduce some of the topics I might blog about: GWT, ExtGWT, Hibernate, Spring. Any thoughts on what I should talk about would be welcome.