Automating portlet deployment on WebSphere Portal using Apache Maven

If you download sample code from my blog you will notice that i use Apache Maven as build tool, my source code is structured in Maven format and you will find a pom.xml file which is maven build script.

I like to make my development environment as simple as possible and automate deployment so that i can test my changes rapidly. So i did create this very basic approach for automating deployment of portlet to WebSphere Portal using xmlaccess + maven. This approach is very similar to how you can automate deployment of portlet to Apache Pluto. You can download sample AjaxPortlet from here

I follow these steps whenever i create a new project

• I create a simple portlet.xml that does not have any id portlet application id like this
  

  
  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <portlet-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd"
    version="2.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd 
    http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/portlet/portlet-app_2_0.xsd">
    <portlet>
      <portlet-name>AjaxPortlet</portlet-name> 
      <display-name>Ajax Portlet</display-name>
      <portlet-class>com.webspherenotes.portlet.AjaxPortlet</portlet-class>
      <expiration-cache>0</expiration-cache>
      <supports>
        <mime-type>text/html</mime-type>
        <portlet-mode>view</portlet-mode>
      </supports>
      <portlet-info>
        <title>Ajax Portlet</title>
        <short-title>Ajax Portlet</short-title>
        <keywords>Ajax Portlet</keywords>
      </portlet-info>
    </portlet>
  </portlet-app>
  

  
  The value of portlet-name is important for deployment
  


• Then i create a pom.xml file which is build script for for my portlet and has custom integration-test target that i use for deploying portlet
  

  
  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
           xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
       http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    
    <!-- Change this to something akin to your java package structure -->
    <groupId>com.webspherenotes.performance</groupId>
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <!-- Version of this app -->
    <version>1.0</version>
    <!-- Base name of the war file without .war ext -->
    <artifactId>AjaxPortlet</artifactId>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <name>${pom.artifactId}</name>
    <!-- Dependency Version Properties ======================================= -->
    <properties>
      <portlet-api.version>2.0</portlet-api.version>
      <servlet-api.version>2.4</servlet-api.version>
      <jsp-api.version>2.0</jsp-api.version>
      <wps.home>/software/IBM/WebSphere</wps.home>
      <wps.url>http://localhost:10040/wpcert/config</wps.url>
      <wps.admin.name>wasadmin</wps.admin.name>
      <wps.admin.password>wasadmin</wps.admin.password>
      <xmlaccess.path>/software/work/blog/performance/ajax/AjaxPortlet /UpdatePortlet.xml</xmlaccess.path> 
    </properties>  
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.portlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>portlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>${portlet-api.version}</version>
        <scope>provided</scope><!-- Prevents addition to war file -->
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>${servlet-api.version}</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
      </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    
    <build>
      <finalName>${pom.name}</finalName>
      <plugins>
      
      <plugin>
          <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <phase>integration-test</phase>
              <configuration>
                <tasks>
                    <property environment="env"/>
                    <exec executable="/bin/bash" dir="${wps.home}/PortalServer/bin">
            <arg line="xmlaccess.sh -user ${wps.admin.name} -password $
            {wps.admin.password} -url ${wps.url} -in ${xmlaccess.path}"/>
            </exec>
                </tasks>
              </configuration>
              <goals>
                <goal>run</goal>
              </goals>
            </execution>
          </executions>
        </plugin> 
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.5</source>
                <target>1.5</target>
            </configuration>
         </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </build>
  </project>
            
  

  
  
  In this file you will have to set properties for following things
  
  
  
  • wps.home: Location of portal installation base on your machine
  
  
  • wps.url: Config URL for xmlaccess for your portal server it will be http://localhost:10040/wps/config by default
  
  
  • wps.admin.name: User name for WPS admin
  
  
  • wps.admin.password: Password for WPS admin
  
  
  • xmlaccess.path: Path of UpdatePortlet.xml, which is a xmlaccess file that i use for deploying my portlets
  
  
  
  In most of the cases when i create a new portlet only value that will change is xmlaccess.path to point to new updateportlet.xml which is already always in the same directory as that of pom.xml, i bet i can read that directory name using Apache Maven variable but i will have to get some time to find that out
  
  In my script i have a integration-test target which makes use of ant to execute xmlaccess script that updates the portlet, this ant script gets executed when i execute mvn integration-test
  


• The final step is to create a UpdatePortlet.xml file like this
  

  
  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <request
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_1.4.xsd"
      type="update"
      create-oids="true">
  
      <!-- sample for updating a portlet from a new version of the WAR file -->
      <portal action="locate">
  
         <web-app action="update" active="true" uid="AjaxPortlet.war.webmod">
            <url>file:////software/work/blog/performance/ajax/AjaxPortlet/target/AjaxPortlet.war</url>
            <portlet-app action="update" active="true" uid="AjaxPortlet.war">
                 <portlet action="update" active="true" objectid="thePortlet" name="AjaxPortlet">
                 </portlet>
             </portlet-app>
         </web-app>
  
      </portal>
  </request>
  

  
  
  The UpdatePortlet.xml file needs information such as location of .war file, PortletName that i can get portlet.xml, .war file name that i can get from pom.xml and once i change the updateportlet.xml to use correct values i am all set
  

Once my initial setup is in place i execute the mvn integration-test command to install the portlet for first time or update it, when i do that it take some time to build and then deploy it looks like this