GlassFish Docker Support in Jakarta Starter

[Reza Rahman]

Hi folks,

We've now added GlassFish Docker support in the Jakarta Starter:
https://start.jakarta.ee. Please check it out. As part of the release,
we've also tried to solve the typical view expired problems that usually
happen with JSF and PrimeFaces. If you run into issues, we would
appreciate it if you could let us know. Of course we will keep an eye
out in the logs anyway for signs of trouble.

Next up hopefully is support for the EE 11 Web Profile or initial
support for Helidon.

Cheers,

Reza

[Ondro Mihályi]

Great news, Reza!

Now that I look at it, I see that some runtimes, e.g. OpenLiberty, use the same Docker image for Platform and both profiles. GlassFish Docker support is restricted only to Platform. I think we can change this in the archetype and UI to also support profiles with the GlassFish Full Docker image, right?

And I think I found a glitch in the UI - if I select GlassFish Docker, then change Java version to some other than 17 (GlassFish only supports Java 17 with the stock Docker image), then Docker support is unselected but the No option is not selected. What's worse, when I select Java 17 again, it should be possible to select the Docker option but it's not clickable. I attach a video recording.

Ondro

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[Reza Rahman]

I'll look at the UI validation tomorrow.

For the Archetype, I simply accepted your PR. If you want to change something about that, please simply make another PR.

Obviously, please ensure whatever is supposed to be supported aligns with what the GlassFish project wants to do with Docker and profiles for users. That is what we try to ensure with other vendors like IBM for Liberty. Liberty does not have different images for different profiles as that is handled by the server.xml instead. Other vendors like Payara have different images for different profiles. I have no way to know what GlassFish wants to do with its Docker images but would want to ensure nothing is potentially misleading or inappropriate. I do know GlassFish has different binary distributions for the platform and web profile. I think that avoids the situation of users wanting the web profile but accidentally using features that are not actually in the web profile.

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From: jakarta.ee-community <jakarta.ee-com...@eclipse.org> on behalf of Ondro Mihályi via jakarta.ee-community <jakarta.ee...@eclipse.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2025 9:41 PM
To: Reza Rahman <reza_...@mail.com>
Cc: Ondro Mihályi <mih...@omnifish.ee>; starter developer discussions <start...@eclipse.org>; Jakarta EE community discussions <jakarta.ee...@eclipse.org>; Jakarta EE Ambassadors <jakartaee-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [jakarta.ee-community] [jakartaee-ambassadors] GlassFish Docker Support in Jakarta Starter

 

[Reza Rahman]

The UI issue appears to be yet another JSF/PrimeFaces bug with life-cycle processing (where client-side processing actually just stops sending any more updates to the server side). I'll need some serious JSF/PrimeFaces expertise to help figure it out, so it will take some time. You could also take a look if you have time. It's not hard to reproduce the issue and observe the underlying problem. I bet Arjan would understand what is going on too.

The simple workaround for now is that when Docker "yes" is shown to be disabled but still selected, the user needs to explicitly select "no" for Docker. Then everything appears to proceed fine. I can add a quick note to say the user must always ensure a valid set of selections is done at all steps.

[Ondro Mihályi]

Sure, no problem on my side. It's OK that the GlassFish Docker option is enabled only for the full Platform because it's more correct. The Docker image contains only the full GlassFish distribution and it's not possible to run in a "profile" that allows only Web Profile functionality. The UI bug is acceptable too, I know there are sometimes issues like that in JSF. I thought it's a mistake in the validation rules, that's why I reported it.

I have just one more note as a feedback. I think that the decision to select Jakarta EE 11 is misleading at the current time, as it only supports Core Profile now. Most of the people care only about Platform or Web Profile, Core profile is really meant mostly for certifications of small runtimes, mainly MicroProfile-only runtimes. Most people, who want to use the Starter to generate a project, would immediately select Jakarta EE 10 or older, and then would also need to select Platform, because the Core profile is pre-selected.

Do you think it would make sense to switch to Full Profile if people select Jakarta EE 10 or older right after the page loads? I mean, if they didn't select Core or Web Profile themself but Core Profile was pre-selected because of the default Jakarta EE 11 option? Can I create a PR to do something like that?

Ondro

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jakartaee-ambassadors/A014242D-55AA-E048-B770-A4D37BDA7F6A%40hxcore.ol.

[Reza Rahman]

The Jakarta EE Steering and Marketing Committees have been pretty clear that the Starter needs to help promote EE 11 as soon as possible as technically EE 11 Core (and soon Web) are now released. I think that’s a fair and reasonable request for a key part of the jakarta.ee website. It’s pretty easy for users to select whatever they want. The initial defaults are merely a starting point. Also, it appears users are actually choosing EE 11 already, including explicitly selecting Liberty. So there’s indication that we are actually helping promote the EE 11 Core Profile release already, exactly as intended and requested by working group stakeholders. Moreover, the Marketing Committee has expressed their appreciation of our current efforts towards EE 11 promotion.

The UI does not attempt to guess what the user wants. It only has an initial set of defaults and enables/disables options based on user input. I’ve now clarified the UI instructions to that effect. It’ll go out in the next release so hopefully should help.

Trying to guess what the user wants approaches the cyclomatic complexity of warranting AI. I think the validation enforcement code is already complex enough.

That said, as I said before I’ll still try to see if things can be improved on the JSF/PrimeFaces side. For example, it may be possible to bring attention to options that become invalid after a given selection (so maybe placing a red X after a radio button set).

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From: Ondro Mihályi <mih...@omnifish.ee>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2025 1:48 PM
To: Reza Rahman <reza_...@mail.com>
Cc: starter developer discussions <start...@eclipse.org>; Jakarta EE Ambassadors <jakartaee-...@googlegroups.com>; Jakarta EE community discussions <jakarta.ee...@eclipse.org>
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: [jakarta.ee-community] [jakartaee-ambassadors] GlassFish Docker Support in Jakarta Starter