Enabling hotupdate in Apache Axis2

This is for some of the readers of this blog who requested me numerous times a simple post on how to enable hotupdate in Axis2.

Hot Update refers to the ability to make changes to an existing Web Service without even shutting down the system. This is very important when you test your web services. However, it is not advisable to use hot update in production servers, because it may lead a system into an unknown state. Because of that, Axis2 comes with the hot update parameter set to FALSE by default.

In order to enable hotupdate, you could simple edit the following parameter in AXIS2_HOME/conf/axis2.xml



<parameter name="hotupdate">true</parameter>



If you use WSO2 Carbon based product such as WSO2 WSAS, WSO2 ESB or WSO2 BPS, you can follow the same procedure.

How to install WSO2 Carbon cluster management feature

I have written and published a tutorial on wso2.org which guides you through the steps of installing WSO2 Carbon cluster management feature.

Selenium test reporting with maven surefire report plugin

If you are familiar with Junit, you may have already known the maven surefire plugin which enables running unit test inside maven build cycles. Normally, surefire plugin generates the XML test reports at /target/surefire-reports directory. If you use selenium RC integrated with your build system or as a separate test framework, you may use maven-selenium-plugin coupled with the surefire plugin to launch your tests.
As far as I know, there are two ways to generate test reports when selenium is coupled with maven.

1. Use LoggingSelenium java library to generate HTML test reports with screenshots

2. Use maven-surefire-report plugin

This post is about the latter one, maven-surefire-report plugin.

The default configuration of surefire-report-plugin is trivial. You just need to add a <reporting> element to projects' pom.xml as follows.

<reporting>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${basedir}/target/wso2qa</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</reporting>


When you run mvn surefire-report:report goal after running the tests, HTML based descriptive report will be created at the specified output directory. In this mechanism, you do not use anything specific to selenium,but get the advantage of surefire report plugin in test reporting.

Running WSO2 Carbon based products on IBM JDK

The next minor release of WSO2 Carbon product platform (2.0.2) will be fully compatible with IBM JDK (IBM J9 VM 2.4). You simply need to update transports.xml as follows in order to run any of the WSO2 carbon based product on IBM JDK.

Open CARBON_HOME/transports.xml

Add the following parameter to HTTPS transport configuration

<parameter name="algorithm">IBMX509</parameter>

Now, restart carbon. Server will be started successfully on IBM JDK.

Carbon-2.0.2 product platform will be released within next week. Stay tuned..

How to configure persistent RM in WSO2 WSAS

WSO2 Web Services Application Server (WSAS) provides with a storage manager in which you can persist messages transmitted between RMS (reliable messaging source) and RMD (reliable messaging destination). By configuring persistent RM, you can prevent messages loses even if the server is down. This post guides you through the steps to configure persistent RM in the latest versions of WSO2 WSAS (WSAS-3.*). I assume you have a basic understanding about WS-RM, if not, please read http://www.infoq.com/articles/fremantle-wsrm-introduction first.
Pre-requisites
Download and install WSO2 WSAS-3.1.1

Persistent implementation of WS-RM will be supported in most of the popular DBMSs. However, I will use MySQL server 5.* in this demonstration. Therefore, install and configure MySQL.

Step 1
As the first step, we need to create the persistent storage which is going to be used in reliable message transmission. Lets create a data base and the necessary table as follows.

mysql>create database SANDESHA_DB;


mysql>use SANDESHA_DB;


mysql>create table wsrm_sender (
message_id varchar(255) not null,
message_context_ref_key varchar(255),
internal_sequence_id varchar(255),
sequence_id varchar(255),
to_address varchar(255),
inbound_sequence_id varchar(255),
send smallint,
sent_count integer,
message_number bigint,
resend smallint,
time_to_send bigint,
message_type integer,
last_message smallint,
inbound_message_number bigint,
transport_available smallint,
flags integer,
primary key (message_id)
);

mysql>create table wsrm_rmd (
sequence_id varchar(255) not null,
to_epr_addr varchar(255),
to_epr blob,
reply_to_epr_addr varchar(255),
reply_to_epr blob,
acks_to_epr_addr varchar(255),
acks_to_epr blob,
rm_version varchar(255),
security_token_data varchar(255),
last_activated_time bigint,
closed smallint,
terminated_flag smallint,
polling_mode smallint,
service_name varchar(255),
flags integer,
reference_message_key varchar(255),
highest_in_message_id varchar(255),
last_in_message_id varchar(255),
server_completed_messages blob,
outof_order_ranges blob,
to_address varchar(255),
outbound_internal_sequence varchar(255),
next_msgno_to_process bigint,
highest_in_message_number bigint,
rmd_flags integer,
primary key (sequence_id)
);

mysql>create table wsrm_rms (
create_seq_msg_id varchar(255) not null,
sequence_id varchar(255),
to_epr_addr varchar(255),
to_epr blob,
reply_to_epr_addr varchar(255),
reply_to_epr blob,
acks_to_epr_addr varchar(255),
acks_to_epr blob,
rm_version varchar(255),
security_token_data varchar(255),
last_activated_time BIGINT,
closed smallint,
terminated_flag smallint,
polling_mode smallint,
service_name varchar(255),
flags integer,
id bigint,
internal_sequence_id varchar(255),
create_sequence_msg_store_key varchar(255),
reference_msg_store_key varchar(255),
last_send_error blob,
highest_out_relates_to varchar(255),
client_completed_messages blob,
transport_to varchar(255),
offered_endpoint varchar(255),
offered_sequence varchar(255),
anonymous_uuid varchar(255),
last_send_error_timestamp bigint,
last_out_message bigint,
highest_out_message_number bigint,
next_message_number bigint,
terminate_added smallint,
timed_out smallint,
sequence_closed_client smallint,
expected_replies bigint,
soap_version integer,
termination_pauser_for_cs smallint,
avoid_auto_termination smallint,
rms_flags integer,
primary key (create_seq_msg_id)
);

mysql>create table wsrm_invoker (
message_context_ref_key varchar(255) not null,
sequence_id varchar(255),
context blob,
msg_no bigint,
flags integer,
PRIMARY KEY (message_context_ref_key)
);

mysql>create table wsrm_msgctx (
ctx_key varchar(255) not null,
ctx blob,
PRIMARY KEY (ctx_key)
);

Note: From WSAS-3.2.0 onwards, the following columns must be added to the wsrm_rms table in addition to the columns specified above.

offered_endpoint_epr_addr varchar(255),
offered_endpoint_epr varchar(255),
reallocated integer,
internalSeqIDOfSeqUsedForReallocation varchar(255),

Step 2

Since we are going to establish a JDBC connection to a MySQL DB, copy mysql jdbc driver to WSAS_HOME/repository/components/lib and restart WSAS
Log in to WSAS management console and click on modules -->list. Click on configure link of the sandesha2 module.
By default, WSO2 WSAS uses an inmemory implementation of WS-RM. You can change it to persistent by changing Storage Manager property. Configure the rest of the persistent storage details as follows.

Connection String - jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/SANDESHA_DB
Driver Name - com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
Username - your mysql username 
Password - your mysql password

Step 3

Now, you have enabled persistent RM in WSO2 WSAS. However, due to a bug in the latest WSAS releases, you should update the following property in WSAS_HOME/conf/axis2.xml

<parameter name="Sandesha2StorageManager">persistent</parameter>

Make sure to restart WSAS after configuring the above element in axis2.xml

Step 4

Now, you are ready to send requests to a service hosted in WSAS through RM and verify persistent RM. In order to do that, engage sandesha2 module in a service and send series of requests (say 100 requests) using a RM client (I assume you are familiar with sending soap messages with RM headers. I will publish a separate post on complete RM client-server invocation soon). After transmitting 30 requests, shutdown WSAS and restart. You will notice that after the server is restarted, the message transmission will be resumed from the message no: 31

If you have any issues with the steps given above, please drop me a mail.

Key factors for successful test automation

At WSO2, we have been making considerable progress in building a complete test automation solution. According to my experience on that effort, I think the followings are the key factors contributed to a successful test automation project.

• Dedication to automation (Instead of treating it as a spare-time activity)

• Commitment by the entire team (rather than just one or two testers),

• Commitment to automation from the start (rather than trying to automate a manual process later)

• Making use of correct tools/frameworks/technology

• Allocating sufficient time and resources
  

How to pass system properties to maven surefire plugin test run

While developing WSO2 QA test framework (which is based on selenium RC), we wanted to give users the choice of selecting test cases without running whole suite at once. Our plan was to pass a system property during maven test run. However, passing a system property directly through command line does not work since the surefire plugin is run under a different JVM instance that is launched by Maven.
In order to overcome this, maven surefire plugin can be configured as follows by specifying the required system property.

<systemProperties>
<property>
<name>test.suite</name>
<value>${test.suite}</value>
</property>
</systemProperties>

According to this example configuration, we can run test suite with passing a system property as follows.

'mvn clean install -Dtest.suite=test-case'