Red Hat Summit Red Hat SummitSupportConsoleDevelopersStart a trialContact

Administration and Configuration Guide

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.3

The Administration and Configuration Guide for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite

Red Hat Content Services

Gemma Sheldon

Klara Kufova

Marek Czernek

Tomas Radej

Vidya Iyengar

Abstract

A guide for administrators and advanced users dealing with Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite setup, configuration, and advanced usage.

Part I. Introduction
Copy link

Chapter 1. Business Process Model and Notation
Copy link

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a standard notation for business process modeling. It aspires to link the gap between business analysts and programmers by providing a workflow language that can be clearly understood by both.

1.1. Components
Copy link

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite integrates multiple components to support business processes throughout their entire life cycle and to provide process management features and tools for business analysts, developers, and business users. The product can be deployed on various JEE-compliant servers; the recommended option is Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite consists of the following main components:

  • Execution Engine: Provides the runtime environment for Processes and Business Rules. It encompasses a workflow library that can be embedded into a user web application. Runtime manager is the root object and contains the following components:

    • Runtime Engine: Implements the core behavior of the computer language and it is provided by the runtime manager.

      • Process Engine: The environment for business process model execution.
      • Task Service: Handles human task lifecycles.

    • Rule Engine: Can be used with the process engine or on its own.

      • Rules Evaluation: Executes business rules on the provided set of facts.
      • Complex Event Processing: Applies business rules on incoming stream of events.

  • Business Central: A web-based application that accommodates tooling for asset creation, management, and monitoring by providing an integrated web environment.

    • Asset Repository: The central sharing location (Knowledge Store) for business assets, processes, rules, forms, etc. Users access this repository through the Project Explorer view of Business Central via Authoring → Project Authoring. By default, the product initializes a local GIT repository as its Asset Repository. However, other repositories may be added or removed as necessary.
    • Artifact Repository: A Maven based repository for storage of project jar artifacts.
    • Execution Server: Provides an execution environment for business process instances and tasks.
    • Business Activity Monitor: Provides customizable view on business performance.
Note

Red Hat JBoss BRMS comes with its own Business Central application that is a subset of the Business Central application in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

1.2. Project
Copy link

A project is a container for asset packages (business processes, rules, work definitions, decision tables, fact models, data models, and DSLs) that lives in the Knowledge Repository. It is this container that defines the properties of the KIE Base and KIE Session that are applied to its content. In the GUI, you can edit these entities in the Project Editor.

As a project is a Maven project, it contains the Project Object Model file (pom.xml) with information on how to build the output artifact. It also contains the Module Descriptor file, kmodule.xml, that contains the KIE Base and KIE Session configuration for the assets in the project.

1.3. Creating a Project
Copy link

It is possible to create a project either in the Project Authoring perspective of Business Central or using the REST API calls.

Creating a Project in Business Central
Important

Note that only users with the admin role in Business Central can create projects.

Procedure: Using Business Central to Create a Project

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Project Authoring.
  2. In the Project Explorer, select the organizational unit and the repository in which you want to create the project.

  3. On the perspective menu, click New Item → Project.

    The New Project dialog window opens.

    6648
    View larger image
    6648

  4. Define the Project General Settings and Group artifact version details of the new project. These parameters are stored in the pom.xml Maven configuration file.

    See the detailed description of the parameters:

    • Project Name: name of the project (for example MortgageProject).
    • Project Description: description of the project, which may be useful for the project documentation purposes.
    • Group ID: group ID of the project (for example org.mycompany.commons).
    • Artifact ID: artifact ID unique in the group (for example myframework). Avoid using a space or any other special character that might lead to an invalid name.
    • Version: version of the project (for example 2.1.1).

  5. Click Finish.

    The project screen view is updated with the new project details as defined in the pom.xml file. You can switch between project descriptor files and edit their content by clicking the Project Settings: Project General Settings button at the top of the project screen view.

⁠⁠Creating a Project Using the REST API
Important

Note that only users with the rest-all or rest-project role can create projects.

To create a project in the repository, issue the POST REST API call. Details of the project are defined by the corresponding JSON entity.

Input parameter of the call is an Entity instance. The call returns a CreateProjectRequest instance.

Example 1.1. Creating a Project Using the Curl Utility

Example JSON entity containing details of a project to be created: 

{
  "name"        : "MortgageProject",
  "description" :  null,
  "groupId"     : "org.mycompany.commons",
  "version"     : "2.1.1"
}
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Execute the following command: 

curl -X POST 'localhost:8080/business-central/rest/repositories/REPOSITORY_NAME/projects/' -u USERNAME:PASSWORD -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"name":"MortgageProject","description":null,"groupId":"org.mycompany.commons","version":"2.1.1"}'
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

For further information, refer to chapter Knowledge Store REST API, section Repository Calls of the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Development Guide.

1.4. Adding Dependencies
Copy link

To add dependencies to your project, do the following:

  1. Open the Project Editor for the given project:

    1. In the Project Explorer view of the Project Authoring perspective, open the project directory.
    2. Click Open Project Editor to open the project view.
  2. In the Project Screen view, select in the Project Settings drop-down box the Dependencies item.

  3. On the updated Project Screen, click the Add button to add a maven dependency or click the Add from repository button to add a dependency from the Knowledge Store (Artifact repository):

    1. When adding a maven dependency, a user has to define the Group ID, Artifact ID and the Version ID in the Dependency dialogue window.
    2. When adding a dependency from the Knowledge Store, select the dependency in the displayed dialog box: the dependency will be added to the dependency table.
  4. To apply the various changes, the dependencies must be saved.

Additionally, you can use the Package white list when working with dependencies. When you add a repository, you can click the gear icon and select Add all or Add none, which results in including all or none of the packages from the added dependency.

Warning

If working with modified artifacts, do not re-upload modified non-snapshot artifacts as Maven will not know these artifacts have been updated, and it will not work if it is deployed in this manner.

Part II. Configuration
Copy link

Chapter 2. Business Central Configuration
Copy link

As Business Central is a web application, any configuration settings are loaded from DEPLOY_DIRECTORY/business-central.war/WEB-INF/web.xml and the referenced files, and if deployed on Red Hat JBoss EAP 6, also in jboss-web.xml and jboss-deployment-structure.xml.

Note that the entire application can be run in different profiles (refer to the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Installation Guide).

2.1. Access Control
Copy link

The access control mechanism includes authorization and authentication. In the unified environment of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, users are able to update the default user roles located within JBOSS_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/userinfo.properties.

To grant a user access to JBoss BPM Suite, the user needs to have the respective role assigned:

  • admin: Administrates JBoss BPM Suite system and has full access rights to make any changes necessary including the ability to add and remove users from the system.
  • developer: Implements code required for processes to work and has access to everything except administration tasks.
  • analyst: Creates and designs processes and forms, instantiates the processes and deploys artifacts. This role is the similar to a developer, without access to asset repository and deployments.
  • user: Claims, performs, and invokes other actions (such as, escalation, rejection, etc.) on the assigned Tasks and has no access to authoring functions.
  • manager: Monitors the system and its statistics and only has access to the dashboard.
  • business user: Takes action on business tasks that are required for processes to continue forward. Works primarily with the task list.

If using Red Hat JBoss EAP, to create a user with particular roles, run the JBOSS_HOME/add-user.sh script and create an Application User in the ApplicationRealm with the respectives roles.

Workbench Configuration

Within Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, users may set up roles using LDAP to modify existing roles. Users may modify the roles in the workbench configuration to ensure the unique LDAP based roles conform to enterprise standards by editing the deployments directory located at JBOSS_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/workbench-policy.propeties.

If authenticating user via LDAP over Git, administrators must set system property org.uberfire.domain to the name of login module it should use to authenticate users via the Git service. This must be set in the standalone.xmlfile in EAP.

Note

You can further customize Business Central with parameters no_build or no_search. The parameters disable the build and search functionality. Include one or both parameters in the Business Central URL, for example http://SERVER:PORT/business-central/kie-wb.html?no_build&no_search.

Authentication in Human Tasks

Every Task that needs to be executed is assigned to one or multiple roles or groups, so that any user with the given role or the given group assigned can claim the Task instance and execute it. Tasks can also be assigned to one or multiple users directly. JBoss BPM Suite uses the UserGroupCallback interface to assign tasks to user.

Warning

A group for a Human Task must not be named after an existing user of the system. Doing so causes intermittent issues.

LDAP Configuration

You can configure LDAP domain during the installation of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite. See the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Installation Guide for further information. When already installed, Business Central uses JBoss Security Domains defined in EAP_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone/configuration/standalone.xml by default. The security domain is referenced in business-central.war/WEB-INF/jboss-web.xml.

To configure LDAP on your existing Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite installation:

  1. Define an LDAP security domain.

    1. In standalone.xml, locate <security-domains>.

    2. Add your login module: 

      <!-- Including an LDAP based security domain to enable LDAP based authentication and authorization for users of Business Central console  -->
      1 
      
 <security-domain name="ldap" cache-type="default">
  <authentication>
      2 
      
   <login-module code="org.jboss.security.auth.spi.LdapExtLoginModule" flag="required">
    <module-option name="java.naming.provider.url" value="ldap://10.10.10.10:389"/>
    <module-option name="java.naming.factory.initial" value="com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory"/>
    <module-option name="java.naming.security.authentication" value="simple"/>
    <module-option name="bindDN" value="uid=admin,ou=system"/>
    <module-option name="bindCredential" value="secret"/>
    <module-option name="baseCtxDN" value="ou=People,dc=jboss,dc=org"/>
    <module-option name="baseFilter" value="(uid={0})"/>
    <module-option name="rolesCtxDN" value="ou=Groups,dc=jboss,dc=org"/>
    <module-option name="roleFilter" value="(member={0})"/>
    <module-option name="roleAttributeID" value="cn"/>
    <module-option name="roleNameAttributeID" value="cn"/>
    <module-option name="roleRecursion" value="2"/>
    <module-option name="roleAttributeIsDN" value="false"/>
    <module-option name="parseRoleNameFromDN" value="false"/>
    <module-option name="java.naming.referral" value="follow"/>
    <module-option name="searchScope" value="SUBTREE_SCOPE"/>
   </login-module>
  </authentication>
 </security-domain>
...
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
      1
      Name of your security domain referenced in jboss-web.xml.
      2
      A required attribute for external LDAP authentication.

      For more information about the LDAP login module, see Ldap Login Module from the Red Hat JBoss EAP Login Module Reference.

    3. Locate <hornetq-server> and add the following lines: 

      <security-domain>ldap</security-domain>
<security-enabled>true</security-enabled>
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    4. Refer to your LDAP security domain in jboss-web.xml: 

      <jboss-web>
    <security-domain>ldap</security-domain>
</jboss-web>
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. If you require LDAP integration in task services, provide the task service configuration.

    1. Open EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/beans.xml.
    2. Change <class>org.jbpm.services.cdi.producer.JAASUserGroupInfoProducer</class> to <class>org.jbpm.services.cdi.producer.LDAPUserGroupInfoProducer</class>.

    3. Create a jbpm.usergroup.callback.properties file in EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/jbpm.usergroup.callback.properties and provide your usergroup callback properties, for example: 

      java.naming.provider.url=ldap://localhost:10389
ldap.bind.user=uid\=admin,ou\=system
ldap.bind.pwd=secret
ldap.user.ctx=ou\=People,dc\=jboss,dc\=org
ldap.role.ctx=ou\=Groups,dc\=jboss,dc\=org
ldap.user.roles.ctx=ou\=Groups,dc\=jboss,dc\=org
ldap.user.filter=(uid\={0})
ldap.role.filter=(cn\={0})
ldap.user.roles.filter=(member\={0})
ldap.search.scope=SUBTREE_SCOPE
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    4. Create a jbpm.user.info.properties file in EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/jbpm.user.info.properties and provide your user info properties, for example: 

      java.naming.provider.url=ldap://localhost:10389
ldap.bind.user=uid\=admin,ou\=system
ldap.bind.pwd=secret
ldap.user.ctx=ou\=People,dc\=jboss,dc\=org
ldap.role.ctx=ou\=Groups,dc\=jboss,dc\=org
ldap.user.filter=(uid\={0})
ldap.role.filter=(cn\={0})
ldap.search.scope=SUBTREE_SCOPE
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Ensure correct roles assigned to the users in your LDAP server, for example admin, analyst, and others.

You can define your own roles in EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/workbench-policy.properties.

2.2. Business Central Profile Configuration
Copy link

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 (or better) server is capable of starting the Business Central application in three different modes:

  • Full profile: Default profile that is active without additional configuration required (UI and remote services e.g. REST).
  • Execution server profile: Disables completely UI components of the application and allows only remote access e.g. via REST interface.
  • UI server profile: Disables remote services e.g REST and allows only UI access to the application.

To change the profile use the following configuration steps.

Procedure: Configuring Business Central Profiles

  1. Select the desired web.xml inside BPMS_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/. The following files are provided:

    • web.xml (default) for full profile
    • web-exec-server.xml for execution server profile
    • web-ui-server.xml for UI server profile

  2. To activate a profile other than the default full profile, the web-<PROFILE>.xml file must be renamed to web.xml. The following steps demonstrate one way to enable the execution server profile:

    1. Backup the web.xml file from the full profile 

      $ mv web.xml web-full.xml
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    2. Rename the web-exec-server.xml file: 

      $ mv web-exec-server.xml web.xml
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Start application server with additional system property to instruct the profile manager to activate given profile.

    • Dorg.kie.active.profile=full - To activate full profile or skip the property completely
    • Dorg.kie.active.profile=exec-server - To activate execution server profile
    • Dorg.kie.active.profile=ui-server - To activate UI server profile

2.3. Branding the Business Central Application
Copy link

The Business Central web application enables you to customize its look and feel by allowing you to override some of its default styles. The ability to customize the Business Central branding allows you to get a consistent appearance across all your applications thereby improving the user experience. It also helps in cases when multiple teams are using the application. Each team can develop their own customized user interface. The customizable elements are built using cascading style sheets (CSS), images, and HTML files, providing an easy and flexible approach to customize without having to recompile the code.

You can modify the following elements in the Business Central application to make it inline with your company’s brand:

Login screen

You can customize the following attributes of the Business Central login screen:

  • The background image
  • The company logo
  • The application logo
Application header

You can customize the following attributes of the Business Central application header:

  • The Business Central header containing the title and banner logo
Help pop-up windows

You can customize the following attributes of the splash help pop-up windows:

  • The splash help images
  • The label text

2.3.1. Customizing Business Central Login Page
Copy link

Procedure: Changing the Business Central Login Page Background Image

  1. Start the EAP server and open http://localhost:8080/business-central in a web browser.
  2. Copy the new background image to the EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/images directory in your Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite installation.
  3. Navigate to EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/styles directory and open the login-screen.css file in a text editor.

  4. In the login-screen.css file, provide the location of your new background image in the following background-image attribute: 

    background-image: url("../images/login-screen-background.jpg");
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The background-image attribute points to the default login-screen-background.jpg image.

    In addition to the background image, you can modify other attributes such as image size, position, and background color in the login-screen.css file.

Refresh the Business Central login page to view your changes.

Procedure: Changing the Business Central Login Page Company Logo and Project Logo

  1. Start the EAP server and open http://localhost:8080/business-central in a web browser.
  2. Navigate to the EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/images directory in your Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite installation.
  3. Replace the default image login-screen-logo.png with a new one. This is the company logo that appears on the top right hand corner of the login page.

  4. Replace the default image RH_JBoss_BPMS_Logo.png with a new one.

    This is the project logo that appears on the center left hand side of the login page.

Refresh the Business Central login page to view your changes.

Procedure: Changing the Business Central Application Header (Banner)

  1. Start the EAP server and open http://localhost:8080/business-central in a web browser.
  2. Log in to the Business Central application with your user credentials.
  3. Copy your new application header image to the EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/banner directory in your Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite installation.
  4. Open EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/banner/banner.html file in a text editor.

  5. In the banner.html file, edit the following <img> tag to provide the name of your new header image: 

    <img src="banner/logo.png"/>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The default image is logo.png.

Refresh the Business Central Home page to view your changes.

The EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/plugins directory contains the splash pages and the corresponding html files. Each splash page holds the name of the html file, which contains information about the image(s) and the text to be displayed. For example, the authoring_perspective.splash.js splash page points to the authoring_perspective.splash.html file. The authoring_perspective.splash.html contains the names and location of all the image files that appear on the Authoring Perspective splash help and also their captions. You can customize the images and the corresponding captions of the existing splash help pop-up windows.

Procedure: Changing the Business Central Splash Help Pop-Up Images and Captions

  1. Start the EAP server and open http://localhost:8080/business-central in a web browser.
  2. Log in to the Business Central application with your user credentials.
  3. Copy your new splash help image(s) to the EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/images directory in your Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite installation.
  4. Open the corresponding html file from EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/plugins directory in a text editor.

  5. Edit the html file to point to your new splash help image. For example, to change the first image that appears in the Authoring Perspective splash help, edit the following <img> tag in the authoring_perspective.splash.html file to add your new image: 

    <img src="images/authoring_perspective1.png" alt="">
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The default image is authoring_perspective1.png, which appears on the first page of the Authoring Perspective splash help.

  6. To change the image caption that appears on the splash help, edit the <h4> and <p> tag contents below the <img> tag: 

    <h4>Authoring</h4>
<p>Modularized and customizable workbench</p>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Refresh the Business Central Home page and access the splash help pop-up windows to view your changes.

2.4. Deployment Descriptors
Copy link

Processes and rules within Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 onwards are stored in Apache Maven based packaging, and are known as knowledge archives or KJAR. The rules, processes, assets, etc. are part of a jar file built and managed by Maven. A file kept inside the META-INF directory of the KJAR called kmodule.xml can be used to define the knowledge bases and sessions. This kmodule.xml file, by default, is empty.

Whenever a runtime component such as Business Central is about to process the KJAR, it looks up kmodule.xml to build the runtime representation.

Deployment Descriptors, a new feature introduced in the 6.1 branch of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, allows you fine grained control over your deployment and supplements the kmodule.xml file. The presence of these descriptors is optional and your deployment will proceed successfully without them. The properties that you can set using these descriptors are purely technical in nature and include meta values like persistence, auditing and runtime strategy.

These descriptors allow you to configure the execution server on multiple levels (server level default, different deployment descriptor per KJAR and so on). This allows you to make simple customizations to the execution server’s out-of-the-box configuration (possibly per KJAR).

You define these descriptors in a file called kie-deployment-descriptor.xml and place this file next to your kmodule.xml file in the META-INF folder. You can change this default location (and the filename) by specifying it as a system parameter: 

-Dorg.kie.deployment.desc.location=file:/path/to/file/company-deployment-descriptor.xml
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

2.4.1. Deployment Descriptor Configuration
Copy link

Deployment descriptors allow the user to configure the execution server on multiple levels:

  • Server level: The main level and the one that applies to all KJARs deployed on the server.
  • Kjar level: This allows you to configure descriptors on a per KJAR basis.
  • Deploy time level: Descriptors that apply while a KJAR is being deployed.

The granular configuration items specified by the deployment descriptors take precedence over the server level ones, except in case of configuration items that are collection based, which are merged. The hierarchy works like this: deploy time configuration > KJAR configuration > server configuration.

Note

The deploy time configuration applies to deployments done via the REST API.

For example, if the persistence mode (one of the items you can configure) defined at the server level is NONE but the same mode is specified as JPA at the KJAR level, the actual mode will be JPA for that KJAR. If nothing is specified for the persistence mode in the deployment descriptor for that KJAR (or if there is no deployment descriptor), it will fall back to the server level configuration, which in this case is NONE (or to JPA if there is no server level deployment descriptor).

Can You Override this Hierarchal Merge Mode Behavior?

Yes. In the default way, if there are deployment descriptors present at multiple levels, the configuration properties are merged with the granular ones overriding the coarse values, and with missing configuration items at the granular level being supplied with those values from the higher levels. The end result is a merged Deployment Descriptor configuration. This default merge mode is called the MERGE_COLLECTIONS mode. However, you can change it (see Section 2.4.2, “Managing Deployment Descriptors”) if it does not suit your environment to one of the following modes:

  • KEEP_ALL: In this mode, all higher level values override all lower level values (server level values replace KJAR level values)
  • OVERRIDE_ALL: In this mode, all lower level values override all higher level values (KJAR values replace server level values)
  • OVERRIDE_EMPTY: In this mode, all non empty configuration items from lower levels replace those at higher levels, including items that are represented as collections.
  • MERGE_COLLECTIONS (DEFAULT): In this mode, all non empty configuration items from lower level replace those from higher levels (like in OVERRIDE_EMPTY), but collection properties are merged (combined).

Deployment Descriptors from dependent KJARs are placed lower than the actual KJAR being deployed, but they still have higher hierarchy than the server level.

Do I Need to Provide a Full Deployment Descriptor for All Kjars?

No, and this is where the beauty of the merge between different files can help you. Providing partial Deployment Descriptors is possible and recommended. For example, if you want to only override the audit mode in a KJAR, then you just need to provide that and the rest of the values will be merged from server level or higher level KJARs.

It is worth noting that when using OVERRIDE_ALL merge mode, all configuration items should be specified since the relevant KJAR will always use them and will not merge with any other deployment descriptor in the hierarchy.

What Can You Configure?

High level technical configuration details can be configured via deployment descriptors. The following table lists these along with the permissible and default values for each.

Expand
Table 2.1. Deployment Descriptors
ConfigurationXML EntryPermissible ValuesDefault Value

Persistence unit name for runtime data

persistence-unit

Any valid persistence package name

org.jbpm.domain

Persistence unit name for audit data

audit-persistence-unit

Any valid persistence package name

org.jbpm.domain

Persistence mode

persistence-mode

JPA, NONE

JPA

Audit mode

audit-mode

JPA, JMS or NONE

JPA

Runtime Strategy

runtime-strategy

SINGLETON, PER_REQUEST or PER_PROCESS_INSTANCE

SINGLETON

List of Event Listeners to be registered

event-listeners

Valid listener class names as ObjectModel

No default value

List of Task Event Listeners to be registered

task-event-listeners

Valid listener class names as ObjectModel

No default value

List of Work Item Handlers to be registered

work-item-handlers

Valid Work Item Handler classes given as NamedObjectHandler

No default value

List of Globals to be registered

globals

Valid Global variables given as NamedObjectModel

No default value

Marshalling strategies to be registered (for pluggable variable persistence)

marshalling-strategies

Valid ObjectModel classes

No default value

Required Roles to be granted access to the resources of the KJAR

required-roles

String role names

No default value

Additional Environment Entries for Knowledge Session

environment-entries

Valid NamedObjectModel

No default value

Additional configuration options of Knowledge Session

configurations

Valid NamedObjectModel

No default value

How Do You Provide Values For Collections-Based Configuration Items?

In the table of valid configuration items earlier, you would have noticed that the valid values for the collection based items are either ObjectModel or NamedObjectModel. Both are similar and provide a definition of the object to be built or created at runtime, with the exception that the NamedObjectModel object details name the object to be looked. Both these types are defined using an identifier, optional parameters and resolver (to resolve the object).

Identifier
Defines all the information about the object, such as fully qualified class name, Spring bean id or an MVEL expression.
Parameters
Optional parameters that should be used while creating instances of objects from this model.
Resolver
Identifier of the resolver that will be used to create object instances from the model, that is reflection, mvel, or Spring.

As an example, if you have built a custom marshaling strategy and want your deployments to use that strategy instead of the default, you will need to provide that strategy as an ObjectModel, with the identifier being com.mycompany.MyStrategy, resolver being reflection (the easiest and the default) and any parameters that are required for your strategy to work. Reflection will then be used to create an instance of this strategy using the fully qualified class name that you have provided as the identifier. 

<marshalling-strategy>
 <resolver>reflection</resolver>
 <identifier>com.myCompany.MyStrategy</identifier>
 <parameters>
    <parameter xsi:type="xs:string" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
      param
    </parameter>
  </parameters>
</marshalling-strategy>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

In the case that reflection based on resolver is not enough (as demonstrated in the previous example), you can use a resolver based on MVEL expression as the identifier of the object model. While evaluating expressions, you can substitute out-of-the-box parameters. For example: 

<marshalling-strategy>
  <resolver>mvel</resolver>
  <identifier>new com.myCompany.CustomStrategy(runtimeManager)</identifier>
</marshalling-strategy>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

The Spring based resolver allows you to look up a bean by its identifier from a Spring application context. Whenever JBoss BPM Suite is used with Spring, this resolver helps in deploying KJARs into the runtime. As an example (note that the identifier in this case is a named bean in the Spring context): 

<marshalling-strategy>
 <resolver>spring</resolver>
 <identifier>customStrategy</identifier>
</marshalling-strategy>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

2.4.2. Managing Deployment Descriptors
Copy link

Deployment Descriptors can be edited via the Business Central in one of two ways. Either graphically (by clicking on Authoring → Project Authoring → Deployment Descriptor or by clicking on Authoring → Administration menu and then clicking through to the META-INF folder in the File Explorer. Click on the kie-deployment-descriptor.xml file to edit it manually.

Every time a project is created, a stock kie-deployment-descriptor.xml file is generated with default values as described earlier.

Overriding Hierarchical Merge Mode Behavior

To change the default mode of MERGE_COLLECTIONS to one of KEEP_ALL, OVERRIDE_ALL, or OVERRIDE_EMPTY, you can use the following methods, depending on the requirement.

  • Set the system property org.kie.dd.mergemode to one of these values. This merge mode will become default for all KJARs deployed in the system, unless you override it at a KJAR level via the next method.
  • When deploying a new deployment unit via Business Central (Deploy → Deployments) you can select what merge mode should be used for that particular KJAR.
  • When deploying via the REST API, you can add mergemode query parameter to the command URL to one of these modes to set the merge mode for that deployment.
Restricting Access to the Runtime Engine

One of the configuration items discussed earlier, required-roles, can be edited via the Deployment Descriptors. This property restricts access to the runtime engine on a per KJAR or per server level by ensuring that access to certain processes is only granted to users that belong to groups defined by this property.

The security role can be used to restrict access to process definitions or restrict access at runtime.

The default behavior is to add required roles to this property based on repository restrictions. You can of course, edit these properties manually if required, as described above by providing roles that match actual roles defined in the security realm.

2.5. Managing Deployment Override Policy
Copy link

If a user tries to deploy an artifact with a GAV (Group-Id, Artifact-Id and Version) that already exists in the system, the deployment will fail and an error message will be displayed in the Messages panel.

This feature prevents the user from overwriting an existing deployment by mistake.

By default this feature is enabled, that is, by default the system will prevent the user from overwriting an existing installation with the same GAV.

However, there may be cases when the user may want to overwrite existing deployments with the same GAV. Although you cannot enable overwriting on a per-deployment basis, you can set this up for the system as a whole by using the system setting org.kie.override.deploy.enabled. This setting, is false by default. Change it to true to enable overwriting of deployments with the same GAV by providing it at startup time of your server (-Dorg.kie.override.deploy.enabled=true).

2.6. Extending Business Central
Copy link

Starting with version 6.1 of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, Business Central can be configured to add new screens, menus, editors, splashscreens and perspectives by the Administrator. These elements can extend functionality of Business Central and can be accessed through the Extensions → Plugin Management.

You can now define your own Javascript and HTML based plugins to extend Business Central and add them without having to worry about copying files in the underlying filesystem. Let us add a new screen in the system to show you the basics of this functionality.

2.6.1. Plugin Management
Copy link

You access the Plugin Management screen by clicking on Extensions → Plugin Management. This brings up the Plugin Explorer screen that lists all the existing plugins under their respective categories:

  • Perspective Plugin
  • Screen Plugin
  • Editor Plugin
  • Splashscreen Plugin
  • and Dynamic Menu

Open any of these, and you will see the existing plugins in each category, including the uneditable system generated ones.

Let us create a new plugin that echoes "Hello World" when users visit the screen for that plugin. In general, the steps to creating a new plugin are:

  1. Create a new screen
  2. Create a new perspective (and add the new screen to it)
  3. Create a new menu (and add the new perspective to it)
  4. Apps (optional)
Adding a New Screen

Click the 6576 button and select New Screen. You will be prompted to enter the name of this new screen. Enter "HelloWorldJS" and press the OK button. The Screen plugin editor will open, divided into 4 sections: Template, CSS, JavaScript and Media.

Note

All manually created elements go into their respective categories in case you want to edit them later. In this case, to open the Screen plugin editor again if you close it, open the Screen Plugin category and scroll past the system generated screens to your manually created plugin and click on it to open the Screen plugin editor again.

Template is where your HTML goes, CSS is for styling, JavaScript is for your functions and Media is for uploading and managing images.

Since we are making a simple Hello World plugin, enter the following code in the Template section: <div>My Hello World Screen</div>. This can be any HTML code, and you can use the supplied Angular and Knockout frameworks. For the purposes of this example, we are not using any of those frameworks, but you can choose to by selecting them from the drop down in the Template section.

Enter your JavaScript code in the JavaScript section. Some common methods and properties are defined for you, including main, on_close and on_open. For this demo, select the on_open and enter the following: function () { alert('Hello World'); }

Click the Save button to finish creating the screen. After you save the screen, refresh business central so that the Screen Plugin is listed in the Screen Component of Perspective plugin.

Adding New Perspective

Once a screen has been created, you need to create a perspective on which this screen will reside. Perspectives can also be created similar to the way a screen is created by clicking on the New button and then selecting New Perspective. You can now provide a name for this perspective, say HelloWorldPerspective. This will open the Perspective plugin editor, similar to the Screen plugin editor.

The Perspective Editor is like a drag and drop grid builder for screens and HTML components. Remove any existing grids and then drag a 6×6 grid on the right hand side to the left hand side.

Next, open the Components category and drag a Screen Component on the right hand side to the left hand side (in any grid). This will open the Edit Component dialog box that allows you to select the screen created in the previous step (HelloWorldJS). Click the OK button and then click Save to save this perspective. To tag your perspective, enter Home in the tag name field and click Tags. Click OK and save the changes.

You can open this perspective again from the Perspective plugins listed on the left hand side.

Adding New Menu

The final step in creating our plugin is to add a dynamic menu from where the new screen/perspective can be called up. To do so, go to Extensions → Plugin Management and then click on the New button to select New Dynamic Menu. Give this dynamic menu a name (HelloWorldMenu) and then click the OK button. The dynamic menu editor opens up.

Enter the perspective name (HelloWorldPerspective) as the Activity Id and the name for the drop down menu (HelloWorldMenuDropDown). Click OK and then Save.

This new menu will be added to your workbench the next time you refresh Business Central. Refresh it now to see HelloWorldMenu added to your top level menu. Click on it to reveal HelloWorldMenuDropDown, which when clicked will open your perspective/screen with the message Hello World.

You have created your first Plugin!

Working with Apps (Optional)

If you create multiple plugins, you can use the Apps directory feature to organize your own components and plugins, instead of having to rely on just the top menu entries.

When you save a new perspective, you can add labels (tags) for them and these labels (tags) are used to associate a perspective with an App directory. You can open the App directories by clicking on Extensions → Apps.

The Apps directory provides an alternate way to open your perspective. When you created your HelloWorldPerspective, you entered the tag Home. The Apps directory by default contains a single directory called Home with which you associated your perspective. This is where you will find it when you open the Apps directory. You can click on it to run the perspective now.

You can create multiple directories and associate perspectives with those directories depending on functional and vertical business requirements. For example, you could create an HR directory and then associate all HR related perspectives with that directory to better manage Apps.

You can create a new directory by clicking the 6418 button.

2.6.2. The JavaScript (JS) API for Extensions
Copy link

The extensibility of Business Central is achieved by an underlying JavaScript (JS) API which is automatically loaded if it is placed in the plugins folder of the Business Central webapp (typically: INSTALL_DIR/business-central.war/plugins/), or it can be loaded via regular JavaScript calls.

This API is divided into multiple sets depending on the functionality it performs.

Register Perspective API

Allows for the dynamic creation of perspectives. The example below creates a panel using the registerPerspective method: 

$registerPerspective({
    id: "Home",
    is_default: true,
    panel_type: "org.uberfire.client.workbench.panels.impl.MultiListWorkbenchPanelPresenter",
    view: {
        parts: [
            {
                place: "welcome",
                min_height: 100,
                parameters: {}
            }
        ],
        panels: [
            {
                width: 250,
                min_width: 200,
                position: "west",
                panel_type: "org.uberfire.client.workbench.panels.impl.MultiListWorkbenchPanelPresenter",
                parts: [
                    {
                        place: "YouTubeVideos",
                        parameters: {}
                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                position: "east",
                panel_type: "org.uberfire.client.workbench.panels.impl.MultiListWorkbenchPanelPresenter",
                parts: [
                    {
                        place: "TodoListScreen",
                        parameters: {}
                    }
                ]
            },
            {
                height: 400,
                position: "south",
                panel_type: "org.uberfire.client.workbench.panels.impl.MultiTabWorkbenchPanelPresenter",
                parts: [
                    {
                        place: "YouTubeScreen",
                        parameters: {}
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
});
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Editor API

Allows you to dynamically create editors and associate them with a file type. The example below creates a sample editor and associates it with filename file type. 

$registerEditor({
    "id": "sample editor",
    "type": "editor",
    "templateUrl": "editor.html",
    "resourceType": "org.uberfire.client.workbench.type.AnyResourceType",
    "on_concurrent_update":function(){
        alert('on_concurrent_update callback')
        $vfs_readAllString(document.getElementById('filename').innerHTML, function(a) {
            document.getElementById('editor').value= a;
        });
    },
    "on_startup": function (uri) {
        $vfs_readAllString(uri, function(a) {
            alert('sample on_startup callback')
        });
    },
    "on_open":function(uri){
        $vfs_readAllString(uri, function(a) {
            document.getElementById('editor').value=a;
        });
        document.getElementById('filename').innerHTML = uri;
    }
});
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

In addition to on_startup and on_open methods seen in the previous example, the API exposes the following callback events for managing the editor’s lifecycle:

  • on_concurrent_update;
  • on_concurrent_delete;
  • on_concurrent_rename;
  • on_concurrent_copy;
  • on_rename;
  • on_delete;
  • on_copy;
  • on_update;
  • on_open;
  • on_close;
  • on_focus;
  • on_lost_focus;
  • on_may_close;
  • on_startup;
  • on_shutdown;

You can display this editor via an HTML template: 

<div id="sampleEditor">
    <p>Sample JS editor (generated by editor-sample.js)</p>
    <textarea id="editor"></textarea>

    <p>Current file:</p><span id="filename"></span>
    <button id="save" type="button" onclick="$vfs_write(document.getElementById('filename').innerHTML, document.getElementById('editor').value,  function(a) {});">Save</button>
    <br>

    <p>This button change the file content, and uberfire send a callback to the editor:</p>
    <button id="reset" type="button" onclick="$vfs_write(document.getElementById('filename').innerHTML, 'Something else',  function(a) {});">Reset File</button>
</div>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
PlaceManager API
The methods of this API allow you to request that the Business Central display a particular component associated with a target: $goToPlace("componentIdentifier");
Register plugin API

The methods of this API allow you to create dynamic plugins (that will be transformed in Business Central screens) via the JS API. 

$registerPlugin( {
    id: "my_angular_js",
    type: "angularjs",
    templateUrl: "angular.sample.html",
    title: function () {
        return "angular " + Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
    },
    on_close: function () {
        alert("this is a pure JS alert!");
    }
});
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

The plugin references the angular.sample.html template: 

<div ng-controller="TodoCtrl">
    <span>{{remaining()}} of {{todos.length}} remaining</span>
    [ <a href="" ng-click="archive()">archive</a> ]
    <ul class="unstyled">
        <li ng-repeat="todo in todos">
            <input type="checkbox" ng-model="todo.done">
            <span class="done-{{todo.done}}">{{todo.text}}</span>
        </li>
    </ul>
    <form ng-submit="addTodo()">
        <input type="text" ng-model="todoText" size="30" placeholder="add new todo here">
        <input class="btn-primary" type="submit" value="add">
    </form>
    <form ng-submit="goto()">
        <input type="text" ng-model="placeText" size="30" placeholder="place to go">
        <input class="btn-primary" type="submit" value="goTo">
    </form>
</div>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

A plugin can be hooked to Business Central events via a series of JavaScript callbacks:

  • on_concurrent_update;
  • on_concurrent_delete;
  • on_concurrent_rename;
  • on_concurrent_copy;
  • on_rename;
  • on_delete;
  • on_copy;
  • on_update;
  • on_open;
  • on_close;
  • on_focus;
  • on_lost_focus;
  • on_may_close;
  • on_startup;
  • on_shutdown;
Register splash screens API

use the methods in this API to create splash screens. 

$registerSplashScreen({
    id: "home.splash",
    templateUrl: "home.splash.html",
    body_height: 325,
    title: function () {
        return "Cool Home Splash " + Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
    },
    display_next_time: true,
    interception_points: ["Home"]
});
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Virtual File System (VFS) API

with this API, you can read and write a file saved in the file system using an asynchronous call. 

$vfs_readAllString(uri,  function(a) {
  //callback logic
});

$vfs_write(uri,content,  function(a) {
  //callback logic
})
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

2.7. Configuring Table Columns
Copy link

Business Central allows you to configure views that contain lists of items in the form of tables. You can resize columns, move columns, add or remove the default list of columns and sort the columns. This functionality is provided for all views that contain tables.

Once you make changes to the columns of a table view, these changes are persisted for the current logged in user.

Adding and Removing Columns

Tables that allow columns to be configured have the 6435 button in the top right corner. Clicking on this button opens up the list of columns that can added or removed to the current table with a check box next to each column:

6436
View larger image
6436
Resizing Columns

To resize columns, place your cursor between the edges of the column header and move in the direction that you want:

6437
View larger image
6437
Moving Columns

To re-order and drag and drop a column in a different position, hover your mouse over the rightmost area of the column header:

6438
View larger image
6438

You can now grab the column and move it:

6439
View larger image
6439

Drop it over the column header that you want to move it to.

Sorting Columns

To sort columns, click on the desired column’s header. To reverse-sort, click on the header again.

Chapter 3. Repository Hooks
Copy link

In Business Central, it is possible to trigger a chosen action every time a particular event happens. For this purpose, you can configure the repository to use scripts called hooks.

3.1. Configuring Git Hooks
Copy link

Business Central can automatically push changes to a remote repository using the Git hooks. Git hooks support has been introduced with the release of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.2.0.

Note

Please note that currently only the post-commit hook is supported. Post-commit hooks are triggered after finishing the entire commit process.

The following procedure shows how to configure the post-commit hook to automatically push your changes to the remote repository.

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.
  2. Below the main menu, click Repositories → Clone repository.

  3. In the displayed Clone repository dialog box, fill in the repository information:

    • Repository Name
    • Organizational Unit

    • Git URL: For example https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git

      Important

      It is important to use the HTTPS or Git protocol instead of a SCP-style SSH URL. Business Central does not support the basic SSH URL and fails with Invalid URL format.

      Figure 3.1. An invalid SCP-style SSH URL.

      An invalid SCP-style SSH URL.
      View larger image
      An invalid SCP-style SSH URL.
    • User Name: your Git user name
    • Password: your Git password

  4. Change to the created repository: 

    cd JBOSS_HOME/bin/.niogit/REPOSITORY_NAME.git
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  5. Change the remote URL: 

    git remote set-url origin git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Make sure that you can access the remote repository through command line using SSH. For example, the private SSH key for the repository should exist under the ~/.ssh/ directory.

    If you created a new repository, you may encounter the following error: 

    fatal: No such remote 'origin'
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    To resolve it, add the remote origin URL: 

    git remote add origin git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  6. Verify that the remote repository was successfully added: 

    git remote -v
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The command should list the following: 

    origin  git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git (push)
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  7. Create a file named post-commit with the permissions set to rwxr--r-- under JBOSS_HOME/bin/.niogit/REPOSITORY_NAME.git/hooks with the following content: 

    #!/bin/sh
git push origin master
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  8. Make sure that the configuration was successful by creating a new guided rule in Business Central:

    1. Go to Authoring → Project Authoring → New Item → Guided Rule.
    2. Fill in the required information in the displayed Create new Guided Rule window.
    3. Click Ok.

All of the changes should be pushed automatically.

For further information about remote Git repositories, see How to configure the BxMS 6 server to use a remote Git repository for storing assets?.

It is also possible to specify the system property org.uberfire.nio.git.hooks. Its value determines a directory with default hook files, which will be copied to the newly created Git repositories. See the example of a standalone.xml file with this setting below: 

<system-properties>
  <property name="org.uberfire.nio.git.hooks" value="/opt/jboss-as/git-hooks">
  </property>
  ...
</system-properties>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Chapter 4. Command Line Configuration
Copy link

The kie-config-cli tool is a command line configuration tool that provides capabilities to manage the system repository from the command line and can be used in an online or offline mode.

Online mode (default and recommended)
On startup, the tool connects to a Git repository using a Git server provided by kie-wb. All changes are made locally and published to upstream only after explicitly executing the push-changes command. Use the exit command to publish local changes. To discard local changes on exit, use the discard command.
Offline mode (installer style)
Creates and manipulates the system repository directly on the server (there is no discard option).

The tool is available on the Red Hat Customer Portal. To download the kie-config-cli tool, do the following:

  1. Go to the Red Hat Customer Portal and log in.
  2. Click DOWNLOADS at the top of the page.

  3. In the Product Downloads page that opens, click Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

    1. From the Version drop-down menu, select 6.3.0.
    2. In the displayed table, navigate to the Supplementary Tools row and then click Download.

Extract the zip package for supplementary tools you downloaded from the Red Hat Customer Portal. It contains the directory kie-config-cli-6.MINOR_VERSION-redhat-x-dist with file kie-config-cli.sh.

  1. To start the kie-config-cli tool in online mode, navigate to the kie-config-cli-6.MINOR_VERSION-redhat-x-dist directory where you installed the tool and then execute the following command.

  2. In a Unix environment run: 

    ./kie-config-cli.sh
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    In a Windows environment run: 

    ./kie-config-cli.bat
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

By default, the tool starts in online mode and asks for user credentials and a Git URL to connect to (the default value is git://localhost/system). To connect to a remote server, replace the host and port with appropriate values.

Example: git://kie-wb-host:9148/system

To operate in offline mode, append the offline parameter to the command as below.

  1. Navigate to the kie-config-cli-6.MINOR_VERSION-redhat-x-dist directory where you installed the tool.

  2. In a Unix environment, run: 

    ./kie-config-cli.sh offline
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    In a Windows environment, run: 

    ./kie-config-cli.bat offline
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Executing this command changes the tool’s behaviour and displays a request to specify the folder where the system repository (.niogit) is located. If .niogit does not yet exist, the folder value can be left empty and a brand new setup is created.

The following commands are available for managing the Git repository using the kie-config-cli tool:

  • add-deployment: Adds a new deployment unit
  • add-repo-org-unit: Adds a repository to the organizational unit
  • add-role-org-unit: Adds role(s) to an organizational unit
  • add-role-project: Adds role(s) to a project
  • add-role-repo: Adds role(s) to a repository
  • create-org-unit: Creates new organizational unit
  • create-repo: Creates a new git repository
  • discard: Does not publish local changes, cleans up temporary directories and closes the tool
  • exit: Publishes work, cleans up temporary directories and closes the tool
  • fetch-changes: Fetches changes from upstream repository
  • help: Prints available commands with descriptions
  • list-deployment: Lists available deployments
  • list-org-units: Lists available organizational units
  • list-repo: Lists available repositories
  • push-changes: Pushes changes to upstream repository (in online mode only)
  • remove-deployment: Removes existing deployment
  • remove-org-unit: Removes existing organizational unit
  • remove-repo: Removes an existing repository from config only
  • remove-repo-org-unit: Removes a repository from the organizational unit
  • remove-role-org-unit: Removes role(s) from an organizational unit
  • remove-role-project: Removes role(s) from a project
  • remove-role-repo: Removes role(s) from a repository

Chapter 5. Migration
Copy link

Migrating your projects from Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 5 to Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 requires careful planning and step by step evaluation of the various issues. You can plan for migration either manually, or by using automatic processes. Most real world migration will require a combination of these two processes.

Because Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 uses Git for storing assets, artifacts and code repositories including processes and rules, you should start by creating an empty project in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 as the basis for your migration with dummy files as placeholders for the various assets and artifacts. Running a Git clone of this empty project into your favorite IDE will initiate the migration process.

Based on the placeholder files in your cloned project, you can start adding assets at the correct locations. The Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 system is smart enough to pick these changes and apply them correctly. Ensure that when you are importing old rule files that they are imported with the right package name structure.

Since Maven is used for building projects, the projects assets like the rules, processes and models are accessible as a simple JAR file.

This section lists the generally accepted step by step ways to migrate your project. These are just guidelines though, and actual migration may vary a lot from this.

In general, you should:

  1. Migrate the data first: These are your business assets.
  2. Next, migrate your runtime processes.
  3. Finally, convert old API calls to new ones one by one.

Let us look at these steps in more detail in the next few sections:

5.1. Data Migration
Copy link

To migrate data from Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 5, do the following:

  1. Download the migration tool by logging in at the Red Hat Customer Portal and then navigating to Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Software Downloads section. Click on Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Migration Tool to download the zip archive.

  2. Unzip the downloaded zip archive in a directory of your choice and navigate to this directory in a command prompt. This directory contains four folders:

    • bin - contains the launch scripts.
    • jcr-exporter-libs - contains the libs specific to the export-from-JCR part of the migration.
    • vfs-importer-libs - contains the libs specific to the import-into-Git part of the migration.
    • conf - contains global migration tool configuration.
  3. For production databases, copy the JDBC driver for the database that is used by the JCR repository into the jcr-exporter-libs directory of the migration tool.

  4. Execute the following command: 

    ./bin/runMigration.sh -i <source-path> -o <destination-path> -r <repository-name>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Where:

    • <source-path> is a path to a source JCR repository.
    • <desintation-path> is a path to a destination Git VFS. This folder must not exist already.
    • <repository-name> an arbitrary name for the new repository.

The repository is migrated at the specified destination.

Besides the -i command, you can also use -h to print out a help message and -f which forces an overwrite of the output directory, thus eliminating the need for manual deletion of this directory.

Importing the Repository in Business Central

The repository can be imported in business central by cloning it. In the Administration perspective, click on the Repositories → Clone Repository menu to start the process.

Note

Assets can also be migrated manually as they are all just text files. The BPMN2 specification and the DRL syntax did not change between the different versions.

Importing the Repository in JBDS

To import the repository in JBoss Developer Studio, do the following

  1. Start JBoss Developer Studio.
  2. Start the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite server (if not already running) by selecting the server from the server tab and click the start icon.
  3. Select File → Import…​ and navigate to the Git folder. Open the Git folder to select Projects from Git and click next.
  4. Select the repository source as Existing local repository and click next.
  5. Select the repository that is to be configured from the list of available repositories.
  6. Import the project as a general project in the next window and click next. Name this project and click Finish.

5.2. Runtime Migration
Copy link

To run Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 5 processes in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6, do the following:

  1. Set the system property jbpm.v5.id.strategy to true in the JBoss BPM Suite standalone.xml file: 

    <property name="jbpm.v5.id.strategy" value="true"/>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Load the KieSession as shown here: 

    KieSession ksession = JPAKnowledgeService.loadStatefulKnowledgeSession(sessionID, kbase, sessionConf, env);
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Continue the normal execution of the process using KieSession methods: 

    ksession.signalEvent("SomeEvent", null);
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

5.3. API and Backwards Compatibility
Copy link

Migrating to Version 6.1

In version 6.1, 5.X APIs are no longer officially supported.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite no longer provides backward compatibility with the rule, event, and process application programming interface (API) from Red Hat JBoss BRMS 5. The content of the knowledge-api JAR file is no longer supported in version 6.1 and is replaced by APIs contained in the kie-api JAR file that were introduced in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.0.

If you used the legacy 5.x API (located in knowledge-api.jar), please migrate (rewrite) the API calls to the new KIE API. Please be aware that several other APIs have changed between Red Hat JBoss BRMS 5.x and Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.x, namely the task service API and the REST API.

Migrating to Version 6.0

The Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 system provides backward compatibility with the rule, event and process interactions from JBoss BRMS 5. You should eventually migrate (rewrite) these interactions to the all new revamped core API because this backward compatibility is likely to be deprecated.

If you cannot migrate your code to use the new API, then you can use the API provided by the purpose built knowledge-api JAR for backwards compatible code. This API is the public interface for working with JBoss BPM Suite and JBoss BRMS and is backwards compatible.

If you are instead using the REST API in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 5, note that this has changed as well and there is no mechanism in it for backwards compatibility.

5.4. Migrating task service
Copy link

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6 provides support for a locally running task server only. This means that you do not need to setup any messaging service in your project. This differs from Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 5 because it provided a task server that was bridged from the core engine by using, most commonly, the messaging system provided by HornetQ.

To help you bridge the gap until you can migrate this in your current architecture, there is a helper or utility method, LocalHTWorkItemHandler.

Since the TaskService API is part of the public API you will now need to refactor your imports because of package changes and refactor your methods due to API changes themselves.

Chapter 6. Data Management
Copy link

6.1. Data Backups
Copy link

When applying a backup mechanism to Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, make sure you back up the following resources:

  • Any customized deployment descriptors (such as, web.xml, jboss-web.xml, jboss.xml)

  • Any customized properties files

    Note

    Consider backing up the entire business-central.war and dashbuilder.war files.

6.2. Setup Indexes
Copy link

Setup Foreign Key Indexes

Some databases, for instance Oracle and PostgreSQL, do not automatically create an index for each foreign key. This can result in deadlocks occurring. To avoid this situation, it is necessary to create an index on all foreign keys, especially in the Oracle database.

Setup Indexes for Process and Task Dashboard

Process and Task Dashboard in 6.1 has been refactored in order to cope with high volume of task and process instances. In order to get good response times while querying the database the following JBoss BPM Suite tables need to be indexed: processinstancelog and bamtasksummary.

Note that ALL the columns in these two tables need to be indexed and not just the primary and foreign keys.

6.3. Setting up and Editing the Database
Copy link

For information on how to change the database for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, see Special Setups of the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Installation Guide.

6.4. DDL Scripts
Copy link

DDL scripts for database tables for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite are available for download on the Customer Portal. These scripts allow you to study the tables and use them to create the tables and indexes manually or in databases that are not directly supported.

To download these scripts:

  1. Login to the Customer Portal.
  2. Click on Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and select the version of the product for your requirements.
  3. Click on Download in the row Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.3.0 Supplementary Tools to download the supplementary tools.

Unzip the file on your machine. The DDL scripts are located in the ddl-scripts directory. Database scripts are provided for DB2, H2, MySQL5, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and SQLServer.

The complete Entity Relationship diagram can be viewed in this Red Hat Solution.

Chapter 7. Asset Repository
Copy link

Business Rules, Process definition files and other assets and resources created in Business Central are stored in Asset repository, which is otherwise known as the Knowledge Store.

Knowledge Store is a centralized repository for your business knowledge. It connects with the Git repository that allows you to store different kinds of knowledge assets and artifacts at a single location. Business Central provides a web front-end that allows you to view and update the stored content. You can access it using the Project Explorer from the unified environment of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

All business assets are stored in repositories. These repositories are then saved in directories called organizational units. By default, the Artifact repository does not contain any organizational unit. Therefore, to be able to create your own business assets, you need to create an organizational unit and a repository first.

7.1. Creating an Organizational Unit
Copy link

It is possible to create an organizational unit either in the Administration perspective of Business Central, using the kie-config-cli tool or the REST API calls.

Creating an Organizational Unit in Business Central
Important

Note that only users with the admin role in Business Central can create organizational units.

Procedure: Using Business Central to Create an Organizational Unit

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.
  2. On the perspective menu, click Organizational Units → Manage Organizational Units.

  3. In the Organization Unit Manager view, click Add.

    The Add New Organizational Unit dialog window opens.

    Figure 7.1. Add New Organizational Unit_Dialog Window

    A screenshot of the Add New Organizational Unit dialog window.
    View larger image
    A screenshot of the Add New Organizational Unit dialog window.
  4. Enter the two mandatory parameters (name and default group ID) and click Ok.
Creating an Organizational Unit Using the kie-config-cli Tool

Organizational units can be created using the kie-config-cli tool as well. To do so, run the create-org-unit command. The tool then guides you through the entire process of creating an organizational unit by asking for other required parameters. Type help for a list of all commands.

For more information about the kie-config-cli tool, see Chapter 4, Command Line Configuration.

⁠⁠Creating an Organizational Unit Using the REST API
Important

Note that only users with the rest-all role can create organizational units.

To create an organizational unit in Knowledge Store, issue the POST REST API call. Details of the organizational unit are defined by the JSON entity.

Input parameter of the call is a OrganizationalUnit instance. Call returns a CreateOrganizationalUnitRequest instance.

Example 7.1. Creating an Organizational Unit Using the Curl Utility

Example JSON entity containing details of an organizational unit to be created: 

{
  "name"         : "helloWorldUnit",
  "owner"        : "tester",
  "description"  :  null,
  "repositories" :  []
}
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Execute the following command: 

curl -X POST 'localhost:8080/business-central/rest/organizationalunits/' -u USERNAME:PASSWORD -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"name":"helloWorldUnit","owner":"tester","description":null,"repositories":[]}'
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

For further information, refer to chapter Knowledge Store REST API, section Organizational Unit Calls of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Development Guide.

7.2. Creating a Repository
Copy link

There are three ways to create a repository: through the Administration perspective of Business Central, the kie-config-cli tool, or using the REST API calls.

⁠Creating a Repository in Business Central
Important

Note that only users with the admin role in Business Central can create repositories.

Procedure: Using Business Central to Create a Repository

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.

  2. On the perspective menu, click Repositories → New repository.

    The New Repository pop-up window is displayed.

    Figure 7.2. New Repository Dialog Window

    A screenshot of the New Repository dialog window.
    View larger image
    A screenshot of the New Repository dialog window.

  3. Specify the two mandatory parameters:

    • Repository name
    Note

    Make sure that the repository name is a valid file name. Avoid using a space or any special character that might lead to an invalid name.

    • Organizational unit: Specifies the location of the newly created repository.
  4. Click Finish.

You can view the newly created repository either in the File Explorer or the Project Explorer.

⁠Creating Repository Using kie-config-cli Tool

To create a new Git repository using the kie-config-cli tool, run the create-repo command. The tool then guides you through the entire process of creating a repository by asking for other required parameters. Type help for a list of all commands.

For more information about the kie-config-cli tool, see Chapter 4, Command Line Configuration.

⁠⁠Creating Repository Using REST API
Important

Note that only users with the rest-all role can create repositories.

To create a repository in the Knowledge Store, issue the POST REST API call. Details of the repository are defined by the JSON entity. Make sure you established an authenticated HTTP session before executing this call.

Input parameter of the call is a RepositoryRequest instance. Call returns a CreateOrCloneRepositoryRequest instance.

Example 7.2. Creating Repository Using Curl Utility

Example JSON entity containing details of a repository to be created: 

{
  "name"                   : "newRepository",
  "description"            :  null,
  "gitURL"                 :  null,
  "requestType"            : "new",
  "organizationalUnitName" : "helloWorldUnit"
}
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Execute the following command: 

curl -X POST 'localhost:8080/business-central/rest/repositories/' -u USERNAME:PASSWORD -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"name":"newRepository","description":null,"requestType":"new","gitURL":null,"organizationalUnitName":"helloWorldUnit"}'
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

For further information, refer to chapter Knowledge Store REST API, section Repository Calls of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Development Guide.

7.3. Cloning a Repository
Copy link

It is possible to clone a repository either in Business Central or using the REST API calls. The kie-config-cli tool cannot be used to clone arbitrary repositories. Run git clone, or use one of the following options instead:

Cloning a Repository in Business Central
Important

Note that only users with the admin role in Business Central can clone repositories.

Procedure: Using Business Central to Clone a Repository

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.

  2. On the perspective menu, choose Repositories → Clone repository.

    The Clone Repository pop-up window is displayed.

    Figure 7.3. Clone Repository Dialog Window

    A screenshot of the Clone Repository dialog window.
    View larger image
    A screenshot of the Clone Repository dialog window.

  3. In the Clone Repository dialog window, enter the repository details:

    1. Enter the Repository Name to be used as the repository identifier in the Asset repository and select the Organizational Unit it should be added to.

    2. Enter the URL of the Git repository:

      • For a local repository, use file:///PATH_TO_REPOSITORY/REPOSITORY_NAME.

      • For a remote or preexisting repository, use https://github.com/USERNAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.git or git://HOST_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME.

        Important

        It is important to use the HTTPS or Git protocol instead of a SCP-style SSH URL. Business Central does not support the basic SSH URL and fails with Invalid URL format.

      Note

      The file protocol is only supported for READ operations. WRITE operations are not supported.

    3. If applicable, enter the User Name and Password of your Git account to be used for authentication.

  4. Click Clone.

    A confirmation prompt with the notification that the repository was created successfully is displayed.

  5. Click Ok.

    The repository is now being indexed. Some workbench features may be unavailable until the indexing has completed.

You can view the cloned repository either in the File Explorer or the Project Explorer.

Note

If you are deploying Business Central on WebLogic server, set the following Java system property in the setDomainEnv.sh file (for Linux) or setDomainEnv.cmd file (for Windows): 

JAVA_OPTIONS="%JAVA_OPTIONS% -DUseSunHttpHandler=true"
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

This enables the WebLogic server to use the HTTP handlers.

Cloning a Repository Using the REST API

To clone a repository, issue the POST REST API call. This call creates or clones (according to the value of the requestType parameter) the repository defined by the JSON entity.

The input parameter of the call is a RepositoryRequest instance. The Call returns a CreateOrCloneRepositoryRequest instance.

Important

Note that, only users with the rest-all role can clone repositories.

Example 7.3. Cloning a Repository Using the Curl Utility

Example JSON entity containing details of a repository to be cloned: 

{
  "name"                   : "clonedRepository",
  "description"            :  null,
  "requestType"            : "clone",
  "gitURL"                 : "git://localhost:9418/newRepository",
  "organizationalUnitName" : "helloWorldUnit"
}
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Execute the following command: 

curl -X POST 'localhost:8080/business-central/rest/repositories/' -u USERNAME:PASSWORD -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"name":"clonedRepository","description":null,"requestType":"clone","gitURL":"git://localhost:9418/newRepository","organizationalUnitName":"helloWorldUnit"}'
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

For further information, refer to chapter Knowledge Store REST API, section Repository Calls of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Development Guide.

7.4. Removing a Repository
Copy link

Repositories can be removed using any of the following procedures.

Removing a Repository in Business Central

The simplest way to remove a repository is using the RepositoryEditor in Business Central.

Procedure: Using Business Central to Remove a Repository

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.
  2. Select Repositories from the tree menu on the left.
  3. In the RepositoryEditor on the right side of the page, locate the repository you want to delete from the list of available repositories.

  4. From the drop-down menu, select master → Delete.

    The following message will appear: 

    Are you sure you want to remove Repository "REPOSITORY_NAME"? Some editors may become inoperable if their content is inaccessible.
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Press OK to delete the repository.
Removing a Repository Using the kie-config-cli Tool

Repositories can be removed using the kie-config-cli tool as well. To do so, run the remove-repo command.

For further information about the kie-config-cli tool, see Chapter 4, Command Line Configuration.

Removing a Repository Using the REST API
Important

Note that only users with the rest-all role can remove repositories.

To remove a repository from the Knowledge Store, issue the DELETE REST API call. Make sure you established an authenticated HTTP session before executing this call.

The call returns a RemoveRepositoryRequest instance.

Example 7.4. Removing a Repository Using the Curl Utility

Execute the following command: 

curl -X DELETE 'localhost:8080/business-central/rest/repositories/REPOSITORY_NAME' -u USERNAME:PASSWORD -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

For further information, refer to chapter Knowledge Store REST API, section Repository Calls of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Development Guide.

7.5. Managing Assets
Copy link

Note

To activate and use the feature described below, login to Business Central with a user that has the kiemgmt role assigned.

To make management of projects easier, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite now provides a way to manage multiple projects based on standards. This allows you to create repository structures using industry standard best practices for maintenance, versioning and distribution of your projects.

To start with, repositories can now be managed or unmanaged.

Managed and Unmanaged Repositories

Unmanaged Repositories are the repository structures that you are used to. They can contain multiple unrelated projects.

Managed Repositories, on the other hand, provide version control at the project level and project branches for managing the release cycle. Further, Managed Repositories can be restricted to just a single project or encompass multiple projects. When you create a Managed Repository, the asset management configuration process is automatically launched in order to create the repository branches. Corresponding project structure is created as well.

Procedure: Creating an Unmanaged Repository

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.

  2. Click Repositories → New Repository.

    The New Repository window is displayed.

  3. Enter the repository name and select an organizational unit the repository belongs to.
  4. Click Finish.

Procedure: Creating a Managed Repository

  1. In Business Central, go to Authoring → Administration.

  2. Click Repositories → New Repository.

    The New Repository window is displayed.

  3. Enter the repository name and select an organizational unit the repository belongs to.

  4. Select the Managed Repository check box and click Next to enter additional details of the Managed Repository.

    6565
    View larger image
    6565

  5. Choose either the Single-project Repository or the Multi-project Repository radio button.

    If the project you are creating is simple and self-contained, select the Single-project Repository radio button. Note that you will not be able to add more projects to this repository later.

    For more complex projects, where there is likely to be a parent project that encompasses smaller ones, select the Multi-project Repository radio button.

    6566
    View larger image
    6566

  6. Enter the details of the managed project along with the GAV (Group, Artifact, Version) details.

    Note that all projects created in a Multi-project Repository will be managed together, with their version numbers being incremented together as well. Details of the parent project will be inherited by all future projects that you create in this Managed Repository.

  7. Click Finish .
Managed Branches

With Managed Repositories comes the added advantage of Managed Branches. As in Git, you can choose to work on different branches of your project (for example: master, dev and release). This process of branching can also be automated for you, by selecting the checkbox while creating a new Managed Repository (for both single and multi-projects).

You can switch between branches by selecting the desired branch while working in the Project Explorer.

Repository Structure

If you do not select automatic branch management while creating a repository, you can create branches manually afterwards. For Managed Repositories, you can do so by using the Configure button. This button, along with Promote and Release buttons, is provided in the Repository Structure view. You can access this view, by clicking on Repository → Repository Structure in the Project Explorer perspective menu.

Clicking on the Configure button allows you to create branches or edit automatically created ones.

6572
View larger image
6572

You can promote assets from the master branch to other branches using the Promote button. Similarly, you can Release branches and deploy them on the server using the Release button.

Both these functions are controlled internally by the use of pre-defined processes that are deployed on your instance. For example, when you click on Promote button after having done work on your development branch, a Promote Changes process is started in the background. A user, with the role of kiemgmt will have a user task appear in this task list to review the assets being promoted. This user can claim this task, and decide to promote all, some or none of the assets. The underlying process will cherry-pick the commits selected by the user to a release branch. This user can also request another review of these assets and this process can be repeated multiple times till all the assets are ready for release. The flow for this process is shown below:

6574
View larger image
6574

Similarly, when you click on the Release button, a release process flow is initiated. This process flow builds the project and updates all the Maven artifacts to the next version, and deploys the project to the runtime, if runtime deployment details are supplied.

Warning

Project branches to be released must start with the keyword release.

6575
View larger image
6575

7.6. Maven Repository
Copy link

Maven is a software project management tool which uses a project object model (POM) file to manage:

  • Builds
  • Documentation
  • Reporting
  • Dependencies
  • Releases
  • SCMs
  • Distribution

A Maven repository is used to hold or store the build artifacts and project dependencies and is generally of two types:

Local
Refers to a local repository where all the project dependencies are stored and is located with the current installation in the default folder as "m2". It is a cache of the remote downloads, and also contains the temporary build artifacts which have not yet been released.
Remote
Refers to any other type of repository that can be accessed by a variety of protocols such as file:// or http://. These repositories can be at a remote location set up by a third-party for downloading of artifacts or an internal repository set up on a file or HTTP server, used to share private artifacts between the development teams for managing internal releases.

Nexus is a repository manager frequently used in organizations to centralize storage and management of software development artifacts. It is possible to configure your project so that artifacts produced by every build are automatically deployed to a repository on a remote Nexus server.

To configure your project to deploy artifacts to a remote Nexus repository, add a distributionManagement element to your project’s pom.xml file as demonstrated in the code example below. 

<distributionManagement>
  <repository>
    <id>deployment</id>
    <name>Internal Releases</name>
    <url>http://your_nexus_host:8081/nexus/content/repositories/releases</url>
  </repository>
  <snapshotRepository>
    <id>deployment</id>
    <name>Internal Releases</name>
    <url>http://your_nexus_host:8081/nexus/content/repositories/snapshots/</url>
  </snapshotRepository>
</distributionManagement>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Replace the URLs in the example with real URLs of your Nexus repositories. The repository specified in the snapshotRepository element is used when the -SNAPSHOT qualifier is appended to the project’s current version number. In other cases the repository specified in the repository element is used.

If your Nexus server requires authentication, you will also need to modify your projects Maven settings to add your credentials in the settings-security.xml file, using a master password. By default, this file is in the $M2_HOME/conf folder, unless you have changed its location by modifying the kie.maven.settings.custom system property. It is also possible to create new user-specific settings.xml and settings-security.xml files in the ~/.m2 folder. In that case, these files will override the original ones.

See the following example of the settings-security.xml: 

<servers>
  <server>
    <id>deployment</id>
    <username>admin</username>
    <password>{COQLCE6DU6GtcS5P=}</password>
  </server>
</servers>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Important

Note that keeping your server authentication credentials (for example the passwords) as a plain text in the settings.xml file is not recommended. All the information should be hashed with a master password in the settings-security.xml file.

For further information about password encryption and creating a master password, see the Apache Maven documentation, article Password Encryption.

With this configuration in place, clicking the Build & Deploy button in Business Central executes a Maven build and deploys the built artifacts both to the local repository and to one of the Nexus repositories specified in the pom.xml file.

Chapter 8. Process Export and Import
Copy link

8.1. Creating a Process Definition
Copy link

Make sure you have logged in to JBoss BPM Suite or you are in JBoss Developer Studio with the repository connected.

To create a Process, do the following:

  1. Open the Project Authoring perspective (Authoring → Project Authoring).

  2. In Project Explorer (Project Authoring → Project Explorer), navigate to the project where you want to create the Process definition (in the Project view, select the respective repository and project in the drop-down lists; in the Repository view, navigate to REPOSITORY/PROJECT/src/main/resources/ directory).

    Creating packages

    It is recommended to create your resources, including your Process definitions, in a package of a Project to allow importing of resources and their referencing. To create a package, do the following:

    • In the Repository view of the Project Explorer, navigate to the REPOSITORY/PROJECT/src/main/resources/ directory.
    • Go to New Item → Package.
    • In the New resource dialog, define the package name and check the location of the package in the repository.
  3. From the perspective menu, go to New Item → Business Process.
  4. In the New Processes dialog box, enter the Process name and click OK. Wait until the Process Editor with the Process diagram appears.

8.2. Importing a Process Definition
Copy link

To import an existing BPMN2 or JSON definition, do the following:

  1. In the Project Explorer, select a Project and the respective package to which you want to import the Process definition.
  2. Create a new Business Process to work in by going to New Item → Business Process.
  3. In the Process Designer toolbar, click the Import 5209 icon in the editor toolbar and pick the format of the imported process definition. Note that you have to choose to overwrite the existing process definition in order to import.

  4. From the Import window, locate the Process file and click Import.

    Figure 8.1. Import Window

    Import window for Business Process Editor displaying imports from BPMN2.
    View larger image
    Import window for Business Process Editor displaying imports from BPMN2.

Whenever a process definition is imported, the existing imported definition is overwritten. Make sure you are not overwriting a process definition you have edited so as not to lose any changes.

A process can also be imported to the git repository in the filesystem by cloning the repository, adding the process files, and pushing the changes back to git. In addition to alternative import methods, you can copy and paste a process or just open a file in the import dialog.

When importing processes, the Process Designer provides visual support for Process elements and therefore requires information on element positions on the canvas. If the information is not provided in the imported Process, you need to add it manually.

8.3. Importing jPDL 3.2 to BPMN2
Copy link

To migrate and import a jPDL definition to BPMN2, in the Process Designer, click on the import button then scroll down and select Migrate jPDL 3.2 to BPMN2.

Figure 8.2. Migrate jPDL 3.2 to BPMN2

Image of selecting the Migrate jPDL 3.2 to BPMN2 button
View larger image
Image of selecting the Migrate jPDL 3.2 to BPMN2 button

In the Migrate to BPMN2 dialog box, select the process definition file and the name of the gpd file. Confirm by clicking the Migrate button.

Figure 8.3. Migrate to BPMN2 dialog box

Window displayed for migrating definition files to BPMN2.
View larger image
Window displayed for migrating definition files to BPMN2.
Important

The migration tool for jPDL 3.2 to BPMN2 is a technical preview feature, and therefore not currently supported in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

8.4. Exporting a Process
Copy link

Procedure: Exporting a business process

To export a business process, do the following:

  1. Open the Project Authoring perspective: on the main menu, click Authoring → Project Authoring.
  2. Select the business process which is to be exported, to view it in the Process Designer.

  3. Click on the 4473 button of the process designer toolbar and select View Process Sources from the drop-down options.

    The Process Sources window is displayed.

  4. Click on the Download BPMN2 button and save the business process at the desired location.

Part III. Integration
Copy link

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (hereinafter referred to as Amazon EC2) is a web service providing a computing environment in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. Deploying Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite to Amazon EC2 has been supported since version 6.2.

Amazon EC2 can be used to create a virtual machine and its computing environments called instances. Templates for this instances are then known as Amazon Machine Images or AMIs. The service allows you to modify the instance to use a required configuration of CPU, memory, storage, and other properties. The cost of the service is calculated based on the used compute capacity.

For more information about Amazon EC2 and all the provided features, see the official AWS Documentation.

9.1. Getting Started with Amazon EC2
Copy link

Logging into AWS

  1. Go to the Amazon Web Services main page, click Sign in to the Console and enter your user credentials.

  2. On the AWS home page that opens, choose EC2 Virtual Servers in the Cloud in the left hand corner.

    You are redirected to the EC2 Dashboard.

    Figure 9.1. Amazon EC2 Dashboard

    ec2dashboard
    View larger image
    ec2dashboard

EC2 Dashboard provides an overview of your AWS account as well as the information about the overall service health and scheduled events. The Resources section of the dashboard contains links to all running instances, created key pairs, security groups, and more. To launch a virtual server, click the Launch Instance quick link in the Create Instance section. The main menu on the left side of the page contains links necessary for configuring instances and images, setting up networks and controlling security issues.

Important

Note that login information in Amazon EC2 is encrypted. Before creating or starting an instance, you need to import your public key to AWS in order to be able to connect to the instance.

Importing Public Key

  1. In the main menu on the left, click Key Pairs under the NETWORK & SECURITY drop-down menu.

  2. Click Import Key Pair at the top of the page.

    The Import Key Pair dialog window opens.

  3. Define the name of the key pair and either upload the public key from file, or copy and paste the content of your public key into the Public key contents text field.

  4. Click Import.

    The imported key pair appears in the displayed list of key pairs.

Alternatively, you can create your own key pair using Amazon EC2. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 Key Pairs chapter in the AWS Documentation.

To deploy Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite to Amazon EC2, you must have a valid membership in the JBoss Cloud Access program. The program provides a number of supported AMIs created by Red Hat, while each of them has Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Red Hat JBoss EAP 6 (together with other required software) pre-installed.

For further information about supported Amazon EC2 instance types, see the Deploy JBoss EAP 6 on Amazon EC2 chapter of Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 Administration and Configuration Guide.

To create a virtual machine instance, do the following:

Creating Virtual Machine Instance

  1. In the main menu, click AMIs under the IMAGES drop-down menu.

  2. Choose one of the supported AMIs.

    For example RHEL-6.7_HVM_GA-JBEAP-6.4.7-20160421-x86_64-1-Access2-GP2 (ami-50bba23a).

  3. Click Launch.

    The Choose an Instance Type window opens. An instance type is a custom configuration of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity of your virtual machine instance.

  4. Choose one of the listed instance types.

    Instance type depends on the needs of your application. KIE Server and Business Central are usually two separated instances in AWS and each of them requires different settings. However, at least 2 vCPUs (the number of virtual CPUs) and 7.5 GiB of memory is recommended.

    It is possible to launch the instance directly from here by clicking Review and Launch. If you want to change additional settings, see the following steps.

  5. Click Next: Configure Instance Details.

    In this step, you can choose a number of launched instances, network (either EC2-Classic or VPC, the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud), or enable detailed monitoring. If you want to keep the default settings, continue to the next tab.

  6. Click Next: Add Storage.

    This screen allows you to add more Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes and modify the settings of the root volume. The minimum recommended size of the root volume is 30 GiB.

    Important

    Make sure that the set volume size is greater than the size of the used snapshot.

  7. Click Next: Tag Instance and specify the tags for the instance that can help you search and filter the instances later. For example, the key Name can indicate a logical name of the instance in the instance list.

  8. Click Next: Configure Security Group.

    A security group is a virtual firewall containing a number of firewall rules that control the traffic for your instance. Each instance can have one or more security groups assigned and these groups can be modified at any time.

    You need to create a new security group in order to be able to deploy Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite:

    Creating New Security Group

    1. If not already selected, select the Create a new security group check box.
    2. Fill in the Security group name and Description.
    3. Keep the default SSH type TCP protocol rule.

    4. Define three new firewall rules by clicking Add Rule:

      • Default SSH access to Business Central:

        • Type: Custom TCP Rule
        • Protocol: TCP
        • Port Range: 8001

      • Default HTTP port of Red Hat JBoss EAP:

        • Type: Custom TCP Rule
        • Protocol: TCP
        • Port Range: 8080

      • Default Git port:

        • Type: Custom TCP Rule
        • Protocol: TCP
        • Port Range: 9418
      secgroup
      View larger image
      secgroup
    Warning

    All the configured ports must be allowed in the PORTS_ALLOWED property of user data. For more information, see Configuring User Data.

  9. Click Review and Launch.
  10. Review your instance details and if you want to launch the instance, click Launch.

A list of all created instances can be found under the Instances option in the main menu on the left. You can filter, search and launch the instances as well as view the instance description and edit the settings.

Figure 9.2. List of Instances Searched by Name

instancelist
View larger image
instancelist

In case you created a custom security group and defined new firewall rules with specific ports, you have to allow these ports in user data for the new virtual machine instance.

Configuring User Data

  1. In the main menu, go to INSTANCES → Instances.
  2. In the list of instances, find and select the instance you want to configure.

  3. Click Actions → Instance Settings → View/Change User Data.

    viewuserdata
    View larger image
    viewuserdata

  4. In the View/Change User Data dialog window that opens, define the PORTS_ALLOWED property. For example: 

    PORTS_ALLOWED="8001 8080 9418"
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    ports allowed
    View larger image
    ports allowed
  5. Click Save.

To start the created instance, do the following:

Starting Virtual Machine Instance

  1. In the main menu, go to INSTANCES → Instances.

  2. Select the instance from the list and click Actions → Instance State → Start.

    startinginstance
    View larger image
    startinginstance
  3. In the Start Instances dialog window that opens, click Yes, Start to confirm that you want to start the instance.
  4. Wait until the result of a status check changes to 2/2 checks passed.
Note

Do not forget to stop your instance after you no longer need it.

First, follow the steps below to connect to your instance:

Connecting to Instance

  1. Start the instance.

  2. Click Connect to view details required for accessing your instance.

    The Connect To Your Instance pop-up window opens.

  3. Copy the public DNS address.

  4. Execute the following command: 

    ~]$ ssh ec2-user@PUBLIC_DNS_ADDRESS
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Enter yes to confirm that you want to connect to your instance.

Installing Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite on VM Instance

  1. Connect to the instance on which you want to install Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

  2. Update your instance in order to get the latest version of Red Hat JBoss EAP 6.x by executing the following command: 

    ~]$ sudo yum -y update
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Switch to root: 

    ~]$ sudo su
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Copy the following configuration files to /etc/jbossas/standalone/ and /etc/jbossas/domain/:

    • standalone.xml
    • standalone-full.xml
    • standalone-full-ha.xml
    • standalone-ha.xml
    • standalone-osgi.xml

    Follow the instructions:

    1. Download Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.3.0 Deployable for EAP 6 from Customer Portal.
    2. Change directory to the location of the downloaded zip file.

    3. Copy the zip file into the /tmp/ directory of your virtual machine instance: 

      ~]$ scp jboss-bpmsuite-6.3.0.GA-deployable-eap6.x.zip ec2-user@PUBLIC_DNS_ADDRESS:/tmp
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    4. Go to the /tmp/ directory of your VM instance and unzip the file: 

      ~]# unzip jboss-bpmsuite-6.3.0.GA-deployable-eap6.x.zip
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    5. Change directory to jboss-eap-6.4/standalone/configuration/ and copy all the configuration files listed above into /etc/jbossas/standalone/ and /etc/jbossas/domain/, for example: 

      ~]# cp standalone.xml /etc/jbossas/standalone/
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

      Enter y to overwrite the file.

    6. Make sure that the files were overwritten: standalone.xml should contain the following: 

      <system-properties>
  <property name="org.kie.example" value="true"/>
  <property name="org.jbpm.designer.perspective" value="full"/>
  <property name="designerdataobjects" value="false"/>
</system-properties>
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  5. Copy the required applications (for example Business Central) to /usr/share/jbossas/standalone/deployments/:

    1. Change directory to /tmp/jboss-eap-6.4/standalone/deployments/.

    2. Copy Business Central: 

      ~]# cp -r business-central.war /usr/share/jbossas/standalone/deployments/
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap 
      ~]# cp -r business-central.war.dodeploy /usr/share/jbossas/standalone/deployments/
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  6. Set the proper Red Hat JBoss EAP binding address.

    Each virtual machine has private and public IP addresses. The public IP address can be accessed outside the AWS, while the private IP address is accessible only inside the virtual network of your Amazon EC2 account.

    Important

    Every time you start the instance, the addresses change. Refer to the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.4 Administration and Configuration Guide for more information.

    One way to set the address is by doing the following:

    1. Run ifconfig and copy the inet addr address (for example 10.233.159.148).

    2. Open /etc/jbossas/standalone/standalone.xml and set the proper binding address: 

      <interfaces>
  ...
  <interface name="public">
    <inet-address value="10.233.159.148"/>
  </interface>
  ...
</interfaces>
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  7. Enable Git and SSH access to Business Central: add the following system properties (with your private IP address) into /etc/jbossas/standalone/standalone.xml. 

    <property name="org.uberfire.nio.git.daemon.host" value="10.233.159.148"/>
<property name="org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.host" value="10.233.159.148"/>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Once the setup has been done, you can create a new AMI from your instance.

Creating new AMI from Configured Instance

  1. In the main menu, go to INSTANCES → Instances.

  2. Locate your configured instance and click Actions → Image → Create Image.

    create image
    View larger image
    create image
  3. In the Create Image dialog window, specify the image details and click Create Image.

Running Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite on VM Instance

  1. Start Red Hat JBoss EAP by executing the command: 

    ~]# /etc/init.d/jbossas start
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Alternatively, you can use the command with option stop (or restart) to stop (or restart) the Red Hat JBoss EAP.

    The following message appears: 

    Starting jbossas:                                          [  OK  ]
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    If the deployment finished successfully, the business-central.war.dodeploy file in /usr/share/jbossas/standalone/deployments/ changes to business-central.war.deployed.

  2. To log in to Business Central, navigate to http://PUBLIC_DNS_ADDRESS:8080/business-central in a web browser.

While Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and S-RAMP are two independent products, it is possible to move artifacts between them. You can move artifacts from JBoss BPM Suite to S-RAMP using Maven or via a user interface.

This section provides information about these two processes.

Before you can deploy Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite artifacts to S-RAMP using Maven, you will need to enable the S-RAMP Maven Wagon. The Maven Wagon is a key feature that supports the S-RAMP Atom based REST API protocol. By enabling the S-RAMP Maven Wagon, users will be able to access artifacts from the S-RAMP repository as dependencies in a Maven project.

Enable the S-RAMP Maven Wagon by making an edit in the pom.xml file as shown below: 

<build>
  <extensions>
    <extension>
      <groupId>org.overlord.sramp</groupId>
      <artifactId>s-ramp-wagon</artifactId>
      <version>${s-ramp-wagon.version}</version>
    </extension>
  </extensions>
</build>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Once the S-RAMP Maven Wagon is enabled, you can deploy the JBoss BPM Suite artifacts to that S-RAMP repository. To do this, follow the steps below:

  1. Clone the git repository where you have saved the BPM Suite project by running this command: 

    git clone http://localhost:8001/REPOSITORY_NAME
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. On the command line, move into the folder that contains the project.

  3. Follow the instructions in Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works 6 Development Guide, Volume 3: Governance, section Deploying to S-RAMP. Use the URL from the example below: 

    <distributionManagement>
  <repository>
    <id>local-sramp-repo</id>
    <name>S-RAMP Releases Repository</name>
    <url>sramp://S-RAMP_SERVER_URL/s-ramp-server/</url>
  </repository>
  <snapshotRepository>
    <id>local-sramp-repo-snapshots</id>
    <name>S-RAMP Snapshots Repository</name>
    <url>sramp://S-RAMP_SERVER_URL/s-ramp-server/</url>
  </snapshotRepository>
</distributionManagement>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    With these settings, Maven deployments are sent directly to the S-RAMP repository using the S-RAMP API. Note that artifacts are added to the S-RAMP repository with an artifact type based on the Maven type of the project. You can override this behavior by adding a query parameter to the repository URL in the pom.xml file. For example: 

    <distributionManagement>
  <repository>
    <id>local-sramp-repo</id>
    <name>S-RAMP Releases Repository</name>
    <url>sramp://S-RAMP_SERVER_URL/s-ramp-server/?artifactType=KieJarArchive</url>
  </repository>
</distributionManagement>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The above example causes the Maven artifact to be uploaded with an S-RAMP artifact type of KieJarArchive.

  4. Amend the maven plug-in in file pom.xml and add a dependency to it as follows in case the project does not contain decision tables: 

    <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.kie</groupId>
      <artifactId>kie-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>6.4.0.Final-redhat-3</version>
      <extensions>true</extensions>
      <dependencies>
          <dependency>
              <groupId>org.jbpm</groupId>
              <artifactId>jbpm-bpmn2</artifactId>
              <version>6.4.0.Final-redhat-3</version>
          </dependency>
      </dependencies>
     </plugin>
    </plugins>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    If the project contains decision tables, use this dependency for the kie-maven-plugin instead: 

    <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.kie</groupId>
      <artifactId>kie-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>6.4.0.Final-redhat-3</version>
      <extensions>true</extensions>
      <dependencies>
          <dependency>
               <groupId>org.drools</groupId>
               <artifactId>drools-decisiontables</artifactId>
               <version>6.4.0.Final-redhat-3</version>
           </dependency>
      </dependencies>
     </plugin>
    </plugins>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  5. Run a clean Maven deployment using the following command: 

    mvn -s sramp-settings.xml deploy
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

For the Maven deployment to the S-RAMP repository, it is necessary to have credentials set in the settings.xml file. For further details on the credentials, refer to Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works (FSW) documentation on Authentication.

To deploy Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite artifacts to an S-RAMP repository using the user interface, do the following:

  1. In a web browser, navigate to http://localhost:8080/s-ramp-ui/. If the user interface has been configured to run from a domain name, substitute localhost for the domain name. For example http://www.example.com:8080/s-ramp-ui/.
  2. Click on Artifacts.
  3. In the Manage Artifacts section, select Import.
  4. Locate the kie archive you want to deploy. In the dialog that opens, fill out KieJarArchive as the type, and select Import.

  5. The deployment then creates these entries in the S-RAMP repository:

    KieJarArchive, from which it derives:

    • KieXmlDocument (if the archive contains kmodule.xml)
    • BpmnDocument (if the archive contains bpmn definitions)
    • DroolsDocument (if the archive contains drl definitions)

Red Hat JBoss Fuse integration allows users of Red Hat JBoss Fuse to complement their integration solution with additional features provided by Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite integration is provided by two features.xml files:

  • drools-karaf-features-VERSION-features.xml

    This file provides core Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS features, which defines the OSGi features that can be deployed into Red Hat JBoss Fuse. This file is a part of the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS product. OSGi users can install features from this file in order to install Red Hat JBoss BRMS engine or Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite engine into Red Hat JBoss Fuse and use it in their applications.

  • karaf-features-VERSION-features.xml

    This file provides additional features used for integrating Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS with Apache Camel, primarily in Red Hat JBoss Fuse. This file is part of the Integration Pack and it defines OSGi features that enable integration with Apache Camel and SwitchYard. In addition to the karaf-features XML file, the Integration Pack also contains a features.xml file for quick starts.

For further information about integration of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite with Red Hat JBoss Fuse, see the Install Integration Pack chapter of the Red Hat JBoss Fuse Integration Guide.

Core Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS features are provided by the drools-karaf-features-VERSION-features.xml file present in your product Maven repository or the jboss-brms-bpmsuite-VERSION-redhat-VERSION-fuse-features.zip file. It provides the following features:

  • drools-common
  • drools-module
  • drools-templates
  • drools-decisiontable
  • drools-jpa
  • kie
  • kie-ci
  • kie-spring
  • kie-aries-blueprint
  • jbpm-commons
  • jbpm-human-task
  • jbpm
  • droolsjbpm-hibernate
  • h2

The following table provides example of use cases for some of the features listed above.

Expand
Table 11.1. Features and Use Case Examples
FeatureUse Case

drools-module

Use the Red Hat JBoss BRMS engine for rules evaluation, without requiring persistence, processes, or decision tables.

drools-jpa

Use the Red Hat JBoss BRMS engine for rules evaluation with persistence and transactions, but without requiring processes or decision tables. The drools-jpa feature already includes drools-module, however you may also need to install the droolsjbpm-hibernate feature, or ensure there is a compatible hibernate bundle installed.

drools-decisiontable

Use the Red Hat JBoss BRMS engine with decision tables.

jbpm

Use the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite (or Red Hat JBoss BRMS engine with processes). The jbpm feature already includes drools-module and drools-jpa. You may also need to install the droolsjbpm-hibernate feature, or ensure that there is a compatible hibernate bundle installed.

jbpm and jbpm-human-task

Use the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite (or Red Hat JBoss BRMS engine with processes) with Human Task.

core engine JARs and kie-ci

Use Red Hat JBoss BRMS or Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite with KieScanner (KIE-CI) to download kJARs from a Maven repository.

kie-spring

Use KIE-Spring integration. See the section called “kie-spring Feature Further Information” for more information.

kie-spring and kie-aries-blueprint

Use KIE-Aries-Blueprint integration.

kie-spring Feature Further Information
  • Use org.drools.osgi.spring.OsgiKModuleBeanFactoryPostProcessor instead of org.kie.spring.KModuleBeanFactoryPostProcessor to postprocess KIE elements in an OSGi environment.

  • Do not install the drools-module feature before the kie-spring feature. Otherwise, the drools-compiler bundle does not detect packages exported by kie-spring.

    Run osgi:refresh drools-compiler_bundle_ID if you have installed the features in the incorrect order to force drools-compiler to rebuild its Import-Package metadata.

The following additional features for integration with SwitchYard and Apache Camel on Red Hat JBoss Fuse are provided by the integration pack:

  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-common-knowledge
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-rules
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-bpm
  • kie-camel
  • jbpm-workitems-camel

The integration pack features are defined in the karaf-features-VERSION-features.xml file. This file (and supporting repositories) is located in http://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/public, which is already configured for use on Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.2 out of the box in INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg.

The file can also be downloaded from either the Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.2 or Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite product page in the Red Hat Customer Portal.

Note

This section refers to features in the drools-karaf-features-VERSION-features.xml file. For additional integration features, see Section 11.4, “Installing Additional Integration Features”.

If you have already installed an older version of the core Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS features (for example, drools-karaf-features-6.2.0.Final-redhat-6-features.xml), you need to remove them and all associated files before installing the most recent features.xml file.

Procedure: Removing Existing drools-karaf-features Installation

  1. Start the Red Hat JBoss Fuse console using: 

    $ ./INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/bin/fuse
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Unistall old features or applications that used the previous features.xml file. For example: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:uninstall drools-module
JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:uninstall jbpm
JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:uninstall kie-ci
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Search for references of bundles using drools, kie, or jbpm, and remove them: 

    karaf@root> list -t 0 -s | grep drools
karaf@root> list -t 0 -s | grep kie
karaf@root> list -t 0 -s | grep jbpm
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    To remove the bundles: 

    karaf@root> osgi:uninstall BUNDLE_ID
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Remove the old drools-karaf-features URL: 

    karaf@root> features:removeurl mvn:org.drools/drools-karaf-features/6.2.0.Final-redhat-VERSION/xml/features
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Restart Red Hat JBoss Fuse.

To install the drools-karaf-features:

Procedure: Installing Core Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and Red Hat JBoss BRMS Features

  1. Configure required repositories:

    • Edit the INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg file in your Red Hat JBoss Fuse installation and add the following entry to the org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.repositories variable (note that entries are separated by , \):

  2. Start Red Hat JBoss Fuse: 

    $ ./INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/bin/fuse
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Add a reference to the core features file by running the following console command:

    For Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.2.1, use: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.drools/drools-karaf-features/VERSION/xml/features
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    For Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.3.0, use: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.drools/drools-karaf-features/VERSION/xml/features-fuse-6_3
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    For example: 

    features:addurl mvn:org.drools/drools-karaf-features/6.4.0.Final-redhat-10/xml/features-fuse-6_3
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    To see the current drools-karaf-features version, see Supported Component Versions of the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Installation Guide.

  4. You can now install the features provided by this file by running, for example, the following console command: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:install jbpm
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

11.4. Installing Additional Integration Features
Copy link

Use the following procedure for additional integration with SwitchYard and Apache Camel.

Procedure: SwitchYard and Apache Camel Integration

  1. Download the fuse-integration package that is aligned with your version of Red Hat JBoss Fuse.

    Note

    For instance, if you want to use the 6.2.0.redhat-117 version of Red Hat JBoss Fuse, you need to install the fuse-6.2.0.redhat-117 Red Hat JBoss Fuse integration features.

  2. Add the remote Maven repository that contains the fuse dependencies to your karaf instance:

    • Edit FUSE_HOME/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg

  3. Update the Drools features URL: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.switchyard.karaf/mvn:org.switchyard.karaf/switchyard/SWITCHYARD_VERSION/xml/core-features
JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.jboss.integration.fuse/karaf-features/1.0.0.redhat-VERSION/xml/features
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Additionally, update the drools-karaf-features URL. For Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.2.1, use: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.drools/drools-karaf-features/VERSION/xml/features
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    For Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.3.0, use: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.drools/drools-karaf-features/VERSION/xml/features-fuse-6_3
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    To see the current drools-karaf-features version, see Supported Component Versions of the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Installation Guide.

  4. You can now install the features provided for SwitchYard and Apache Camel integration by running, for example, the following console command: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:install fuse-bxms-switchyard-rules
JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:install kie-camel
JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:install jbpm-workitems-camel
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

11.5. Configuring Dependencies
Copy link

When you configure KIE, Red Hat JBoss BRMS, or Red Hat Jboss BPM Suite in your application, you can follow one of the following approaches to build your OSGi application bundles:

  • Bundle required dependencies into your application bundle. In this approach, you declare all required artifacts as runtime dependencies in your pom.xml. Hence, you need not import the packages that provide these artifacts that you have already added as dependencies.
  • Import the required dependencies into the application bundle. This is a preferred approach for building OSGi bundles as it adheres to the principles of OSGi framework. In this approach, you declare only the API JARs (such as org.kie:kie-api) as dependencies in your application bundle. You will need to install the required Red Hat JBoss BRMS and Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite bundles and then import them in your application.
Warning

The MVELUserGroupCallback class fails to initialize in an OSGi environment. Do not use or include MVELUserGroupCallback as it is not designed for production purposes.

The following features for Red Hat JBoss Fuse integration quick start applications are provided by org/jboss/integration/fuse/quickstarts/karaf-features/1.0.0.redhat-VERSION/karaf-features-1.0.0.redhat-VERSION-features.xml:

  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-bpm-service
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-rules-camel-cbr
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-rules-interview
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-rules-interview-container
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-rules-interview-dtable
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-demo-library
  • fuse-bxms-switchyard-demo-helpdesk
  • fuse-bxms-camel-blueprint-drools-decision-table
  • fuse-bxms-camel-spring-drools-decision-table
  • fuse-bxms-jbpm-workitems-camel-quickstart
  • fuse-bxms-spring-jbpm-osgi-example

This file (and supporting repositories) is located in http://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/public, which is already configured for use on Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6.2 out of the box in INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg.

Procedure: Installing Quick Start Applications

  1. Add a reference to the features file by running the following console command: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:addurl mvn:org.jboss.integration.fuse.quickstarts/karaf-features/1.0.0.redhat-VERSION/xml/features
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. You can now install the quick start applications provided by this features file by running, for example, the following console command: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:install fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-bpm-service
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Procedure: Downloading and Installing Quick Start ZIP Files

  1. Download the quick start application ZIP file.
  2. Unpack the contents of the quick starts directory into your existing INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/quickstarts directory.
  3. Unpack the contents of the system directory into your existing INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/system directory.

11.6.1. Testing Your First Quick Start Application
Copy link

Procedure: Testing Quick Start Application

  1. Start Red Hat JBoss Fuse: 

    $ ./INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY/bin/fuse
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Install and start the switchyard-bpm-service by running the following console command: 

    JBossFuse:karaf@root> features:install fuse-bxms-switchyard-quickstart-bpm-service
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    Note

    Any dependent features specified by the application’s features file will be installed automatically.

  3. Submit a web service request to invoke the SOAP gateway.

    1. Open a terminal window and navigate to the associated quick start directory that was unpacked from the quick start application ZIP file (in this case, switchyard-bpm-service).

    2. Run the following command: 

      $ mvn clean install
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
      Note

      You will need the following repositories configured in your settings.xml file:

    3. Run the following command: 

      $ mvn exec:java -Pkaraf
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. You will receive the following response: 

    SOAP Reply:
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Header xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"/>
  <soap:Body>
    <ns2:submitOrderResponse xmlns:ns2="urn:switchyard-quickstart:bpm-service:1.0">
      <orderId>test1</orderId>
      <accepted>true</accepted>
      <status>Thanks for your order, it has been shipped!</status>
    </ns2:submitOrderResponse>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Red Hat Single Sign-On (RH-SSO) is a Single Sign-On solution that you can use for securing your browser applications and your REST web services. This chapter describes how you can integrate RH-SSO with Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite and leverage its features.

Integrating with RH-SSO brings an integrated SSO and IDM (Identity Management) environment for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite. The session management feature of RH-SSO allows you to use different Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite environments on the web by authenticating only once.

For more information on RH-SSO, see the RH-SSO documentation.

Red Hat Single Sign On Integration Points

You can integrate RH-SSO with Intelligent Process Servers using the following integration points:

  • Business Central authentication through an RH-SSO server

    Authenticating Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Business Central through RH-SSO involves securing both the Business Central web client and remote services through RH-SSO. This integration enables you to connect to Business Central using either web interface or a remote service consumer through RH-SSO.

  • Intelligent Process Server authentication through an RH-SSO server

    Authenticating Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Intelligent Process Server through RH-SSO involves securing the remote services provided by the Intelligent Process Server as it does not provide a web interface for server authentication. This enables any remote Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite service consumer (user or a service) to authenticate through RH-SSO.

  • Third-party client authentication through an RH-SSO server

    Authenticating a third-party client through an RH-SSO server involves third-party clients to authenticate themselves using RH-SSO to consume the remote service endpoints provided by Business Central and Intelligent Process Server.

The following sections describe how to achieve RH-SSO integration through these integration points:

To authenticate Business Central through RH-SSO:

  1. Set up and run an RH-SSO server with a realm client for Business Central.
  2. Install and set up the RH-SSO client adapter for EAP.
  3. Secure Business Central Remote Service using RH-SSO.
  4. Create an RH-SSO client and configure the RH-SSO client adapter for Dashbuilder (BAM).

Security realms are used to restrict access for the different applications resources. It is advised to create a new realm whether your RH-SSO instance is private or shared amongst other products. You can keep the master realm as a place for super administrators to create and manage the realms in your system. If you are integrating with an RH-SSO instance that is shared with other product installations to achieve Single Sign-On with those applications, all those applications must use the same realm.

Here is how you can install an RH-SSO server and create a security realm for Business Central:

Procedure: Setting Up RH-SSO with Realm Client

  1. Install and configure a basic RH-SSO standalone server. To do this, follow the instructions in the RH-SSO Installation Guide.

    Note

    If you want to run both RH-SSO and Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite servers on the same machine, ensure that you avoid port conflicts. To do so, do one of the following:

    • Update the RHSSO_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone.xml file and set a port offset to 100. For example: 

      <socket-binding-group name="standard-sockets" default-interface="public" port-offset="${jboss.socket.binding.port-offset:100}">
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    • Use an environment variable to run the server: 

      bin/standalone.sh -Djboss.socket.binding.port-offset=100
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Start the RH-SSO server using the following command from RHSSO_HOME/bin: 

    ./standalone.sh
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Once the RH-SSO server starts, open http://localhost:8180/auth/admin in a web browser and log in using your admin credentials that you created while installing RH-SSO. When you login for the first time, you can set up the initial user using the new user registration form.

  3. On the RH-SSO admin console, click Realm Settings tab.

  4. On the Realm Settings page, click Add Realm.

    The Add realm page opens.

  5. On the Add realm page, provide a name for the realm and click Create.

  6. Click Client tab from the main admin console menu and click Create.

    The Add Client page opens.

  7. On the Add Client page, provide the required information to create a new client for your realm. For example:

    • Client ID: kie
    • Client protocol: openid-connect
    • Root URL: http://localhost:8080/business-central

  8. Click Save to save your changes.

    At this point, the RH-SSO server is configured with a realm with a client for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite applications (Business Central, in this example) and running and listening for HTTP connections at localhost:8180. This realm provides different users, roles, and sessions for the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite applications.

12.1.2. Setting Up RH-SSO Client Adapter for EAP
Copy link

To set up the RH-SSO client adapter for EAP:

  1. Install the RH-SSO adapter for EAP.
  2. Configure the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite application and the RH-SSO client adapter.

Procedure: Installing the RH-SSO Adapter for EAP

  1. Install EAP 6.4.X. See Chapter 2. Installation Instructions from the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Installation Guide.
  2. Install Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite in the freshly installed JBoss EAP. This step is important because if you configure RH-SSO adapter by making changes in standalone.xml, and then unzip Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, you may overwrite and lose the RH-SSO adapter configuration.
  3. Download the EAP adapter from the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  4. Unzip and install the adapter. For installation instructions, see Installing Adapters for Red Hat Single Sign-On in the RH-SSO Installation Guide.

Procedure: Configuring the RH-SSO Adapter

  1. Navigate to EAP_HOME/standalone/configuration in your EAP installation and edit standalone.xml to add the RH-SSO subsystem configuration. For example: 

    <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:keycloak:1.1">
 <secure-deployment name="business-central.war">
   <realm>demo</realm>
   <realm-public-key>MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCrVrCuTtArbgaZzL1hvh0xtL5mc7o0NqPVnYXkLvgcwiC3BjLGw1tGEGoJaXDuSaRllobm53JBhjx33UNv+5z/UMG4kytBWxheNVKnL6GgqlNabMaFfPLPCF8kAgKnsi79NMo+n6KnSY8YeUmec/p2vjO2NjsSAVcWEQMVhJ31LwIDAQAB</realm-public-key>
   <auth-server-url>http://localhost:8180/auth</auth-server-url>
   <ssl-required>external</ssl-required>
   <enable-basic-auth>true</enable-basic-auth>
   <resource>kie</resource>
   <credential name="secret">759514d0-dbb1-46ba-b7e7-ff76e63c6891</credential>
   <principal-attribute>preferred_username</principal-attribute>
 </secure-deployment>
</subsystem>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Here,

    • secure-deployment name: Name of your application’s WAR file.
    • realm: Name of the realm that you created for the applications to use.
    • realm-public-key: The public key of the realm you created. You can find it in the Keys tab in the Realm settings page of the realm you created in the RH-SSO admin console. If you do not provide a value for realm-public-key, the server retrieves it automatically.
    • auth-server-url: The URL for the RH-SSO authentication server.
    • enable-basic-auth: The setting to enable basic authentication mechanism, so that the clients can use both token-based and basic authentication approaches to perform the requests.
    • resource: The name for the client that you created.
    • credential name: The secret key for the client you created. You can find it in the Credentials tab on the Clients page of the RH-SSO admin console.

    • principal-attribute: The login name of the user. If you do not provide this value, your User Id is displayed in the application instead of your user name.

      Note

      The RH-SSO server converts the user names to lowercase. Therefore, after integration with RH-SSO, your user name will appear in lowercase in Business Central. If you have user names in upper-case letters hard coded in business processes, the application may not be able to identify the upper-case user.

  2. Add the following sub element under the <extensions> section of standalone.xml: 

    <extension module="org.keycloak.keycloak-adapter-subsystem"/>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    This secures the application using the urn:jboss:domain:keycloak subsystem in standalone.xml as opposed to securing it through web.xml file inside each WAR.

  3. Navigate to EAP_HOME/bin/ and start the EAP server using the following command: 

    ./standalone.sh
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    You can now login to your Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite application (in this example, Business Central) once the server is running using the RH-SSO admin user credentials.

Note

You can also configure RH-SSO adapter for EAP by updating your applications WAR file to use the RH-SSO security subsystem. However, the recommended approach is configuring the adapter through the RH-SSO subsystem. This means that you are updating EAP configuration instead of applying the configuration on each WAR file.

12.1.3. Adding a New User
Copy link

To add new users and assign them a role to access Business Central:

  1. Login to the RH-SSO Admin console and open the realm you wish to add a user to.

  2. Click Users under Manage section in the left menu bar.

    An empty user list page called Users opens.

  3. Click the Add User button on the empty user list to start creating your new user.

    An Add user page opens.

  4. Provide user information on the Add user page and click Save.
  5. Set new password under the Credentials tab.

  6. Assign the new user one of the roles that allow access to Business Central (For example, admin or analyst role for Red Hat JBoss BRMS and admin or developer role for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite).

    Define the roles as realm roles in the Roles page under the Configure section.

  7. Click Role Mappings tab on the Users page to assign roles.

Business Central provides different remote service endpoints that can be consumed by third-party clients using remote API. To authenticate those services through RH-SSO, you must disable a security filter called BasicAuthSecurityFilter. To do this, follow these steps:

Procedure: Disabling BasicAuthSecurityFilter

  1. Open your application deployment descriptor file (WEB-INF/web.xml) and apply the following changes to it:

    • Remove the following lines to remove the servlet filter and its mapping for class org.uberfire.ext.security.server.BasicAuthSecurityFilter: 

      <filter>
  <filter-name>HTTP Basic Auth Filter</filter-name>
  <filter-class>org.uberfire.ext.security.server.BasicAuthSecurityFilter</filter-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>realmName</param-name>
    <param-value>KIE Workbench Realm</param-value>
  </init-param>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>HTTP Basic Auth Filter</filter-name>
  <url-pattern>/rest/*</url-pattern>
  <url-pattern>/maven2/*</url-pattern>
  <url-pattern>/ws/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    • Add the following lines to add the security-constraint for the url-patterns that you have removed from the filter mapping: 

      <security-constraint>
  <web-resource-collection>
    <web-resource-name>remote-services</web-resource-name>
    <url-pattern>/rest/*</url-pattern>
    <url-pattern>/maven2/*</url-pattern>
    <url-pattern>/ws/*</url-pattern>
  </web-resource-collection>
  <auth-constraint>
    <role-name>rest-all</role-name>
  </auth-constraint>
</security-constraint>
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. Save your changes.

Once you have created a realm client for Business Central and set up the RH-SSO client adapter for EAP, you can repeat the same steps to integrate BAM with RH-SSO. After successful integration of RH-SSO with BAM, you can navigate within Business Central and BAM without having to re-login.

Procedure: Integrating RH-SSO with BAM

  1. On the RH-SSO admin console, open the security realm that you created.

  2. Click Client tab from the main admin console menu and click Create.

    The Add Client page opens.

  3. On the Add Client page, provide the required information to create a new BAM client for your realm. For example:

    • Client ID: dashbuilder
    • Root URL: http://localhost:8080/dashbuilder
    • Client protocol: openid-connect

  4. Configure the RH-SSO client adapter for BAM. To do so, navigate to EAP_HOME/standalone/configuration in your EAP installation and edit standalone.xml to add the RH-SSO subsystem configuration. For example: 

    <secure-deployment name="dashbuilder.war">
  <realm>demo</realm>
  <realm-public-key>MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCrVrCuTtArbgaZzL1hvh0xtL5mc7o0NqPVnYXkLvgcwiC3BjLGw1tGEGoJaXDuSaRllobm53JBhjx33UNv+5z/UMG4kytBWxheNVKnL6GgqlNabMaFfPLPCF8kAgKnsi79NMo+n6KnSY8YeUmec/p2vjO2NjsSAVcWEQMVhJ31LwIDAQAB</realm-public-key>
  <auth-server-url>http://localhost:8180/auth</auth-server-url>
  <ssl-required>external</ssl-required>
  <resource>dashbuilder</resource>
  <enable-basic-auth>true</enable-basic-auth>
  <credential name="secret">e92ec68d-6177-4239-be05-28ef2f3460ff</credential>
  <principal-attribute>preferred_username</principal-attribute>
</secure-deployment>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Here,

    • secure-deployment name: The name of the BAM war file being deployed.
    • realm-public-key: The public key of the realm you created.
    • resource: The name of the client that you created for BAM (dashbuilder).
    • enable-basic-auth: The setting to enable basic authentication mechanism, so that the clients can use both token-based and basic authentication approaches to perform the requests.
    • credential name: The secret key for the client you created for BAM. You can find it in the Credentials tab on the Clients page of the RH-SSO admin console.
    • principal-attribute: The login name of the user. If you do not provide this value, your User Id is displayed in the application instead of your user name.

  5. Restart the EAP server and open http://localhost:8080/dashbuilder in a web browser to access BAM. Login to BAM using your RH-SSO admin user credentials.

    You can now access both the applications (Business Central and BAM) without having to re-login.

The Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Intelligent Process Server provides a REST API for third-party clients. You can integrate the Intelligent Process Server with RH-SSO to delegate the third-party clients identity management to the RH-SSO server.

Once you have created a realm client for Business Central and set up the RH-SSO client adapter for EAP, you can repeat the same steps to integrate the Intelligent Process Server with RH-SSO.

To create a new client on your already created realm on RH-SSO admin console:

Procedure: Creating a Client for the Intelligent Process Server

  1. On the RH-SSO admin console, open the security realm that you created.

  2. Click Client tab from the main menu and click Create.

    The Add Client page opens.

  3. On the Add Client page, provide the required information to create a new client for your realm. For example:

    • Client ID: kie-execution-server
    • Root URL: http://localhost:8080/kie-server
    • Client protocol: openid-connect
  4. Navigate to the Credentials tab and copy the secret key and and paste it on the kie-execution-server client configuration screen.

  5. Click Save to save your changes.

    Once you create a new client, its access value is public by default. Change it to confidential.

To consume the Intelligent Process Server remote service endpoints, you must first create and assign the kie-server role in the RH-SSO admin console.

Procedure: Setting Up the Intelligent Process Server

  1. Navigate to EAP_HOME/standalone/configuration in your EAP installation and edit standalone.xml to add the RH-SSO subsystem configuration. For example: 

    <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:keycloak:1.1">
  <secure-deployment name="kie-server.war">
     <realm>demo</realm>
     <realm-public-key>MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCrVrCuTtArbgaZzL1hvh0xtL5mc7o0NqPVnYXkLvgcwiC3BjLGw1tGEGoJaXDuSaRllobm53JBhjx33UNv+5z/UMG4kytBWxheNVKnL6GgqlNabMaFfPLPCF8kAgKnsi79NMo+n6KnSY8YeUmec/p2vjO2NjsSAVcWEQMVhJ31LwIDAQAB</realm-public-key>
     <auth-server-url>http://localhost:8180/auth</auth-server-url>
     <ssl-required>external</ssl-required>
     <resource>kie-execution-server</resource>
     <enable-basic-auth>true</enable-basic-auth>
     <credential name="secret">03c2b267-7f64-4647-8566-572be673f5fa</credential>
     <principal-attribute>preferred_username</principal-attribute>
  </secure-deployment>
</subsystem>

<system-properties>
  <property name="org.kie.server.sync.deploy" value="false"/>
</system-properties>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Here,

    • secure-deployment name: Name of your application WAR file.
    • realm: Name of the realm that you created for the applications to use.
    • realm-public-key: The public key of the realm you created. You can
    • find it in the Keys tab in the Realm settings page of the realm you created in the RH-SSO admin console. If you do not provide a value for this public key, the server retrieves it automatically.
    • auth-server-url: The URL for the RH-SSO authentication server.
    • resource: The name for the server client that you created.
    • enable-basic-auth: The setting to enable basic authentication mechanism, so that the clients can use both token-based and basic authentication approaches to perform the requests.
    • credential name: The secret key of the server client you created. You can find it in the Credentials tab on the Clients page of the RH-SSO admin console.
    • principal-attribute: The login name of the user. If you do not provide this value, your User Id is displayed in the application instead of your user name.
  2. Save your configuration changes in standalone.xml.

  3. Use the following command to restart the EAP server and run the Intelligent Process Server. 

    EXEC_SERVER_HOME/bin/standalone.sh -Dorg.kie.server.id=<ID> -Dorg.kie.server.user=<USER> -Dorg.kie.server.pwd=<PWD> -Dorg.kie.server.location=<LOCATION_URL> -Dorg.kie.server.controller=<CONTROLLER_URL> -Dorg.kie.server.controller.user=<CONTROLLER_USER> -Dorg.kie.server.controller.pwd=<CONTOLLER_PASSWORD>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Here is an example: 

    EXEC_SERVER_HOME/bin/standalone.sh -Dorg.kie.server.id=kieserver1 -Dorg.kie.server.user=kieserver -Dorg.kie.server.pwd=password -Dorg.kie.server.location=http://localhost:8080/kie-server/services/rest/server -Dorg.kie.server.controller=http://localhost:8080/business-central/rest/controller -Dorg.kie.server.controller.user=kiecontroller -Dorg.kie.server.controller.pwd=password
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Once the Intelligent Process Server is running, you can check the server status using the following command: 

    curl http://kieserver:password@localhost:8080/kie-server/services/rest/server/
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

Token-based authorization is also supported for communication between Business Central and the Intelligent Process Server. Additionally, you can use the complete token as system property (instead of username and password) for your applications. However, you must ensure that the token does not expire for the period of interaction between the applications, as it is not automatically refreshed.

To use the different remote services provided by the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite or by an Intelligent Process Server, your client must be authenticated on the RH-SSO server and have a valid token to perform the requests. To use the remote services, the authenticated user must have assigned the following roles:

  • rest-all: For using the Business Central remote services

    Note

    The rest-all role must have user specified in org.kie.server.controller.user property.

  • kie-server: For using the Intelligent Process Server remote services

Use the RH-SSO Administrator Console to create these roles and assign them to the users that will consume the remote services.

To achieve third-party client authentication through RH-SSO, you can choose between one of these options:

  • Basic authentication (if the application’s client supports it)
  • Token-based authentication

12.3.1. Basic Authentication
Copy link

If you have enabled the basic authentication in the RH-SSO client adapter configuration for both Business Central and Intelligent Process Server, you can avoid the token grant/refresh calls and call the services as shown in the examples below:

  • For web based remote repositories endpoint: 

     curl http://admin:password@localhost:8080/business-central/rest/repositories
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  • For the Intelligent Process Server: 

    curl http://admin:password@localhost:8080/kie-server/services/rest/server/
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

12.3.2. Token-Based Authentication
Copy link

If you want to opt for a more secure option of authentication, you can consume the remote services from both Business Central and Intelligent Process Server using a granted token provided by a new RH-SSO client.

Procedure: Obtaining and Using Token for Authorizing Remote Calls

  1. Click Client tab from the main admin console menu and click Create to create a new client.

    The Add Client page opens.

  2. On the Add Client page, provide the required information to create a new client for your realm. For example:

    • Client ID: kie-remote
    • Client protocol: openid-connect

  3. Click Save to save your changes.

    Once you create a new client, its access value public by default. Change it to confidential.

  4. Obtain a token from Realm Settings:

    1. On the RH-SSO admin console, click Realm Settings tab.
    2. Click Tokens tab.

    3. Change the value for Access Token Lifespan to 15 minutes.

      This gives you enough time to obtain a token and invoke the service before it expires.

    4. Click Save to save your changes.

  5. Once a public client for your remote clients is created, you can now obtain the token by making an HTTP request to the RH-SSO server’s token endpoint using: 

    RESULT=`curl --data "grant_type=password&client_id=kie-remote&username=admin&password=password" http://localhost:8180/auth/realms/demo/protocol/openid-connect/token`
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  6. To view the token obtained from the RH-SSO server, use the following command: 

    TOKEN=`echo RESULT | sed 's/.*access_token":"//g' | sed 's/".*//g'`
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

You can now use this token to authorize the remote calls. For example, if you want to check the internal Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite repositories, use the token as shown below: 

curl -H "Authorization: bearer TOKEN" http://localhost:8080/business-central/rest/repositories
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Chapter 13. Integration with Spring
Copy link

The jboss-bpms-engine.zip file contains the Spring module, which is called kie-spring-VERSION-redhat-MINOR_VERSION.jar.

You can configure the Spring modules:

As a Self Managed Process Engine
If you require a single runtime manager instance, use the RuntimeManager API. The RuntimeManager API synchronizes the process engine and task service internally.
As a Shared Task Service
If you require multiple runtime manager instances, use the jBPM services.

To integrate Spring with the Runtime Manager API, include the following factory beans:

  • org.kie.spring.factorybeans.RuntimeEnvironmentFactoryBean
  • org.kie.spring.factorybeans.RuntimeManagerFactoryBean
  • org.kie.spring.factorybeans.TaskServiceFactoryBean
Note

TaskServiceFactoryBean is required only for shared task service.

RuntimeEnvironmentFactoryBean

RuntimeEnvironmentFactoryBean produces RuntimeEnvironment instances consumed by RuntimeManager.

You can create the following types of RuntimeEnvironment instances:

  • DEFAULT: The default type.
  • EMPTY: An empty environment.
  • DEFAULT_IN_MEMORY: Same as DEFAULT with no persistence of the runtime engine.
  • DEFAULT_KJAR: Same as DEFAULT with knowledge assets taken from kJAR and identified by releaseID or GAV (Group, Artifact, Version).
  • DEFAULT_KJAR_CL: Built from class path that consists of a kmodule.xml descriptor.

Knowledge information is required for all the RuntimeEnvironment types. Provide one or more of the following:

  • knowledgeBase
  • assets
  • releaseId
  • groupId, artifactId, version

For the DEFAULT, DEFAULT_KJAR, DEFAULT_KJAR_CL types, configure persistence using entity manager factory or transaction manager.

RuntimeManagerFactoryBean

RuntimeManagerFactoryBean creates RuntimeManager instances based on runtimeEnvironment. You can create the following runtimeEnvironment instances:

  • SINGLETON (default)
  • PER_REQUEST
  • PER_PROCESS_INSTANCE

Every RuntimeManager instance must have a unique ID. You can dispose of any RuntimeManager instance created by RuntimeManagerFactoryBean by calling the close() method.

TaskServiceFactoryBean

TaskServiceFactoryBean creates TaskService instance based on the given properties. Creates a single instance only.

Properties required:

  • entity manager factory
  • transaction manager

When using the TaskServiceFactoryBean, provide the Spring transaction manager. When using a shared entity manager from Spring, you can also provide EntityManager instance instead of entity manager factory.

Optional properties:

  • userGroupCallback: MVELUserGroupCallbackImpl by default.
  • userInfo: DefaultUserInfo by default.
  • listener: List of TaskLifeCycleEventListener instances.
Sample RuntimeManager Configuration with Spring

To create a single runtime manager Spring configuration:

  1. Configure the entity manager factory and the transaction manager, for example: 

    <bean id="jbpmEMF" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
  <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="org.jbpm.persistence.spring.jta"/>
</bean>

<bean id="btmConfig" factory-method="getConfiguration" class="bitronix.tm.TransactionManagerServices"></bean>

<bean id="BitronixTransactionManager" factory-method="getTransactionManager"
      class="bitronix.tm.TransactionManagerServices" depends-on="btmConfig" destroy-method="shutdown" />

<bean id="jbpmTxManager" class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager">
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="BitronixTransactionManager" />
  <property name="userTransaction" ref="BitronixTransactionManager" />
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    This configuration provides:

    • JTA transaction manager, backed by Bitronix for unit tests or servlet containers.
    • The org.jbpm.persistence.spring.jta entity manager factory for persistence unit.

  2. Configure resources you use, for example a business process: 

    <bean id="process" factory-method="newclass pathResource" class="org.kie.internal.io.ResourceFactory">
  <constructor-arg>
    <value>jbpm/processes/sample.bpmn</value>
  </constructor-arg>
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The sample.bpmn process is included from the class path.

  3. Configure RuntimeEnvironment using your entity manager, transaction manager, and resources: 

    <bean id="runtimeEnvironment" class="org.kie.spring.factorybeans.RuntimeEnvironmentFactoryBean">
  <property name="type" value="DEFAULT"/>
  <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="jbpmEMF"/>
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="jbpmTxManager"/>
  <property name="assets">
    <map>
      <entry key-ref="process"><util:constant static-field="org.kie.api.io.ResourceType.BPMN2"/></entry>
    </map>
  </property>
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Create RuntimeManager: 

    <bean id="runtimeManager" class="org.kie.spring.factorybeans.RuntimeManagerFactoryBean" destroy-method="close">
  <property name="identifier" value="spring-rm"/>
  <property name="runtimeEnvironment" ref="runtimeEnvironment"/>
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

An example of complete configuration: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
                          http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-3.0.xsd">

  <import resource="classpath:jbpm/configuration-template/assets.xml" />

  <bean id="jbpmEMF" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
    <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="org.jbpm.persistence.spring.jta"/>
    <property name="persistenceXmlLocation" value="classpath:jbpm/persistence-jta.xml"/>
  </bean>

  <bean id="btmConfig" factory-method="getConfiguration" class="bitronix.tm.TransactionManagerServices"/>

  <bean id="BitronixTransactionManager" factory-method="getTransactionManager"
        class="bitronix.tm.TransactionManagerServices" depends-on="btmConfig" destroy-method="shutdown" />

  <bean id="jbpmTxManager" class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager">
    <property name="transactionManager" ref="BitronixTransactionManager" />
    <property name="userTransaction" ref="BitronixTransactionManager" />
  </bean>

  <bean id="runtimeEnvironment" class="org.kie.spring.factorybeans.RuntimeEnvironmentFactoryBean">
    <property name="type" value="DEFAULT"/>
    <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="jbpmEMF"/>
    <property name="transactionManager" ref="jbpmTxManager"/>
    <property name="assets" ref="assets"/>
  </bean>

  <bean id="logService" class="org.jbpm.process.audit.JPAAuditLogService" depends-on="runtimeEnvironment">
    <constructor-arg value="#{runtimeEnvironment.environment}" />
    <constructor-arg value="STANDALONE_JTA" />
  </bean>
</beans>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

13.1.2. Spring and jBPM Services
Copy link

If you require multiple runtime managers, you can use jBPM services directly in your application. Due to the dynamic nature of jBPM services, processes and other assets can be added and removed without restarting your application.

To configure jBPM services, implement the IdentityProvider interface: 

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

import org.kie.internal.identity.IdentityProvider;
import org.springframework.security.core.Authentication;
import org.springframework.security.core.GrantedAuthority;
import org.springframework.security.core.context.SecurityContextHolder;

public class SpringSecurityIdentityProvider implements IdentityProvider {

	public String getName() {

		Authentication auth = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();
		if (auth != null && auth.isAuthenticated()) {
			return auth.getName();
		}
		return "system";
	}

	public List<String> getRoles() {
		Authentication auth = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();
		if (auth != null && auth.isAuthenticated()) {
			List<String> roles = new ArrayList<String>();

			for (GrantedAuthority ga : auth.getAuthorities()) {
				roles.add(ga.getAuthority());
			}

			return roles;
		}

		return Collections.emptyList();
	}

	public boolean hasRole(String role) {
		return false;
	}

}
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

To configure jBPM services in a Spring application:

  1. Configure the transaction manager: 

    <context:annotation-config />
<tx:annotation-driven />
<tx:jta-transaction-manager />

<bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager" />
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Configure JPA and persistence: 

    <bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean" depends-on="transactionManager">
   <property name="persistenceXmlLocation" value="classpath:/META-INF/jbpm-persistence.xml" />
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Configure security providers: 

    <util:properties id="roleProperties" location="classpath:/roles.properties" />

<bean id="userGroupCallback" class="org.jbpm.services.task.identity.JBossUserGroupCallbackImpl">
  <constructor-arg name="userGroups" ref="roleProperties"></constructor-arg>
</bean>

<bean id="identityProvider" class="org.jbpm.spring.SpringSecurityIdentityProvider"/>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Configure the runtime manager factory: 

    <bean id="runtimeManagerFactory" class="org.kie.spring.manager.SpringRuntimeManagerFactoryImpl">
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
  <property name="userGroupCallback" ref="userGroupCallback"/>
</bean>

<bean id="transactionCmdService" class="org.jbpm.shared.services.impl.TransactionalCommandService">
  <constructor-arg name="emf" ref="entityManagerFactory"></constructor-arg>
</bean>

<bean id="taskService" class="org.kie.spring.factorybeans.TaskServiceFactoryBean" destroy-method="close">
  <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory"/>
  <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager"/>
  <property name="userGroupCallback" ref="userGroupCallback"/>
  <property name="listeners">
    <list>
      <bean class="org.jbpm.services.task.audit.JPATaskLifeCycleEventListener">
        <constructor-arg value="true"/>
      </bean>
    </list>
  </property>
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    The runtime manager factory is Spring context aware and can interact with Spring containers.

  5. Configure jBPM services as Spring beans: 

    <!-- definition service -->
<bean id="definitionService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.bpmn2.BPMN2DataServiceImpl"/>

<!-- runtime data service -->
<bean id="runtimeDataService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.RuntimeDataServiceImpl">
  <property name="commandService" ref="transactionCmdService"/>
  <property name="identityProvider" ref="identityProvider"/>
  <property name="taskService" ref="taskService"/>
</bean>

<!-- -- deployment service -->
<bean id="deploymentService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.KModuleDeploymentService" depends-on="entityManagerFactory" init-method="onInit">
  <property name="bpmn2Service" ref="definitionService"/>
  <property name="emf" ref="entityManagerFactory"/>
  <property name="managerFactory" ref="runtimeManagerFactory"/>
  <property name="identityProvider" ref="identityProvider"/>
  <property name="runtimeDataService" ref="runtimeDataService"/>
</bean>

<!-- process service -->
<bean id="processService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.ProcessServiceImpl" depends-on="deploymentService">
  <property name="dataService" ref="runtimeDataService"/>
  <property name="deploymentService" ref="deploymentService"/>
</bean>

<!-- user task service -->
<bean id="userTaskService" class="org.jbpm.kie.services.impl.UserTaskServiceImpl" depends-on="deploymentService">
  <property name="dataService" ref="runtimeDataService"/>
  <property name="deploymentService" ref="deploymentService"/>
</bean>

<!-- register runtime data service as listener on deployment service so it can receive notification about deployed and undeployed units -->
<bean id="data" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean" depends-on="deploymentService">
  <property name="targetObject" ref="deploymentService"></property>
  <property name="targetMethod"><value>addListener</value></property>
  <property name="arguments">
  <list>
      <ref bean="runtimeDataService"/>
  </list>
  </property>
</bean>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Chapter 14. CDI Integration
Copy link

14.1. CDI Integration
Copy link

To make use of jbpm-kie-services in your system, you will need to provide some mbeans to satisfy all dependencies of the services. There are several mbeans that depend on actual scenarios.

  • Entity manager and entity manager factory
  • User group callback for human tasks
  • Identity provider to pass authenticated user information to the services

When running in JEE environment, like JBoss Application Server, the mbean should satisfy all requirements of the jbpm-kie-services: 

public class EnvironmentProducer {

    @PersistenceUnit(unitName = "org.jbpm.domain")
    private EntityManagerFactory emf;

    @Inject
    @Selectable
    private UserGroupCallback userGroupCallback;

    @Produces
    public EntityManagerFactory getEntityManagerFactory() {
        return this.emf;
    }

    @Produces
    @RequestScoped
    public EntityManager getEntityManager() {
        EntityManager em = emf.createEntityManager();
        return em;
    }

    public void close(@Disposes EntityManager em) {
        em.close();
    }

    @Produces
    public UserGroupCallback produceSelectedUserGroupCalback() {
        return userGroupCallback;
    }
    @Produces

    public IdentityProvider produceIdentityProvider {
        return new IdentityProvider() {
             // implement IdentityProvider
        };
    }
}
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Then the deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/beans.xml file may be configured to change the current settings of the new usergroupcallback implementation: 

<beans xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://docs.jboss.org/cdi/beans_1_0.xsd">

<alternatives>
  <class>org.jbpm.services.task.identity.JAASUserGroupCallbackImpl</class>
</alternatives>

</beans>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

org.jbpm.services.task.identity.JAASUserGroupCallbackImpl is just an example here to demonstrate the settings of the application server regardless of what it actually is (LDAP, DB, etc).

Chapter 15. Persistence
Copy link

The runtime data of the Process Engine can be persisted in data stores. The persistence mechanism saves the data using marshalling: the runtime data is converted into a binary dataset and the dataset is saved in the data storage.

Note that persistence is not configured by default and the engine runs without persistence.

Custom marshalling mechanism

The runtime data is saved using marshalling (binary persistence). The marshalling mechanism is a custom serialization mechanism.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite will persist the following when persistence is configured:

  • Session state: This includes the session ID, date of last modification, the session data that business rules would need for evaluation, state of timer jobs.
  • Process instance state: This includes the process instance ID, process ID, date of last modification, date of last read access, process instance start date, runtime data (the execution status including the node being executed, variable values, etc.)and the eventtypes.
  • Work item runtime state: This includes the work item ID, creation date, name, process instance ID, and the work item state itself.

Based on the persisted data, it is possible to restore the state of execution of all running process instances in case of failure or to temporarily remove running instances from memory and restore them later. By default, no persistence is configured.

To allow persistence, you need to add the jbpm-persistence jar files to the classpath of your application and configure the engine to use persistence. The engine automatically stores the runtime state in the storage when the engine reaches a safe point. Safe points are points where the process instance has paused. When a process instance invocation reaches a safe point in the engine, the engine stores any changes to the process instance as a snapshot of the process runtime data. However, when a process instance is completed, the persisted snapshot of process instance runtime data is automatically deleted.

If a failure occurs and you need to restore the engine runtime from the storage, the process instances are automatically restored and their execution resumes so there is no need to reload and trigger the process instances manually.

The runtime persistence data is to be considered internal to the engine. You should not access persisted runtime data or modify them directly as this might have unexpected side effects.

To obtain information about the current execution state, refer to the history log. Query the database for runtime data only if absolutely necessary.

15.1. Session
Copy link

Sessions are persisted as SessionInfo entities. These persist the state of the runtime KIE session, and store the following data:

Expand
FieldDescriptionNullable

id

primary key

false

lastmodificationdate

last saved to data store

N/A

rulesbytearray

binary dataset with session state (binary blob

false

startdate

session start

 

optlock

version number used to lock value for optimistic locking

 

15.2. Process Instance
Copy link

Process instances are persisted as ProcessInstanceInfo entities, which persist the state of a process instance on runtime and store the following data:

Expand
FieldDescriptionNullable

instanceid

primary key

false

lastmodificationdate

last saved to data store

N/A

lastreaddate

last read from data store

N/A

processid

ID of the process the instance is based on

false

processinstancebytearray

binary dataset with process instance state (binary blob)

false

startdate

Process instance start date

 

optlock

version number used lock value for optimistic locking

 

state

Process instance state

false

ProcessInstanceInfo has a 1:N relationship to the EventTypes entity.

The EventTypes entity contains the following data:

Expand
FieldDescriptionNullable

instanceid

reference to the Process instance (foreign key to the processinstanceinfo)

false

element

text field related to an event the Process instance has undergone

 
Pessimistic Locking Support

The default locking mechanism for persistence of processes is optimistic. With multi-thread high concurrency to the same process instance, this locking strategy can result in bad performance.

With the release of the 6.1 version of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, this can be changed at runtime to allow the user to set locking on a per process basis and to allow it to be pessimistic (the change can be made at a per KIE Session level or Runtime Manager level as well and not just at the process level).

To set a process to use pessimistic locking, do this in the runtime environment: 

import org.kie.api.runtime.Environment;
import org.kie.api.runtime.EnvironmentName;
import org.kie.api.runtime.manager.RuntimeManager;
import org.kie.api.runtime.manager.RuntimeManagerFactory;

...

// here env is an instance of org.kie.api.runtime.Environment
env.set(EnvironmentName.USE_PESSIMISTIC_LOCKING, true);

// now create your Runtime Manager using this environment
RuntimeManager manager = RuntimeManagerFactory.Factory.get().newPerRequestRuntimeManager(environment);
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

15.3. Work Item
Copy link

Work Items are persisted as workiteminfo entities, which persist the state of the particular work item instance on runtime and store the following data:

Expand
FieldDescriptionNullable

workitemid

primary key

false

name

work item name

 

processinstanceid

parent Process instance id

false

state

integer representing work item state

false

optlock

version number used lock value for optimistic locking

 

workitembytearray

binary dataset with work item state (binary blob)

false

creationDate

timestampe on which the work item was created

false

15.4. Persistence configuration
Copy link

15.4.1. Persistence configuration
Copy link

Although persistence is not used by default, the dependencies needed are available in the runtime directory as jar files.

Persistence is defined per session and you can define it either using the JBPMHelper class after you create a session or using the JPAKnowledgeService to create your session. The latter option provides more flexibility, while JBPMHelper has a method to create a session, and uses a configuration file to configure this session.

15.4.2. Configuring persistence using JBPMHelper
Copy link

To configure persistence of your session using JBPMHelper, do the following:

  1. Define your application to use an appropriate JBPMHelper session constructor:

    • KieSession ksession = JBPMHelper.newKieSession(kbase);
    • KieSession ksession = JBPMHelper.loadKieSession(kbase, sessionId);

  2. Configure the persistence in the jBPM.properties file.

    Example 15.1. A sample jBPM.properties file with persistence for the in-memory H2 database

    # for creating a datasource
persistence.datasource.name=jdbc/jbpm-ds
persistence.datasource.user=sa
persistence.datasource.password=
persistence.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost/~/jbpm-db
persistence.datasource.driverClassName=org.h2.Driver

# for configuring persistence of the session
persistence.enabled=true
persistence.persistenceunit.name=org.jbpm.persistence.jpa
persistence.persistenceunit.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.H2Dialect

# for configuring the human task service
taskservice.enabled=true
taskservice.datasource.name=org.jbpm.task
taskservice.transport=mina
taskservice.usergroupcallback=org.jbpm.task.service.DefaultUserGroupCallbackImpl
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Any invocations on the session will now trigger the persistence process.

Make sure the datasource is up and running on engine start. If you are running the in-memory H2 database, you can start the database from your application using the JBPMHelper.startH2Server(); method call and register it with the engine using JBPMHelper.setupDataSource(); method call.

To create your knowledge session and configure its persistence using JPAKnowledgeService, do the following:

  1. Define your application to use the knowledge session created by JPAKnowledgeService:

    1. Define the session based on a knowledge base, a knowledge session configuration, and an environment. The environment must contain a reference to your Entity Manager Factory: 

      // create the entity manager factory and register it in the environment
EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory( "org.jbpm.persistence.jpa" );
Environment env = KnowledgeBaseFactory.newEnvironment();
env.set( EnvironmentName.ENTITY_MANAGER_FACTORY, emf );

// create a new knowledge session that uses JPA to store the runtime state
KieSession ksession = JPAKnowledgeService.newKieSession( kbase, null, env );
int sessionId = ksession.getId();

// invoke methods on your method here
ksession.startProcess( "MyProcess" );
ksession.dispose();
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    2. Define the session based on a specific session id. 

      // recreate the session from database using the sessionId
ksession = JPAKnowledgeService.loadKieSession(sessionId, kbase, null, env );
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Configure the persistence in the META-INF/persistence.xml file: configure JPA to use Hibernate and the respective database.

    Information on how to configure data source on your application server should be available in the documentation delivered with the application server. For this information for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, see the Administration and Configuration Guide for this product.

    Example 15.2. A sample persistence.xml file with persistence for an H2 data source jdbc/jbpm-ds

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<persistence
  version="1.0"
  xsi:schemaLocation=
    "http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm_1_0.xsd"
  xmlns:orm="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence">
  <persistence-unit name="org.jbpm.persistence.jpa" transaction-type="JTA">
    <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>
    <jta-data-source>jdbc/jbpm-ds</jta-data-source>
    <mapping-file>META-INF/JBPMorm.xml</mapping-file>
    <class>org.drools.persistence.info.SessionInfo</class>
    <class>org.jbpm.persistence.processinstance.ProcessInstanceInfo</class>
    <class>org.drools.persistence.info.WorkItemInfo</class>
    <properties>
      <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.H2Dialect"/>
      <property name="hibernate.max_fetch_depth" value="3"/>
      <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update"/>
      <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true"/>
      <property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
                value="org.hibernate.transaction.BTMTransactionManagerLookup"/>
    </properties>
  </persistence-unit>
</persistence>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Any invocations on the session will now trigger the persistence process.

Make sure the datasource is up and running on engine start. If you are running the in-memory H2 database, you can start the database from your application using the JBPMHelper.startH2Server(); method call and register it with the engine using JBPMHelper.setupDataSource(); method call.

Sample data source configuration for simple Java environment

If you are running JBoss BPM Suite in a simple Java environment, your data source configuration will be similar to the following: 

PoolingDataSource ds = new PoolingDataSource();
ds.setUniqueName("jdbc/jbpm-ds");
ds.setClassName("bitronix.tm.resource.jdbc.lrc.LrcXADataSource");
ds.setMaxPoolSize(3);
ds.setAllowLocalTransactions(true);
ds.getDriverProperties().put("user", "sa");
ds.getDriverProperties().put("password", "sasa");
ds.getDriverProperties().put("URL", "jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost/~/jbpm-db");
ds.getDriverProperties().put("driverClassName", "org.h2.Driver");
ds.init();
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Chapter 16. Transactions
Copy link

16.1. Transactions
Copy link

The Process Engine supports JTA transactions: local transactions are only supported when using Spring. Pure local transactions are not supported.

By default, each method invocation is considered a transaction. To change this behavior, for example, to combine multiple commands into one transaction, you will need to specify transaction boundaries.

16.2. Defining transactions
Copy link

To define a transaction, do the following:

  1. Register the transaction manager in your environment:

    Example 16.1. Code with transaction manager registration

    // create the entity manager factory
EntityManagerFactory emf = EntityManagerFactoryManager.get().getOrCreate("org.jbpm.persistence.jpa");
TransactionManager tm = TransactionManagerServices.getTransactionManager();
Environment env = EnvironmentFactory.newEnvironment();
env.set(EnvironmentName.ENTITY_MANAGER_FACTORY, emf);
env.set(EnvironmentName.TRANSACTION_MANAGER, tm);

// setup the runtime environment
RuntimeEnvironment environment = RuntimeEnvironmentBuilder.Factory.get()
.newDefaultBuilder()
.addAsset(ResourceFactory.newClassPathResource("MyProcessDefinition.bpmn2"), ResourceType.BPMN2)
    .addEnvironmentEntry(EnvironmentName.TRANSACTION_MANAGER, tm)
    .addEnvironmentEntry(EnvironmentName.PERSISTENCE_CONTEXT_MANAGER, new JpaProcessPersistenceContextManager(env))
    .addEnvironmentEntry(EnvironmentName.TASK_PERSISTENCE_CONTEXT_MANAGER, new JPATaskPersistenceContextManager(env))
    .get();
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Initialize the KieSession: 

    // get the KieSession
RuntimeManager manager = RuntimeManagerFactory.Factory.get().newPerProcessInstanceRuntimeManager(environment);
RuntimeEngine runtime = manager.getRuntimeEngine(ProcessInstanceIdContext.get());
KieSession ksession = runtime.getKieSession();
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Define the transaction manager in jndi.properties:

    Example 16.2. Definition of Bitronix transaction manager in jndi.properties

    java.naming.factory.initial=bitronix.tm.jndi.BitronixInitialContextFactory
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    Using another transaction manager

    To use a different JTA transaction manager, edit the hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class, the transaction manager property, in the persistence.xml file to load your transaction manager.

    For example, if choosing JBoss Transaction Manager: 

    <property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class" value="org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup"/>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  4. Define the start and the end of the transaction. 

    // start the transaction
UserTransaction ut = InitialContext.doLookup("java:comp/UserTransaction");
ut.begin();

// perform multiple commands inside one transaction
ksession.insert( new Person( "John Doe" ) );
ksession.startProcess("MyProcess");

// commit the transaction
ut.commit();
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

16.3. Container Managed Transactions
Copy link

In cases where JBoss BPM Suite is embedded inside an application that is in a container that can manage transactions by itself (Container Managed Transactions - CMT), a special dedicated transaction manager is provided using the org.jbpm.persistence.jta.ContainerManagerTransactionManager class. This is because the default implementation of the transaction manager in JBoss BPM Suite is based on the UserTransaction class getting the transaction status. However, some application servers in a CMT mode do not allow accessing the UserTransaction instance from JNDI.

Operations executed on this manager are all no-op because they cannot affect the underlying CMT. The ContainerManagedTransactionManager class expects that the transaction is always active (returning ACTIVE to the getStatus() method).

Note

Even though the container manages transactions, the container should be made aware of any exceptions that happen during process instance execution. Exceptions thrown by the engine should be propagated up to the container to properly rollback transactions.

Configuring the Transaction Manager

To configure and use the ContainerManagedTransactionManager, it needs to be inserted into the environment before you create or load a session: 

Environment env = EnvironmentFactory.newEnvironment();
env.set(EnvironmentName.ENTITY_MANAGER_FACTORY, emf);
env.set(EnvironmentName.TRANSACTION_MANAGER, new ContainerManagedTransactionManager());
env.set(EnvironmentName.PERSISTENCE_CONTEXT_MANAGER, new JpaProcessPersistenceContextManager(env));
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Next, setup the JPA Provider in your persistence.xml file. For example, if using IBM WebSphere: 

<property name="hibernate.transaction.factory_class" value="org.hibernate.transaction.CMTTransactionFactory"/>
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class" value="org.hibernate.transaction.WebSphereExtendedJTATransactionLookup"/>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Disposing the KSession in a CMT

In a CMT, you should not dispose the ksession directly (by using the dispose() method). Doing so will cause exceptions on transaction completion as the Process Engine needs to clean up the state after the invocation has finished.

Instead, use the specialized class org.jbpm.persistence.jta.ContainerManagedTransactionDisposeCommand's execute() method. Using this command ensures that the ksession will be disposed when the transaction is actually complete.

This method checks to see if the transaction is active. If it is, it delegates the actual disposal to the afterDisposal phase of the transaction instead of executing it directly. If there is no active transaction or if there is no active transaction, the ksession is disposed immediately.

Chapter 17. Logging
Copy link

The logging mechanism allows you to store information about the execution of a process instance. It is provided by a special event listener that listens to the Process Engine for any relevant events to be logged, so that the information can be stored separately from other non-log information stored either in the server built-in database (H2) or a connected data source using JPA or Hibernate.

The jbpm-audit module provides the event listener and also allows you to store process-related information directly in a database using JPA or Hibernate. The data of the following entities is stored as follows:

  • Process instance as processinstancelog
  • Element instance as nodeinstancelog
  • Variable instance as variableinstancelog
Expand
Table 17.1. Fields of the ProcessInstanceLog table
FieldDescriptionNullable

id

The primary key of the log entity

No

end_date

The end date of the process instance

Yes

processid

The name (id) of the underlying process

Yes

processinstanceid

The id of the process instance

No

start_date

The start date of the process instance

Yes

status

The status of the process instance

Yes

parentProcessInstanceId

The process instance id of the parent process instance if applicable

Yes

outcome

The outcome of the process instance (details on the process finish, such as error code)

Yes

Expand
Table 17.2. Fields of the NodeInstanceLog table
FieldDescriptionNullable

id

The primary key of the log entity

No

log_date

The date of the event

Yes

nodeid

The node id of the underlying Process Element

Yes

nodeinstanceid

The id of the node instance

Yes

nodename

The name of the underlying node

Yes

processid

The id of the underlying process

Yes

processinstanceid

The id of the parent process instance

No

type

The type of the event (0 = enter event, 1 = exit event)

No

Expand
Table 17.3. Fields of the VariableInstanceLog table
FieldDescriptionNullable

id

The primary key of the log entity

No

log_date

The date of the event

Yes

processid

The name (id) of the underlying process

Yes

processinstanceid

The id of the process instance

No

value

The value of the variable at log time

Yes

variableid

The variable id as defined in the process definition

Yes

variableinstanceid

The id of the variable instance

Yes

outcome

The outcome of the process instance (details on the process finish, such as error code)

Yes

If necessary, define your own data model of custom information and use the process event listeners to extract the information.

17.1. Logging events to database
Copy link

To log an event that occurs on runtime in a Process instance, an Element instance, or a variable instance, you need to do the following:

  1. Map the Log classes to the data source, so that the given data source accepts the log entries. On Red Hat JBoss EAP, edit the data source properties in the persistence.xml file.

    Example 17.1. The ProcessInstanceLog, NodeInstanceLog and VariableInstanceLog classes enabled for processInstanceDS

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<persistence  version="1.0"  xsi:schemaLocation=
    "http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm
     http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm_1_0.xsd"
  xmlns:orm="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence">

  <persistence-unit name="org.jbpm.persistence.jpa">
    <provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>
    <jta-data-source>jdbc/processInstanceDS</jta-data-source>
    <class>org.drools.persistence.info.SessionInfo</class>
    <class>org.jbpm.persistence.processinstance.ProcessInstanceInfo</class>
    <class>org.drools.persistence.info.WorkItemInfo</class>
    <class>org.jbpm.process.audit.ProcessInstanceLog</class>
    <class>org.jbpm.process.audit.NodeInstanceLog</class>
    <class>org.jbpm.process.audit.VariableInstanceLog</class>

    <properties>
      <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.H2Dialect"/>
      <property name="hibernate.max_fetch_depth" value="3"/>
      <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update"/>
      <property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true"/>
      <property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
                value="org.hibernate.transaction.BTMTransactionManagerLookup"/>
    </properties>
  </persistence-unit>
</persistence>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Register a logger on your Kie Session.

    Example 17.2. Import the Loggers

    import org.jbpm.process.audit.AuditLogService;
import org.jbpm.process.audit.AuditLoggerFactory;
import org.jbpm.process.audit.AuditLoggerFactory.Type;
import org.jbpm.process.audit.JPAAuditLogService;
...
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    Example 17.3. Registering a Logger to a Kie Session

    @PersistenceUnit(unitName = PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME)
  private EntityManagerFactory emf;

  private AuditLogService auditLogService;
@PostConstruct
  public void configure() {

  auditLogService = new JPAAuditLogService(emf);
  ((JPAAuditLogService) auditLogService).setPersistenceUnitName(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);

  if( emf == null ) {
  ((JPAAuditLogService) auditLogService).setPersistenceUnitName(PERSISTENCE_UNIT_NAME);
  }

  RuntimeEngine runtime = singletonManager.getRuntimeEngine(EmptyContext.get());
  KieSession ksession = runtime.getKieSession();
  AuditLoggerFactory.newInstance(Type.JPA, ksession, null);

  }
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Optionally, call the method addFilter on the logger to filter out irrelevant information. Only information accepted by all filters appears in the database.

  4. Logger classes can be viewed in the Audit View: 

    <dependency>
	<groupId>org.jbpm</groupId>
	<artifactId>jbpm-audit</artifactId>
	<version>6.0.1.Final</version>
</dependency>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

17.2. Logback Functionality
Copy link

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite provides logback functionality for logging configuration.

Accordingly, everything configured is logged to the Simple Logging Facade for Java SLF4J, which delegates any log to Logback, Apache Commons Logging, Log4j or java.util.logging. Add a dependency to the logging adaptor for your logging framework of choice. If you are not using any logging framework yet, you can use Logback by adding this Maven dependency: 

<dependency>
   <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
   <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
   <version>1.x</version>
</dependency>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

slf4j-nop and slf4j-simple are ideal for a light environment.

17.3. Configuring Logging
Copy link

To configure the logging level of the packages, create a logback.xml file in business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/logback.xml. To set the logging level of the org.drools package to "debug" for verbose logging, you would need to add the following line to the file: 

<configuration>
  <logger name="org.drools" level="debug"/>

  ...
<configuration>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Similarly, you can configure logging for packages such as the following:

  • org.guvnor
  • org.jbpm
  • org.kie
  • org.slf4j
  • org.dashbuilder
  • org.uberfire
  • org.errai
  • etc…​

If configuring with log4j, the log4j.xml can be located at business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.xml and can be configured in the following way: 

<log4j:configuration xmlns:log4j="http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/">

  <category name="org.drools">
    <priority value="debug" />
  </category>

  ...

</log4j:configuration>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

Additional logging can be configured in the individual container. To configure logging for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, please refer to the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Administration and Configuration Guide.

17.4. Managing log files
Copy link

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite manages most of the required maintenance. Automatically cleaned runtime data includes:

  • Process instances data, which is removed upon process instance completion.
  • Work items data, which is removed upon work item completion.
  • Task instances data, which is removed upon completion of a process to which given task belongs.

Runtime data, which may not be automatically cleaned, includes session information data. This depends on the selected runtime strategy:

  • Singleton strategy ensures that session information runtime data will not be automatically removed.
  • Per request strategy allows automatic removal when a given request terminates.
  • Per process instances will be automatically removed when process instance mapped to a given session completes or is aborted.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite does not remove executor request and error information.

In order not to lose track of process instances, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite offers audit data tables. These are used by default and keep track of the BPM Suite environment. JBoss BPM Suite offers two ways of how to manage and maintain the audit data tables:

  • Automatic clean-up
  • Manual clean-up

17.4.1. Automatic Clean-Up
Copy link

Automatic clean-up uses the LogCleanupCommand executor command, which consists of logic to clean up all or selected data automatically. An advantage of the automatic clean-up method is the ability to schedule repeated clean-ups by using reoccurring job feature of the JBoss BPM Suite executor. This means that when one job completes, it provides information to the JBoss BPM Suite executor if and when the next instance of this job should be executed. By default, LogCleanupCommand is executed once a day but can be reconfigured to run on different intervals.

There are several important configuration options that can be used with the LogCleanupCommand command:

Expand
Table 17.4. LogCleanupCommand parameters table
NameDescriptionIs Exclusive

SkipProcessLog

Indicates if the clean-up of process instances, node instances and variables log cleanup should be omitted (default: false)

No, can be used with other parameters

SkipTaskLog

Indicates if the task audit and the task event log clean-up should be omitted (default: false)

No, can be used with other parameters

SkipExecutorLog

Indicates if the JBoss BPM Suite executor entries clean-up should be omitted (default: false)

No, can be used with other parameters

SingleRun

Indicates if the job routine should run only once (default: false)

No, can be used with other parameters

NextRun

Sets a date for the next run.

For example, 12h is set for jobs to be executed every 12 hours. If the option is not given, the next job will run 24 hours after the completion of the current job

Yes, cannot be used when the OlderThanPeriod parameter is used

OlderThan

Causes logs older than the given date to be removed. The date format is YYYY-MM-DD. Usually, this parameter is used for single run jobs

Yes, cannot be used when the NextRun parameter is used

OlderThanPeriod

Causes logs older than the given timer expression should be removed. For example, set 30d to remove logs older than 30 day from current time

No, can be used with other parameters

ForProcess

Specifies process definition ID for which logs should be removed

No, can be used with other parameters

ForDeployment

Specifies deployment ID for which logs should be removed

No, can be used with other parameters

EmfName

Persistence unit name that shall be used to perform operation deletion

N/A

Note

LogCleanupCommand does not remove any active instances, such as running process instances, task instances, or executor jobs.

Warning

While all audit tables have a time stamp, some may be missing other parameters, such as process id, or deployment id. For that reason, it is recommended to use the date parameter when managing the clean-up job routine.

17.4.2. Setting up Automatic Clean-up Job
Copy link

To set up automatic clean-up job, do the following:

  1. Open Business Central in your web browser (if running locally http://localhost:8080/business-central) and log in as a user with the admin role.
  2. Go to Deploy → Jobs.
  3. Click 1441 in the top right hand corner of the page.

  4. Enter a name, due date and time. Enter the following into the Type text field: 

    org.jbpm.executor.commands.LogCleanupCommand
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  5. Click on Add Parameter if you wish to use parameters listed above. In the key section, enter a parameter name. In the value section, enter true or false, depending on the desired outcome.
  6. Click Create to finalize the job creation wizard. You have successfully created an automatic clean-up job.

17.4.3. Manual Clean-Up
Copy link

You may make use of audit API to do the clean-up manually with more control over parameters and thus more control over what will be removed. Audit API is divided into following areas:

  • Process audit, which is used to clean up process, node and variables logs, accessible in the jbpm-audit module
  • Task audit, which is used to clean up tasks and task events, accessible in the jbpm-human-task-audit module
  • Executor jobs, which is used to clean up executor jobs and errors, accessible in the jbpm-executor module

Modules are sorted hierarchically and can be accessed as follows:

  • org.jbpm.process.audit.JPAAuditLogService
  • org.jbpm.services.task.audit.service.TaskJPAAuditService
  • org.jbpm.executor.impl.jpa.ExecutorJPAAuditService

Several examples of manual clean-up follow:

Example 17.4. Removal of completed process instance logs

import org.jbpm.process.audit.JPAAuditLogService;
import org.kie.internal.runtime.manager.audit.query.ProcessInstanceLogDeleteBuilder;
import org.kie.api.runtime.process.ProcessInstance;

JPAAuditLogService auditService = new JPAAuditLogService(emf);
ProcessInstanceLogDeleteBuilder updateBuilder = auditService.processInstanceLogDelete().status(ProcessInstance.STATE_COMPLETED);
int result = updateBuilder.build().execute();
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Example 17.5. Task audit logs removal for the org.jbpm:HR:1.0 deployment

import org.jbpm.services.task.audit.service.TaskJPAAuditService;
import org.kie.internal.task.query.AuditTaskDeleteBuilder;

TaskJPAAuditService auditService = new TaskJPAAuditService(emf);
AuditTaskDeleteBuilder updateBuilder = auditService.auditTaskDelete().deploymentId("org.jbpm:HR:1.0");
int result = updateBuilder.build().execute();
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Example 17.6. Executor error and requests removal

import org.jbpm.executor.impl.jpa.ExecutorJPAAuditService;
import org.kie.internal.runtime.manager.audit.query.ErrorInfoDeleteBuilder;
import org.kie.internal.runtime.manager.audit.query.RequestInfoLogDeleteBuilder;

ExecutorJPAAuditService auditService = new ExecutorJPAAuditService(emf);
ErrorInfoDeleteBuilder updateBuilder = auditService.errorInfoLogDeleteBuilder().dateRangeEnd(new Date());
int result = updateBuilder.build().execute();

RequestInfoLogDeleteBuilder updateBuilder2 = auditService.requestInfoLogDeleteBuilder().dateRangeEnd(new Date());
result = updateBuilder.build().execute();
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

When removing executor entries, ensure that the error information is removed before the request information because of constraints setup on database.

Warning

Parts of the code utilize internal API. While this does not have any direct impact on the functionality of our product, internal API is subject to change and Red Hat cannot guarantee backward compatibility.

Chapter 18. Localization and Customization
Copy link

18.1. Available Languages
Copy link

The Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite web user interface can be viewed in multiple languages:

  • United States English (en_US)
  • Spanish (es_ES)
  • Japanese (ja_JP)
  • Simplified Chinese (zh_CN)
  • Traditional Chinese (zh_TW)
  • Portuguese (pt_BR)
  • French (fr_CA)
  • German (de_DE)
Note

If a language is not specified, US English is used by default.

Note

Dashbuilder does not support Traditional Chinese (zh_TW).

18.2. Changing Language Settings
Copy link

Changing the User Interface Language in Business Central

By default, Business Central uses the system locale. If you need to change it, then append the required locale code at the end of the Business Central URL. For example, the following URL will set the locale to Portuguese (pt_BR).

http://localhost:8080/business-central/?locale=pt_BR

Changing the User Interface Language in Dashbuilder

To change the user interface language in dashbuilder, do the following:

  1. Log into the dashbuilder after the server has been successfully started by navigating to http://localhost:8080/dashbuilder in a web browser.
  2. Select the language of your choice by clicking on the available locales on the top center of the dashbuilder user interface to change the language.
Setting a Default User Interface Language in Dashbuilder

Following is an example to set the default user interface language in dashbuilder:

Procedure: Setting the Default Language as French

  1. Navigate to jboss-eap-6.4/standalone/configuration and define the following in the standalone.xml file. 

    <system-properties>
  <property name="org.jboss.dashboard.LocaleManager.installedLocaleIds" value="en,es,de,fr,ja,pt,zh"/>
  <property name="org.jboss.dashboard.LocaleManager.defaultLocaleId" value="fr"/>
</system-properties>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  2. The default user interface language of the dashbuilder is now set to French.
Defining the Installed Locales in Dashbuilder

Following is an example to define the installed locales in dashbuilder:

Procedure: Defining the Installed Locale

  1. Navigate to jboss-eap-6.4/standalone/configuration and define the following in the standalone.xml file: 

    <system-properties>
  <property name="org.jboss.dashboard.LocaleManager.installedLocaleIds" value="en,es,de,fr,ja,pt"/>
   <property name="org.jboss.dashboard.LocaleManager.defaultLocaleId" value="fr"/>
</system-properties>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

In this example, the Chinese language (zh) has been removed from the list of installed locales so users will not be able to switch the dashbuilder to Chinese. Dashbuilder will show content in French, which is the default locale. Users will be able to select other languages that are defined (en, es, de, ja, pt) in this file.

Note

Within Business Central, the application server does not need to be restarted after changing locale if you append the "locale" parameter to the URL of Business Central. However, with Dashbuilder, the application server should be restarted after the configuration files have been changed.

18.3. Running the JVM with UTF-8 Encoding
Copy link

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite is designed to work with UTF-8 encoding. If a different encoding system is being used by the JVM, unexpected errors might occur.

To ensure UTF-8 is used by the JVM, use the JVM option -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8.

Part IV. Execution
Copy link

19.1. Assignment Rules
Copy link

Assignment rules are rules executed automatically when a Human Task is created or completed. This mechanism can be used, for example, to assign a Human Task automatically to a particular user of a group or prevent a user from completing a Task if data is missing.

19.1.1. Defining Assignment Rules
Copy link

To define assignment rules, do the following:

  1. Create a file that will contain the rule definition on the Business Central classpath (the recommended location is DEPLOY_DIR/standalone/deployments/business-central.war/WEB-INF/classes/):

    • default-add-task.drl with the rules to be checked when the Human Task is created
    • default-complete-task.drl with the rules to be checked when the Human Task is completed
  2. Define the rules in the file.

Example 19.1. The default-add-task.drl Content

package defaultPackage

import org.kie.api.task.model.Task;
import org.kie.api.task.model.User;
import org.kie.api.task.model.Status;
import org.kie.api.task.model.PeopleAssignments;
import org.jbpm.services.task.rule.TaskServiceRequest;
import org.jbpm.services.task.exception.PermissionDeniedException;
import org.jbpm.services.task.impl.model.*;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;


global TaskServiceRequest request;

rule "Don't allow Mary to complete task when rejected"
    when
        $task : Task()
        $actualOwner : User( id == 'mary') from $task.getTaskData().getActualOwner()
        $params : HashMap(this["approved"] == false)
    then
        request.setAllowed(false);
        request.setExceptionClass(PermissionDeniedException.class);
        request.addReason("Mary is not allowed to complete task with approved false");
end
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

If the potential owners of a Human Task will contain the user Mary, the task will be automatically assigned to the user mary.

Example 19.2. The default-complete-task.drl Content

package defaultPackage

import org.kie.api.task.model.Task;
import org.kie.api.task.model.User;
import org.kie.api.task.model.Status;
import org.kie.api.task.model.PeopleAssignments;
import org.jbpm.services.task.rule.TaskServiceRequest;
import org.jbpm.services.task.exception.PermissionDeniedException;
import org.jbpm.services.task.impl.model.*;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;


global TaskServiceRequest request;

rule "Don't allow Mary to complete task when rejected"
    when
        $task : Task()
        $actualOwner : User( id == 'mary') from $task.getTaskData().getActualOwner()
        $params : HashMap(this["approved"] == false)
    then
        request.setAllowed(false);
        request.setExceptionClass(PermissionDeniedException.class);
        request.addReason("Mary is not allowed to complete task without approval.");
end
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

If the potential owners of a Human Task will contain the user Mary, the task will be automatically assigned to the user mary.

19.2. Mail Session
Copy link

Mail session defines the mail server properties that are used for sending emails if required by the application, such as, escalation or notification mechanisms (refer to the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite User Guide).

19.2.1. Setting up Mail Session
Copy link

To set up the mail session for your execution engine, do the following:

  1. Open the respective profile configuration file (standalone.xml or host.xml) for editing.

  2. Add the mail session to the urn:jboss:domain:mail:1.1 subsystem.

    Example 19.3. New Mail Session on localhost

    <subsystem xmlns="urn:jboss:domain:mail:1.1">
  <!-- omitted code -->

  <mail-session jndi-name="mail/jbpmMailSession" debug="true" from="bpms@company.com">
    <smtp-server outbound-socket-binding-ref="bpmsMail"/>
  </mail-session>
</subsystem>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  3. Define the session outbound socket in the profile configuration file.

    Example 19.4. Outbound Socket Definition

    <outbound-socket-binding name="bpmsMail">
  <remote-destination host="localhost" port="12345"/>
</outbound-socket-binding>
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Part V. Monitoring
Copy link

Chapter 20. Process monitoring
Copy link

20.1. JBoss Operations Network
Copy link

A JBoss Operations Network plug-in can be used to monitor rules sessions for Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

Due to a limitation of passing the JVM monitoring arguments via the Maven command line, all com.sun.management.jmxremote.* parameters must be passed to the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite application via the pom.xml configuration file.

Please refer to the JBoss Operations NetworkInstallation Guide for installation instructions for the JBoss ON server.

Red Hat JBoss BRMS plug-in for JBoss Operations Network can be installed by either copying the plug-in JAR files to the JBoss Operations Network plug-in directory or through the JBoss Operations Network GUI.

The following procedure guides the user to copy the plug-in JAR files to the JBoss Operations Network plug-in directory:

Procedure: Copying the JBoss BRMS plug-in JAR files

  1. Extract the JBoss BRMS plug-in pack archive to a temporary location. This creates a subdirectory with the name jon-plugin-pack-brms-bpms-3.3.0.GA. For example: 

    [root@server rhq-agent]# unzip jon-plugin-pack-brms-bpms-3.3.0.GA.zip -d /tmp
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  2. Copy the extracted JBoss BRMS plug-in JAR files from the jon-plugin-pack-brms-bpms-3.2.0.GA/ directory to the JBoss ON server plug-in directory. For example: 

    [root@server rhq-agent]# cp /tmp/jon-plugin-pack-brms-bpms-3.3.0.GA/*.jar /opt/jon/jon-server-3.3.0.GA1/plugins
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  3. Start the JBoss Operations Network server to update the JBoss BRMS plug-in.

To upload the JBoss BRMS plug-in through the JBoss Operations Network GUI, follow this procedure:

Procedure: Uploading the JBoss BRMS plug-in through GUI

  1. Start the JBoss Operations Network Server and Log in to access the GUI.
  2. In the top navigation of the GUI, open the Administration menu.
  3. In the Configuration area on the left, select the Server Plugins link.
  4. At the bottom of the list of loaded server plug-ins, click the Upload a plugin button and choose the BRMS plugin.
  5. The JBoss BRMS plug-in for JBoss Operations Network is now uploaded.

20.3. Monitoring Kie Bases and Kie Sessions
Copy link

In order for JBoss Operations Network to monitor KieBases and KieSessions, MBeans must be enabled.

MBeans can be enabled either by passing the parameter: -kie.mbeans = enabled or via the API: 

KieBaseConfiguration kbconf = KieServices.Factory.get().newKieBaseConfiguration();
kbconf.setOption(MBeansOption.ENABLED);
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Note

Kie Services have been implemented for JBoss BRMS 6; for JBoss BRMS 5, Drools Services was the naming convention used and it had different measurements on sessions. For example, activation → match renaming occurred in the updated version.

Please refer to the JBoss Operations Network Resource Monitoring and Operations Reference guide for information on importing Kie Sessions into the Inventory View for monitoring purposes.

Dashbuilder is the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite web-based user interface for Business Activity Monitoring. To access the Dashbuilder from Business Central, go to Dashboards → Process & Task Dashboards.

The displayed dashboard provides statistics on runtime data selected on the left. You can create your own dashboard in the Dashbuilder. To do so, display the Dashbuilder by clicking Dashboards → Business Dashboards.

21.2. Managing security
Copy link

To manage security, you can define custom authorization policies to grant or deny access to workspace, page, or panel instances per role.

Defined below is a list of the available roles for Dashbuilder:

  • admin: Administrates the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite system. Has full access rights to make any changes necessary. Also has the ability to add and remove users from the system.
  • developer: Implements code required for process to work. Mostly uses the JBDS connection to view processes, but may use the web tool occasionally.:
  • analyst: Responsible for creating and designing processes into the system. Creates process flows and handles process change requests. Needs to test processes that they create. Also creates forms and dashboards.
  • user: Daily user of the system to take actions on business tasks that are required for the processes to continue forward. Works primarily with the task lists.
  • manager: Viewer of the system that is interested in statistics around the business processes and their performance, business indicators, and other reporting of the system and people who interact with the system.

Thanks to the permissions system, you can build a workspace structure with several pages, menus, and panels and define what pages and panels within a page will be visible for each role. You can also define special types of users and give them restricted access to certain tooling features, or even restricted access to a page subset.

21.3. Workspace permissions
Copy link

Procedure: Accessing Workspace Permissions

  1. Log into Business Dashboards from Business Central (as described in the Accessing Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Dashbuilder topic).

  2. Select the appropriate Dashboard from the Wokspace drop-down:

    Figure 21.1. Dashbuilder Workspace

    Dashbuilder Workspace for BPMS 6.0.2
    View larger image
    Dashbuilder Workspace for BPMS 6.0.2
  3. Click the Edit selected workspace properties button to access the Workspace Dashboard.

  4. Click the Permissions label to view the permission management screen.

    Figure 21.2. Permissions Screen

    Permission Management Screen for BPMS 6.0.2
    View larger image
    Permission Management Screen for BPMS 6.0.2

Under the Permissions section is a list of allowed actions that are applied to the selected role:

  • Access: Permission to login into the application.
  • Administrate: Permission to access the toolbar and system configuration features.
  • Create pages: Ability to create new project pages.
  • Edit: Permission to change the workspace properties.
  • Clear: Ability to delete the workspace.
  • Edit permissions: Ability to grant/deny permissions.
  • Change allowed panels: Permission to restrict the type of panels that can be used in this workspace.

To assign a permission, you must select the target role and the list of actions allowed over the selected resource:

Figure 21.3. Permissions assignment

Permissions assignment image for BPMS 6.0.2
View larger image
Permissions assignment image for BPMS 6.0.2
  • Target roles (who): What user will be granted/denied with the permissions defined.
  • Allowed actions: Depending on the type of the resource we can enable/disable what the user can do on this resource.
  • Reverse (optional): When we have a set of roles and we want to grant/deny a permission to all the roles but one.
Note

By default, the full set of permissions go to the role admin. This makes it easy to create a user that can do everything as long as the role admin is assigned.

21.4. Page permissions
Copy link

  1. To access Page permissions, locate the Pages drop-down under the jBPM Dashboard (or whatever Dashboard you selected).
  2. After expanding Pages, expand the Process dashboard option.
  3. Select the Page permissions option.

Figure 21.4. Page Permissions

Permission management screen for BPMS 6.0.2
View larger image
Permission management screen for BPMS 6.0.2

Under the Permissions section is a list of allowed actions that are applied to the selected role:

  • Visualize: Permission to make the page visible.
  • Edit: Ability to change the page properties.
  • Clear: Ability to delete the page.
  • Edit permissions: Ability to grant/deny permissions for the page.

21.5. Panel permissions
Copy link

  1. To access the Panel permissions page, expand the Panel instances option under the jBPM Dashboard (or whatever Dashboard you are using).
  2. Expand the Dashboard option and then expand the Process dashboard.
  3. Expand the Panels choice and select the appropriate process.
  4. Open the Panel permissions page.

Below is a screenshot of the permission management screen for a given panel (in this example, the Process dashboard):

Figure 21.5. Panel permissions configuration screen

Panel permissions for Dashbuilder in BPMS 6.0.2
View larger image
Panel permissions for Dashbuilder in BPMS 6.0.2

Allowed actions are the following:

  • Visualize: Make the panel visible.
  • Edit: Change the panel properties.
  • Edit permissions: Ability to grant/deny permissions for the panel.

Appendix A. Configuration Properties
Copy link

This chapter contains all public system properties and KIE environment entries that you can use to configure your deployment of Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite.

A.1. System Properties
Copy link

System properties configure the entire JVM Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite runs on. You can either provide them at runtime, or set them in the configuration XML file for your deployment.

A.1.1. Runtime Configuration
Copy link

To set a particular property at runtime, add a flag -D with the property’s name and value when starting the server. You can list multiple such properties at the same time.

Configuring System Properties at Runtime (Standalone deployments)

  1. Navigate to SERVER_HOME/bin.

  2. Run the server with the desired flags: 

    ./standalone.sh -Dorg.kie.custom.property=value -Dorg.uberfire.switch=false
    Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
    Note

    On Windows, run standalone.bat instead of standalone.sh.

A.1.2. XML Configuration
Copy link

To set a property in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite configuration, add an entry under the <system-properties> section in the standalone.xml file: 

<system-properties>
  <property name="org.kie.custom.property" value="random_value"/>
  <property name="org.uberfire.switch" value="false"/>
  ...
</system-properties>
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

When running Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite in domain mode, add the entries in the <system-properties> element of the appropriate node in the host.xml file.

A.1.3. List of System Properties
Copy link

This section contains the alphabetically sorted list of all recognized system properties in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.3.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite System Properties

btm.root

Root directory for Bitronix Transaction Manager. The discovery of configuration and other files starts in this location.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

drools.propertySpecific

Sets property reactivity behavior of the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite engine. Options are following:

  • DISABLED: Property reactivity turned off.
  • ALLOWED: Property reactivity allowed.
  • ALWAYS: Property reactivity always on.
Expand
ValuesDefault

DISABLED, ALLOWED, or ALWAYS

ALLOWED

drools.ruleEngine

Specifies which algorithm the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite rule engine should use.

Expand
ValuesDefault

phreak or reteoo

phreak

drools.sequential

Enables sequential mode for stateless sessions.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

drools.sequential.agenda

Selects static or dynamic agenda with sequential mode.

Expand
ValuesDefault

static or dynamic

static for standard mode, dynamic for sequential mode

jboss.node.name

A node name unique in a Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite cluster.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

jbpm.audit.jms.connection.factory

A link to a JMS connection factory instance.

Expand
ValuesDefault

A javax.jms.ConnectionFactory instance

N/A

jbpm.audit.jms.connection.factory.jndi

The JNDI name of the connection factory to look up.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

jbpm.audit.jms.enabled

Indicates if audit mode is set to JMS.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true if Audit mode is set to JMS, otherwise false

N/A

jbpm.audit.jms.queue

A JMS Queue instance to be used when creating JMS AuditLogger.

Expand
ValuesDefault

A javax.jms.Queue instance

N/A

jbpm.audit.jms.queue.jndi

The JNDI name of the JMS queue to look up.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

jbpm.audit.jms.transacted

Determines if the JMS session is transacted.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

jbpm.business.calendar.properties

The location of the configuration file with Business Calendar properties.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

/jbpm.business.calendar.properties

jbpm.data.dir

The location where data files produced by Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite must be stored.

Expand
ValuesDefault

${jboss.server.data.dir} if available, otherwise ${java.io.tmpdir}

${java.io.tmpdir}

jbpm.enable.multi.con

Allows Web Designer to use multiple incoming or outgoing connections for tasks. If not enabled, the tasks are marked as invalid.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

jbpm.loop.level.disabled

Enables or disables loop iteration tracking to allow advanced loop support when using XOR gateways.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

jbpm.overdue.timer.delay

Specifies the delay for overdue timers to allow proper initialization, in milliseconds.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Long)

2000

jbpm.process.name.comparator

An alternative comparator class to empower the Start Process by Name feature.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Fully qualified name

org.jbpm.process.instance.StartProcessHelper.NumberVersionComparator

jbpm.tm.jndi.lookup

Allows setting a specific TransactionManager JNDI lookup name as a fallback in case a standard JNDI name is not used. If java:comp/UserTransaction does not implement the org.drools.persistence.TransactionManager interface, these names are used, in this order:

  1. java:comp/TransactionManager
  2. java:appserver/TransactionManager
  3. java:pm/TransactionManager
  4. java:TransactionManager
  5. Value of this property
Expand
ValuesDefault

JNDI name

N/A

jbpm.usergroup.callback.properties

The location of the usegroup callback property file when org.jbpm.ht.callback is set to jaas or db.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

classpath:/jbpm.usergroup.callback.properties

jbpm.user.group.mapping

An alternative classpath location of user info configuration (used by LDAPUserInfoImpl).

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

${jboss.server.config.dir}/roles.properties

jbpm.user.info.properties

An alternative classpath location for user group callback implementation (LDAP, DB). For more information, see org.jbpm.ht.userinfo.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

classpath:/userinfo.properties

jbpm.ut.jndi.lookup

An alternative JNDI name to be used when there is no access to the default one for user transactions (java:comp/UserTransaction).

Expand
ValuesDefault

JNDI name

N/A

jbpm.v5.id.strategy

When enabled, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite will use the process ID generation strategy from version 5 when migrating to version 6 and newer.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

kie.maven.settings.custom

The location of a custom settings.xml file for Maven configuration.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

N/A

kie.server.jms.queues.response

The JNDI name of response queue for JMS.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

queue/KIE.SERVER.RESPONSE

org.drools.server.ext.disabled

When set to true, disables the BRM support (for example rules support).

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.drools.server.filter.classes

When set to true, the Drools Intelligent Process Server extension accepts custom classes annotated by XmlRootElement or Remotable annotations only.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.guvnor.m2repo.dir

The location where Maven artifacts are stored. When you build and deploy a project, it is stored in this directory. Change the setting, for example, to allow easier backup of your maven repository.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

EAP_HOME/repositories/kie

org.guvnor.project.gav.check.disabled

Disables a duplicate GroupId, ArtifactId, and Version (GAV) detection. When you build and deploy a project, Business Central scans the Maven repository for an artifact with the same GAV values. If set to true, Business Central silently overrides any previous project. If set to false, the user is required to confirm overriding the old project.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.jbpm.deploy.sync.enabled

When enabled, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite synchronizes KJAR deployments across Business Central nodes in a cluster, and automatically loads previous deployments.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

org.jbpm.deploy.sync.int

Interval of KJAR deployment synchronization, in seconds.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Integer)

3

org.jbpm.ht.callback

Specifies the implementation of user group callback to be used:

  • mvel: Default; mostly used for testing.
  • ldap: LDAP; requires additional configuration in the jbpm.usergroup.callback.properties file.
  • db: Database; requires additional configuration in the jbpm.usergroup.callback.properties file.
  • jaas: JAAS; delegates to the container to fetch information about user data.
  • props: A simple property file; requires additional file that will keep all information (users and groups).
  • custom: A custom implementation; you must specify the fully qualified name of the class in the org.jbpm.ht.custom.callback.
Expand
ValuesDefault

mvel, ldap, db, jaas, props, or custom

mvel

org.jbpm.ht.custom.callback

A custom implementation of the UserGroupCallback interface in case the org.jbpm.ht.callback property is set to custom.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Fully qualified name

N/A

org.jbpm.ht.custom.userinfo

A custom implementation of the UserInfo interface in case the org.jbpm.ht.userinfo property is set to custom.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Fully qualified name

N/A

org.jbpm.ht.userinfo

Specifies what implementation of the UserInfo interface to use for user or group information providers.

  • ldap: LDAP; needs to be configured in the file specified in jbpm-user.info.properties.
  • db: Database; needs to be configured in the file specified in jbpm-user.info.properties.
  • props: A simple property file; set the property jbpm.user.info.properties to specify the path to the file.
  • custom: A custom implementation; you must specify the fully qualified name of the class in the org.jbpm.ht.custom.userinfo property.
Expand
ValuesDefault

ldap, db, props, or custom

N/A

org.jbpm.ht.user.separator

An alternative separator when loading actors and groups for user tasks from a String.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

, (comma)

org.jbpm.rule.task.waitstate

When set to false, a business rule task automatically fires off all rules instead of waiting to be triggered from the outside. This prevents errors during heavy multithreaded usage.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

org.jbpm.runtime.manager.class

A custom implementation of the org.kie.api.runtime.manager.RuntimeManagerFactory interface.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Fully qualified name

org.jbpm.runtime.manager.impl.RuntimeManagerFactoryImpl

org.jbpm.server.ext.disabled

When set to true, disables the BPM support (for example, processes support).

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.jbpm.ui.server.ext.disabled

When set to true, disables the Intelligent Process Server UI extension.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.auto.deploy.enabled

When enabled, issuing a Build & Deploy operation in Business Central always deploys to runtime.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

org.kie.build.disable-project-explorer

Disables automatic build of the selected project in Project Explorer.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.dd.mergemode

Selects the method for overriding hierarchical merge mode behavior when managing deployment descriptors.

Expand
ValuesDefault

MERGE_COLLECTIONS, KEEP_ALL, OVERRIDE_ALL, or OVERRIDE_EMPTY

MERGE_COLLECTIONS

org.kie.demo

Enables external cloning of a demo application from GitHub. This System Property takes precedence over org.kie.example.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

org.kie.example

When set to true, creates an example organization unit and repository. This system property allows you to create projects and assets without creating your custom organization unit and repository. It is useful, for example, to simplify the getting started experience.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.example.repositories

Sets the path to the directory containing example repositories. If you set this system property, repositories in the specified directory are automatically cloned into Business Central during startup. This property overrides org.kie.example and org.kie.demo.

Warning

You must download the example repositories from the Customer Portal and extract them to this directory before setting this system property.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

N/A

org.kie.executor.disabled

Disables the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite executor.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.executor.initial.delay

The initial delay before the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite executor starts a job, in milliseconds.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Integer)

100

org.kie.executor.interval

The time between the moment the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite executor finishes a job and the moment it starts a new one, in a time unit specified in org.kie.executor.timeunit.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Integer)

3

org.kie.executor.pool.size

The number of threads used by the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite executor.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Integer)

1

org.kie.executor.retry.count

The number of retries the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite executor attempts on a failed job.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Integer)

3

org.kie.executor.timeunit

The time unit in which the org.kie.executor.interval is specified.

Expand
ValuesDefault

A java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit constant

SECONDS

org.kie.git.deployments.enabled

When enabled, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite uses a Git repository for storing deployments instead of a database.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.mail.debug

When enabled, EmailWorkItemHandler produces debug logging for javax.mail.Session.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.mail.session

The JNDI name of the mail session as registered in the application server, for use by EmailWorkItemHandler.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

mail/jbpmMailSession

org.kie.override.deploy.enabled

Allows overwriting deployments with the same GAV (not allowed by default).

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.server.bypass.auth.user

Allows to bypass the authenticated user for task-related operations, for example queries.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.server.controller

A comma-separated list of URLs to controller REST endpoints, for example http://localhost:8080/business-central/rest/controller. This property is required when using a controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Comma-separated list

N/A

org.kie.server.controller.connect

The waiting time between repeated attempts to connect Intelligent Process Server to the controller when Intelligent Process Server starts up, in milliseconds.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Number (Long)

10000

org.kie.server.controller.pwd

The password to connect to the controller REST API. This property is required when using a controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

kieserver1!

org.kie.server.controller.token

This property allows you to use a token-based authentication between the KIE server and the controller instead of the basic user name/password authentication. The KIE server sends the token as a parameter in the request header. Note that long-lived access tokens are required as the tokens are not refreshed.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.controller.user

The user name to connect to the controller REST API. This property is required when using a controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

kieserver

org.kie.server.domain

The JAAS LoginContext domain used to authenticate users when using JMS.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.id

An arbitrary ID to be assigned to this server. If a remote controller is configured, this is the ID under which the server will connect to the controller to fetch the KIE container configurations. If not provided, the ID is automatically generated.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.location

The URL of the Intelligent Process Server instance used by the controller to call back on this server, for example: http://localhost:8230/kie-server/services/rest/server. This property is required when using a controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

URL

N/A

org.kie.server.persistence.dialect

The Hibernate dialect to be used. You must set this property when enabling BPM support.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.persistence.ds

A data source JNDI name. You must set this property when enabling BPM support.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.persistence.schema

The database schema to be used.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.persistence.tm

A transaction manager platform for Hibernate properties set. You must set this property when enabling BPM support.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.pwd

The password used to connect with the KIE server from the controller, required when running in managed mode. You must set this property in Business Central system properties, and it is required when using a controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

kieserver1!

org.kie.server.repo

The location where Intelligent Process Server state files will be stored.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

.

org.kie.server.sync.deploy

Instructs the KIE server to hold the deployment until the controller provides the containers deployment configuration. This property affects only the KIE servers running in managed mode. The options are as follows:

  • false; the connection to the controller is asynchronous. The application starts, connects to the controller and once successful, deploys the containers. The application accepts requests even before the containers are available.

  • true; the deployment of the KIE server application joins the controller connection thread with the main deployment and awaits its completion.

    This option can lead to a potential deadlock in case more applications are on the same server instance. It is strongly recommended to use only one application (the KIE server) on one server instance.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.server.token

This property allows you to use a token-based authentication between the controller and the KIE server instead of the basic user name/password authentication. The controller sends the token as a parameter in the request header. Note that long-lived access tokens are required as the tokens are not refreshed.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.kie.server.user

The user name used to connect with the KIE server from the controller, required when running in managed mode. This property need to be set in Business Central system properties and is required when using a controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

kieserver

org.kie.task.insecure

Allows an authenticated user to work on tasks on behalf of other users through the Business Central runtime remote API.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.timer.ejb.disabled

If you select the Singleton runtime strategy and use the EJB executor of your application server to handle timer events, a race condition may occur since the EJB executor completes a transaction outside the KieSession. Set this property to true to use the EJB executor bundled with Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite, which prevents this situation from happening.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.tx.lock.enabled

When enabled, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite uses an interceptor that locks the KieSession to a single thread for the duration of a transaction, which prevents concurrency errors in Container Managed Transaction (CMT) environments.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.kie.verification.disable-dtable-realtime-verification

Disables Business Central’s decision table verification and validation feature.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.optaplanner.server.ext.disabled

When set to true, disables the BRP support (for example planner support).

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.quartz.properties

The location of the Quartz configuration file to activate the Quartz timer service.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

N/A

org.uberfire.cluster.autostart

Delays VFS clustering until the application is fully initialized to avoid conflicts when all cluster members create local clones.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

org.uberfire.cluster.id

The name of the Helix cluster, for example: kie-cluster. You must set this property to the same value as defined in the Helix Controller.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.uberfire.cluster.local.id

The unique ID of the Helix cluster node. Note that ':' is replaced with '_', for example node1_12345.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.uberfire.cluster.vfs.lock

The name of the resource defined on the Helix cluster, for example: kie-vfs.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.uberfire.cluster.zk

The location of the Zookeeper servers.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String of the form host1:port1,host2:port2,host3:port3,…​

N/A

org.uberfire.domain

The security domain name for Business Central. For more information about security domains, see chapter Use a Security Domain in Your Application of the Red Hat JBoss EAP Security Guide.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

ApplicationRealm

org.uberfire.metadata.index.dir

The location of the .index directory, which Apache Lucene uses when indexing and searching.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

Current working directory

org.uberfire.nio.git.daemon.enabled

Enables the Git daemon.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

org.uberfire.nio.git.daemon.host

If the Git daemon is enabled, it uses this property as the localhost identifier.

Expand
ValuesDefault

URL

localhost

org.uberfire.nio.git.daemon.hostport

When running in a virtualized environment, the host’s outside port number for the Git daemon.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Port number

9418

org.uberfire.nio.git.daemon.port

If the Git daemon is enabled, it uses this property as the port number.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Port number

9418

org.uberfire.nio.git.dir

The location of the directory .niogit. Change the value for example for backup purposes.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

Current working directory

org.uberfire.nio.git.hooks

The location where default Git hook files are stored. These files will be copied to newly created Git repositories.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

N/A

org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.cert.dir

The location of the directory .security. Local certificates are stored here.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Path

Current working directory

org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.enabled

Enables the SSH daemon.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

true

org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.host

If the SSH daemon is enabled, it uses this property as the localhost identifier.

Expand
ValuesDefault

URL

localhost

org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.hostport

When running in a virtualized environment, the host’s outside port number for the SSH daemon.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Port number

8003

org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.passphrase

The passphrase to access your operating system’s public keystore when cloning Git repositories with scp-style URLs, for example git@github.com:user/repository.git.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

N/A

org.uberfire.nio.git.ssh.port

If the SSH daemon is enabled, it uses this property as the port number.

Expand
ValuesDefault

Port number

8001

org.uberfire.secure.alg

The crypto algorithm used by password encryption.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

PBEWithMD5AndDES

org.uberfire.secure.key

A secret password used by password encryption.

Expand
ValuesDefault

String

org.uberfire.admin

org.uberfire.sys.repo.monitor.disabled

Disables the configuration monitor.

Warning

Do not use unless you are certain what you are doing.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

A.2. Environment Properties
Copy link

As opposed to system properties, environment properties are passed to an individual KieSession, allowing you to control its behaviour independently on the rest of the deployment.

The properties available to you are the constants of the class org.kie.api.runtime.EnvironmentName.

A.2.1. Configuration
Copy link

To set the environment properties on a KieSession, you can create a new session with an instance of the Environment or RuntimeEnvironment interface:

Setting Environment Property using Environment interface

Environment env = EnvironmentFactory.newEnvironment();
env.set(EnvironmentName.SAMPLE_PROPERTY, true);
kbase.newKieSession(null, env);
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Setting Environment Property using RuntimeEnvironment interface

RuntimeEnvironment environment = RuntimeEnvironmentBuilder.Factory.get()
.newDefaultBuilder()
....

environment.getEnvironment().set(EnvironmentName.SAMPLE_PROPERTY, true);
singletonManager = RuntimeManagerFactory.Factory.get().newSingletonRuntimeManager(environment);
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

A.2.2. List of Environment Properties
Copy link

This section contains the alphabetically sorted list of all recognized environment properties in Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite 6.3.

Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite Environment Properties

APP_SCOPED_ENTITY_MANAGER

The entity manager used for persistence of SessionInfo. You can specify it when using Spring with local transactions and a shared entity manager.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of EntityManager

Automatically created from the provided EntityManagerFactory

CALENDARS
This property is not used.
CMD_SCOPED_ENTITY_MANAGER

The entity manager used for persistence of entities (process instances, tasks, work items). You can specify it when using Spring with local transactions and a shared entity manager.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of EntityManager

Automatically created from the provided EntityManagerFactory

DATE_FORMATS
This property is not used.
ENTITY_MANAGER_FACTORY

The EntityManagerFactory used in the Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite engine.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of EntityManagerFactory

N/A

GLOBALS
Expand
ValuesDefault

Any object declared in DRL or BPMN

N/A

OBJECT_MARSHALLING_STRATEGIES

Enable use of pluggable variable persistence strategies. Allows storing variables in different data stores.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of org.kie.api.marshalling.ObjectMarshallingStrategy

Dependent on the engine configuration. If no other strategy is available, org.drools.core.marshalling.impl.SerializablePlaceholderResolvingStrategy is used.

PERSISTENCE_CONTEXT_MANAGER

The ProcessPersistenceContextManager instance used for process persistence.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of org.jbpm.persistence.ProcessPersistenceContextManager

An instance of org.jbpm.persistence.JpaProcessPersistenceContextManager

TASK_PERSISTENCE_CONTEXT_MANAGER

The TaskPersistenceContextManager instance used for task persistence.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of org.kie.internal.task.api.TaskPersistenceContextManager

An instance of org.jbpm.services.task.persistence.JPATaskPersistenceContextManager

TASK_USER_GROUP_CALLBACK

Get the UserGroupCallback instance from the environment or context. For example: 

callback = context.get(EnvironmentName.TASK_USER_GROUP_CALLBACK)
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Expand
ValuesDefault

Configured by Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite

An instance of org.kie.internal.task.api.UserGroupCallback

TASK_USER_INFO

Get the UserInfo instance from the environment or context. For example: 

info = context.get(EnvironmentName.TASK_USER_INFO)
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Expand
ValuesDefault

Configured by Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite

An instance of org.kie.internal.task.api.UserInfo

TRANSACTION

Optional property if UserTransaction can not be obtained using JNDI lookup.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of UserTransaction

null

TRANSACTION_MANAGER

Get the TransactionManager instance from the environment or context. For example: 

info = context.get(EnvironmentName.TRANSACTION_MANAGER)
Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of TransactionManager

Depends on your configuration

TRANSACTION_SYNCHRONIZATION_REGISTRY

Allows access to and control of the active transaction. Used by Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite to efficiently manage persistence.

Expand
ValuesDefault

An instance of TransactionSynchronizationRegistry

Taken from the environment—​usually JNDI lookup in JTA environments

USE_LOCAL_TRANSACTIONS

When enabled, Red Hat JBoss BPM Suite uses local transactions as opposed to JTA.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

USE_PESSIMISTIC_LOCKING

When enabled, a database resource can only be accessed by one transaction at a time.

Expand
ValuesDefault

true or false

false

Appendix B. Revision History
Copy link

Note that revision numbers relate to the edition of this manual, not to version numbers of Red Hat JBoss BRMSBPM Suite.

Revision History
Revision 6.3.0-17Mon Mar 20 2017Tomas Radej
Rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-16Wed Feb 22 2017Tomas Radej
Rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-15Fri Dec 23 2016Tomas Radej
Rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-14Mon Nov 28 2016Tomas Radej
Rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-13Wed Oct 5 2016Tomas Radej
Rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-12Mon Oct 3 2016Tomas Radej
Built for release 6.3.3.
Revision 6.3.0-11Thu Sep 15 2016Tomas Radej
Rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-10Thu Sep 15 2016Tomas Radej
Published the AsciiDoc version of the docs.
Revision 6.3.0-8Thu Jul 14 2016Tomas Radej
Updated documentation with release 6.3.1.
Revision 6.3.0-7Thu Jun 2 2016Marek Czernek
Releasing the newest documentation.
Revision 6.3.0-6Thu May 5 2016Tomas Radej
Fixed linking errors.
Revision 6.3.0-5Thu May 5 2016Tomas Radej
Built with live links.
Revision 6.3.0-4Thu May 5 2016Tomas Radej
Bootstrapping links.
Revision 6.3.0-3Thu Apr 28 2016Tomas Radej
All books rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-2Thu Apr 28 2016Tomas Radej
All books rebuilt.
Revision 6.3.0-1Thu Apr 28 2016Tomas Radej
Initial build for release 6.3.0 of JBoss BPM SuiteJBoss BRMS.

Legal Notice
Copy link

Copyright © 2017 Red Hat, Inc.
The text of and illustrations in this document are licensed by Red Hat under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license ("CC-BY-SA"). An explanation of CC-BY-SA is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. In accordance with CC-BY-SA, if you distribute this document or an adaptation of it, you must provide the URL for the original version.
Red Hat, as the licensor of this document, waives the right to enforce, and agrees not to assert, Section 4d of CC-BY-SA to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, JBoss, OpenShift, Fedora, the Infinity logo, and RHCE are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.
Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.
Java® is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
XFS® is a trademark of Silicon Graphics International Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.
MySQL® is a registered trademark of MySQL AB in the United States, the European Union and other countries.
Node.js® is an official trademark of Joyent. Red Hat Software Collections is not formally related to or endorsed by the official Joyent Node.js open source or commercial project.
The OpenStack® Word Mark and OpenStack logo are either registered trademarks/service marks or trademarks/service marks of the OpenStack Foundation, in the United States and other countries and are used with the OpenStack Foundation's permission. We are not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by the OpenStack Foundation, or the OpenStack community.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Back to top
Red Hat logoGithubredditYoutubeTwitter

Learn

Try, buy, & sell

Communities

About Red Hat Documentation

We help Red Hat users innovate and achieve their goals with our products and services with content they can trust. Explore our recent updates.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. For more details, see the Red Hat Blog.

About Red Hat

We deliver hardened solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments, from the core datacenter to the network edge.

Theme

© 2025 Red Hat