Chapter 2. Features that are available in this release

The 2.0 release of the JBoss Web Server collection is a fully supported feature from Red Hat. Earlier releases of the JBoss Web Server collection were a Technology Preview feature only.

The JBoss Web Server collection supports the automated installation of Red Hat JBoss Web Server on target hosts that are running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 8 or 9.

The JBoss Web Server collection provides a comprehensive set of predefined variables and default values that you can manually update to match your setup requirements. These variable settings provide all the information that the JBoss Web Server collection requires to complete an automated and customized installation of Red Hat JBoss Web Server on your target hosts.

For a full list of variables that the JBoss Web Server collection provides, see the redhat.jws.jws role in Ansible automation hub. The information page for the redhat.jws.jws role lists the names, descriptions, and default values for all the variables that you can define.

By default, the JBoss Web Server collection supports the automated installation of Red Hat JBoss Web Server from product archive files. You can enable the JBoss Web Server collection to install the base release of a specified JBoss Web Server version from archive files. A base release is the initial release of a specific product version (for example, 6.0.0 is the base release of version 6.0).

The JBoss Web Server collection requires that local copies of the appropriate archive files are available on your Ansible control node. If copies of the archive files are not already on your system, you can set variables to permit automatic file downloads from the Red Hat Customer Portal. For more information, see Support for automatic download of archive files. Alternatively, you can download the archive files manually.

This feature also includes variables to support the following automation setup tasks:

After you set the appropriate variables, the JBoss Web Server collection automatically extracts the archive files and installs the product on your target hosts when you subsequently run the playbook.

For more information, see Enabling the automated installation of a JBoss Web Server base release.

If product patch updates are available for the JBoss Web Server version that is being installed, you can also enable the JBoss Web Server collection to install these patch updates from archive files. This feature is disabled by default. You can use the same steps to enable the automated installation of patch updates regardless of whether you want to install these updates at the same time as the base release or later.

The JBoss Web Server collection requires that local copies of the appropriate archive files are available on your Ansible control node. If copies of the archive files are not already on your system, you can set variables to permit automatic file downloads from the Red Hat Customer Portal. For more information, see Support for automatic download of archive files. Alternatively, you can download the archive files manually.

This feature also includes variables to support the following automation setup tasks:

After you set the appropriate variables, the JBoss Web Server collection automatically extracts the archive files and installs the patch updates on your target hosts when you subsequently run the playbook.

For more information, see Enabling the automated installation of JBoss Web Server patch updates.

The JBoss Web Server collection is configured to support the automatic download of archive files by default. However, this feature also requires that you set variables to specify the client identifier (ID) and secret that are associated with your Red Hat service account.

For more information, see Enabling the automated installation of a JBoss Web Server base release and Enabling the automated installation of JBoss Web Server patch updates.

By default, the JBoss Web Server collection is configured to contact the Red Hat Customer Portal to check if new patch updates are available. However, you can optionally set a variable to enforce a fully offline installation and prevent the collection from contacting the Red Hat Customer Portal, This feature is useful if your Ansible control node does not have internet access and you want the collection to avoid contacting the Red Hat Customer Portal for file downloads.

For more information, see Enabling the automated installation of JBoss Web Server patch updates.

You can enable the JBoss Web Server collection to install Red Hat JBoss Web Server from RPM packages. This feature is disabled by default.

When you enable the RPM installation method, the JBoss Web Server collection installs the latest RPM packages for a specified major version of the product, including any minor version and patch updates. The collection obtains the RPM packages directly from Red Hat.

This feature includes variables to support the following automation setup tasks:

After you set the appropriate variables, the JBoss Web Server collection automatically obtains the latest RPM packages and installs these packages on your target hosts when you subsequently run the playbook.

For more information, see Enabling the automated installation of JBoss Web Server from RPM packages.

By default, the JBoss Web Server collection does not install a JDK automatically on your target hosts, based on the assumption that you have already installed a supported JDK on these hosts. However, for the sake of convenience, you can optionally set a variable to enable the automated installation of a supported version of Red Hat OpenJDK. In this situation, the JBoss Web Server collection automatically installs the specified OpenJDK version on each target host when you subsequently run the playbook.

For more information, see Ensuring that a JDK is installed on the target hosts.

By default, the JBoss Web Server collection creates a tomcat user account and a tomcat group automatically on each target host. However, if you want the JBoss Web Server collection to create a different user account and group, you can set variables to modify the behavior of the JBoss Web Server collection to match your setup requirements. In this situation, the JBoss Web Server collection automatically creates the specified user account and group name on each target host when you subsequently run the playbook.

For more information, see Ensuring that a product user and group are created on the target hosts.

By default, the JBoss Web Server collection is not configured to set up Red Hat JBoss Web Server as a service that a system daemon can manage. However, if you want the JBoss Web Server collection to integrate Red Hat JBoss Web Server with a system daemon, you can set a variable to modify the behavior of the JBoss Web Server collection to match your setup requirements.

If you enable this feature, the JBoss Web Server collection sets up Red Hat JBoss Web Server as a jws6‑tomcat service automatically on each target host. However, if you want to use a different service name, you can also set a variable to instruct the JBoss Web Server collection to create a different service name.

For more information, see Enabling the automated integration of JBoss Web Server with systemd.

The JBoss Web Server collection provides a comprehensive set of variables to enable the automated configuration of a Red Hat JBoss Web Server installation. By default, the JBoss Web Server collection configures Red Hat JBoss Web Server to listen for nonsecure HTTP connections on port 8080.

Other product features such as the following are disabled by default:

To enable a wider set of product features, you can set variables to modify the behavior of the JBoss Web Server collection to match your setup requirements.

For more information, see Enablement of automated JBoss Web Server configuration tasks.

You can also automate the deployment of web applications on your target hosts by adding customized tasks to the playbook. If you want to deploy a new or updated application when Red Hat JBoss Web Server is already running, the JBoss Web Server collection provides a handler to restart the web server when the application is deployed.

For more information, see Enabling the automated deployment of JBoss Web Server applications on your target hosts.