jts-distributed-crash-rec: JTS and distributed crash recovery

Author: Tom Jenkinson
Level: Advanced
Technologies: JTS, Crash Recovery
Summary: The jts-distributed-crash-rec quickstart uses JTS and Byteman to demonstrate distributed crash recovery across multiple application servers.
Prerequisites: jts
Target Product: JBoss EAP
Source: https://github.com/jbossas/eap-quickstarts/

What is it?

The jts-distributed-crash-rec quickstart demonstrates a distributed crash recovery across multiple application servers in Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.

Crash recovery is a key feature provided by an application server and ensures an application's data consistency, even in the presence of failure. Providing reliable crash recovery helps qualify the pedigree of an application server, distributed crash recovery even more so.

This quickstart uses the application components from the jts quickstart. It provides a Byteman rule to inject a halt into the application server at a crucial point in the phase2 commit of the transaction. Byteman is used solely to raise an artificial fault. An IDE could also provide this simulation, although it is more complex to use an IDE for this purpose.

Apart from that, this quickstart works the same as the jts quickstart and if the Byteman rule is left out, this quickstart is the JTS quickstart.

As an overview, the sequence of events to expect:

  1. Configure and start two JBoss EAP servers.
  2. Build and deploy the two application components.
  3. Open a web browser and attempt to invoice two customers as with the jts quickstart.
  4. JBoss EAP server 1 will run through a two-phase commit (2PC), preparing the resources in JBoss EAP server 1 and JBoss EAP server 2. JBoss EAP server 1 will then crash before it can call commit.
  5. The user is invited to inspect the content of the transaction objectstore.
  6. JBoss EAP server 1 should be restarted. It will then recover the "invoices" delivered to the MDBs, just as it does in the jts quickstart.

System Requirements

The application this project produces is designed to be run on Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 or later.

All you need to build this project is Java 8.0 (Java SDK 1.8) or later and Maven 3.3.1 or later. See Configure Maven for JBoss EAP 7.1 to make sure you are configured correctly for testing the quickstarts.

Download and Configure Byteman

This quickstart uses Byteman to help demonstrate crash recovery. You can find more information about Byteman here: Configure Byteman for Use with the Quickstarts

Follow the instructions here to download and configure Byteman: Download and Configure Byteman

Prerequisites

Developers should be familiar with the concepts introduced in the following quickstarts:

IMPORTANT: This quickstart depends on the deployment of the jts quickstart for its test. Before running this quickstart, see the jts README file for details on how to deploy it.

You can verify the deployment of the jts quickstart by accessing the following URL: http://localhost:8080/jts-application-component-1/.

Use of EAP7_HOME

In the following instructions, replace EAP7_HOME with the actual path to your JBoss EAP installation. The installation path is described in detail here: Use of EAP7_HOME and JBOSS_HOME Variables.

Test the Application

Note: This quickstart README file uses the following replaceable values. When you encounter these values in a README file, be sure to replace them with the actual path to the correct JBoss EAP server.

`EAP7_HOME` denotes the path to the original JBoss EAP installation.
`EAP7_HOME_1` denotes the path to the modified JBoss EAP server 1 configuration.
`EAP7_HOME_2` denotes the path to the modified JBoss EAP server 2 configuration.
  1. If you have not yet done so, configure the two application servers and deploy the jts quickstart. Follow the instructions in the jts README file.

  2. Configure Byteman to halt JBoss EAP server 1

  3. Start both of the JBoss EAP servers

    If you are using Linux:

    Server 1: EAP7_HOME_1/bin/standalone.sh -c standalone-full.xml -Djboss.tx.node.id=UNIQUE_NODE_ID_1
    Server 2: EAP7_HOME_2/bin/standalone.sh -c standalone-full.xml -Djboss.tx.node.id=UNIQUE_NODE_ID_2 -Djboss.socket.binding.port-offset=100
    

    If you are using Windows

    Server 1: EAP7_HOME_1\bin\standalone.bat -c standalone-full.xml -Djboss.tx.node.id=UNIQUE_NODE_ID_1
    Server 2: EAP7_HOME_2\bin\standalone.bat -c standalone-full.xml -Djboss.tx.node.id=UNIQUE_NODE_ID_2 -Djboss.socket.binding.port-offset=100
    
  4. Access the application at the following URL: http://localhost:8080/jts-application-component-1/

  5. At this point, Byteman halts or crashes server 1. You should be able to view the contents of the object store for this server by typing the following in the terminal for server 1. Be sure to replace EAP7_HOME_1 with the path to the first server.

    tree EAP7_HOME_1/standalone/data/tx-object-store
    

    This should display:

    EAP7_HOME_1/standalone/data/tx-object-store
     -- ShadowNoFileLockStore
         -- defaultStore
            |-- CosTransactions
            |   -- XAResourceRecord
            |       -- 0_ffffc0a8013c_38e104bd_4f280cdb_1d
            |-- Recovery
            |   -- FactoryContact
            |       |-- 0_ffffc0a8013c_38e104bd_4f280cdb_17
            |       |-- 0_ffffc0a8013c_-671009a_4f280e7e_17
            |       -- 0_ffffc0a8013c_6d5d82b5_4f280a16_f
            |-- RecoveryCoordinator
            |   -- 0_ffff52e38d0c_c91_4140398c_0
             -- StateManager
                -- BasicAction
                    -- TwoPhaseCoordinator
                        -- ArjunaTransactionImple
                            -- 0_ffffc0a8013c_38e104bd_4f280cdb_19
    

    View the contents of the object store for the second server by typing the following in the terminal for server 2. Be sure to replace EAP7_HOME_2 with the path to the second server.

     tree EAP7_HOME_2/standalone/data/tx-object-store
    

    This should display:

    EAP7_HOME_2/standalone/data/tx-object-store
    -- ShadowNoFileLockStore
        -- defaultStore
            |-- CosTransactions
            |   -- XAResourceRecord
            |       -- 0_ffffc0a8013c_-2eb1158b_4f280ce3_1e
            |-- Recovery
            |   -- FactoryContact
            |       |-- 0_ffffc0a8013c_-2eb1158b_4f280ce3_18
            |       -- 0_ffffc0a8013c_4f6459f0_4f280a24_f
            |-- RecoveryCoordinator
            |   -- 0_ffff52e38d0c_c91_4140398c_0
             -- StateManager
                -- BasicAction
                    -- TwoPhaseCoordinator
                        -- ArjunaTransactionImple
                            -- ServerTransaction
                                -- 0_ffffc0a8013c_-2eb1158b_4f280ce3_1a
    
  6. Disable the Byteman script by restoring the backup configuration file for server 1.

  7. Follow the steps above to restart server 1 and wait for recovery to complete.

    IMPORTANT: By default, the recovery process checks the transactional state every two minutes, therefore it can take a while for recovery to happen. Also recovery for each server will take place at its own recovery interval.

  8. After recovery is complete, access the application URL http://localhost:8080/jts-application-component-1/customers.jsf. The user you created should now appear in the list.

  9. Do NOT forget to Disable the Byteman script by restoring the backup server configuration file. The Byteman rule must be removed to ensure that your application server will be able to commit 2PC transactions!