How do I assemble a JBoss7 server configuration file?

Question

I have numerous JBoss 4 installations (about 20) that will soon be migrated to JBoss 7.1. The configuration for most of these differ in some way. Developer effort is coming along nicely. However, it seems that in JBoss AS 7, all container configuration is collected in one single file, e.g. standalone/configuration/standalone.xml.

I suppose my first question is simply: is it really true that this file cannot be split into multiple parts (except that you can have separate datasource files in JBoss 7.1)?

If so, how does one best go about assembling such an XML file from maintainable fragments? I would like not to have to maintain 20+ copies of a 300 line configuration file where large parts are similar. We are using Maven for configuration management and build automation (mainly assembly and rpm plugins), so answers with Maven plugins will be particularly appreciated. Some installations contain multiple ear files. (Simply using property filtering will not cut it. There are large differences in e.g. security configuration and logging.)

I am aware that there is an API for modifying the configuration, but using this is hardly best practice as the configuration should be kept under tight version control and should not change between releases.

Answer 1

No the configuration cannot be separated into multiple parts.

I would not recommend changing the XML directly. Use one of the management interfaces like CLI, the web console or the jboss-as-maven-plugin.

I'm not too familiar with the security configurations, but logging will be dealt with quite differently. You might want to see some of the how to's if you're using log4j.