Configure: JRebel + External JBoss + Eclipse + Ant based deployment

Question

I am trying to configure JRebel

Dev environment description:

• Eclipse Juno IDE
• JBoss 6.0.1 - Running externally from eclipse (same machine, not remotely)
• Debugging: Remote, all hotswapping functionalities off
• Ant script that: compiles, deploys and lifts target WAR to the JBoss

I have not used JRebel before, the configuration guide seemed pretty easy, but i am having troubles with my particular case.

All source (incl. jsps and images) is being compiled in project's bin folder.

Ant script creates WAR which holds separately JSPs, style, property files and compiled application classes are put inside dedicated jar in /web-inf/lib/ together with libraries. The script lifts the generated WAR to the JBoss and runs the server.

Where should i put my rebel.xml (i suppose in my project's bin folder?!) and what should i write into it in order to get jrebel-hotswapped the code changes inside the jar inside the war that is deployed in JBoss server.

I provided JBoss run script with necessary jrebel VM arguments.

Many thanks in advance!

Answer 1

rebel.xml should end up in WEB-INF/classes of your application. If you have dependencies in WEB-INF/lib folder, then every archive should have its own dedicated rebel.xml configuration file.

See the doc

If you deploy using Eclipse WTP, then it is fine to put it into source folder. But if you are using Ant to build the WAR, then you have to make sure that your Ant script will detect rebel.xml and copy it to the correct location.

The paths in the rebel.xml should point to the folder where the compiled classes are, i.e. the location where your IDE compiles these classes to.