Unable to deploy Eclipse WTP EAR multi-module project to remote instance

Question

I am creating a GAE application, and I am following the proposed structure of modularized GAE applications in Eclipse with WTP, as documented here (see section "Enterprise Application EAR").

I have created and linked a local server instance of GAE, and the deployment of the EAR with its modules to the GAE development instance at localhost works fine.

However, when I try to "Deploy to App Engine" (via the Google button) in order to release my app to the Google remote server, I am stuck with the error "...(EAR project name) is not an App Engine project". I have also tried to define a new server with a remote address, but this fails with the error "The currently selected server type does not support remote hosts". The host name's field is restricted to "localhost" as a valid server address.

My Eclipse project structure looks as follows:

<<Enterprise Application Project>> ear-app
    |
    -- <<Dynamic Web Project>> app-module-1
    -- <<Dynamic Web Project>> app-module-2
    -- <<Dynamic Web Project>> app-module-3
    -- <<Dynamic Web Project>> app-module-4

Please note that this is not a single "Google / Web Application Project", which works as expected (but does not support modularization with multiple Eclipse projects). Please also note that I am not using Maven and the proposed mvn commands, as documented here.

I am using the GAE SDK 1.9.3 and GPE 3.5.1 in Eclipse Kepler 4.3.1.

So how do I deploy the Eclipse WTP project structure to Google remote servers? If this is not possible, do you suggest that I switch to Maven, and if so, does this support a multi-module project to be managed from within Eclipse?

Answer 1

Rather by chance, I stumbled across the solution:

In the Servers view, and upon right-click of the local development server, there is another context menu entry "Google App Engine WTP / Deploy to Remote Server". This will deploy the EAR and all modules to the Google infrastructure. There is also a "Google App Engine WTP" button in the Servers view's menu, offering the same options.

Frankly, I find this a highly inconsistent UI implementation: If we create a project of type Google Web Application, then the Google button in the main menu is effective, and the context menus can be found as "Google...". These become invalid (but are still present) when we create a multi-module EAR structure in the WTP style. This will create a different set of buttons and context menu entries, all in different places, and the context menu of the LOCAL server would then support deployment to the REMOTE server.

UPDATE: After using the GAE tools for a couple of weeks, I finally switched to the command line options (appcfg) for remote deployments. I had additional errors in GPE for deployment rollbacks (which fail in Eclipse but work with appcfg). I recommend appcfg as administration tool for the Google infrastructure, it provides more control and it is more mature than the Eclipse plugin.