Deploying a Java J2EE project on Geronimo using Netbeans

We have been playing around with J2EE and Glassfish for a while, but wanted to try out the Apache Geronimo application server. But how to do that without also switching IDE?

I found a few projects hosted on sourceforge, apache and google code.

See also geronimo devtools.

Plugin hosted on googlecode

This seems to be an empty project, with only the initial directory structure being put in place (on Feb 12, 2007).

Plugin hosted on Sourceforge

Last checkin for the sourceforge project was almost a year ago (2007 Dec 20). Build fails in Netbeans 6.5: The module net.sourceforge.nbgeronimo is not a friend of C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.5\enterprise5\modules\org-netbeans-modules-j2ee-api-ejbmodule.jar

For a workaround see DevFaqImplementationDependency.

Unfortunately after hitting Install/Reload in IDE, it doesn't seem to show up in the Add Server window.

Plugin hosted on apache.org

The project on apache.org seems more active (last check in 2008 Aug 14). It also just builds. Moreover after hitting Install/Reload in IDE, a new option Apache Geronimo is listed in the Add Server window. Thus I now have an option to deploy to Apache Geronimo. Unfortunately, it seems I cannot deploy to a remote server, but a local server will do fine for now.

Conclusion

Use this netbeans plugin for Apache Geronimo.

Update: 22 December 2008

Remote (re)deployment is quite easy. Just log in to to web console of the remote geronimo server and choose Deploy New. Select your ear or war file (in the projects dist directory) and click Install.