Defining packages

In EAServer Manager, a package contains a group of related components. Typically, components in a package work together to provide a coherent service or function.

Refresh when you modify a package, component, or method When you modify an existing package, component, or method, you must refresh the server, package, or component for the changes to take effect. To refresh, highlight the icon for the server, package, or component and select File | Refresh. If you modify a component’s supported interfaces, you must regenerate stubs and skeletons for the component and clients that access the component.

You must install your components in packages before applications can access the components. Packages serve the following purposes:

They are a unit of deployment Using EAServer Manager, you can import and export archived copies of the components in a package and related application files.

They allow you to control which users can access components Packages form one level in the EAServer authorization hierarchy. A package is not available on a server unless it is installed in the server’s Installed Packages folder. To further restrict access for non-EJB components, you can edit the package’s required Role Memberships to restrict which users can access components in the package. You can also control access on the individual component level. Chapter 2, “Securing Component Access,” in the EAServer Security Administration and Programming Guide describes options for configuring user authorization for package and component access. EJB components use a different security mechanism described in “Configuring role references and method permissions”.

In a cluster, they allow you to partition the load By installing different subsets of packages to the servers in a cluster, you can control which components execute on which servers within the cluster. See Chapter 7, “Load Balancing, Failover, and Component Availability,” in the EAServer System Administration Guide for more information.

Use EAServer Manager to create, modify, and delete packages, as described in the sections below:

You can also export and import package archives in the standard EJB-JAR format or in the Jaguar JAR format. For details, see Chapter 9, “Importing and Exporting Application Components,” in the EAServer System Administration Guide.