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TomEE deployment on Azure

This example uses a basic echo application, deployed with embedded TomEE on the Azure Cloud.

We use the TomEE maven plugin to package the app with TomEE Embedded in order to generate a fat jar. This jar is then picked up and deployed by the azure-webapp-maven-plugin.

Azure Setup

In order for the Azure plugin to work, you will need to have an Azure account and add a subscription to it. Then, on your development machine, install the Azure command-line interface (CLI) and authenticate with the command line, before you can deploy your application.

  • Create an Azure Account, if you don’t have one, at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us

  • Use the free option, if available or add a subscription.

  • Install the Azure (CLI) according to operating system of the computer you are using to develop.

  • Finally you can setup your development computer.

Login into Azure

az login

The result:

[
   {
     "cloudName": "AzureCloud",
     "id": "aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaa-aaaaaaaaaa",
     "isDefault": true,
     "name": "Pay-As-You-Go",
     "state": "Enabled",
     "tenantId": "bbbbbbb-bbbbb-bbbb-bbbbb-bbbbbbbbbbb",
     "user": {
       "name": "<your azure account's email>",
       "type": "user"
     }
   }
 ]

The TenantId is someone that can register and manage apps, yourself. You will need that for later.

Create a service principal

An Azure service principal is a security identity used by user-created apps, services, and automation tools to access specific Azure resources:

az ad sp create-for-rbac --name  http://<your-sub-domain> --password <password for this app>

{
  "appId": "cccccccc-cccc-cccc-cccc-ccccccccccccccc",
  "displayName": "cloud-tomee-azure",
  "name": "http://cloud-tomee-azure",
  "password": "<password for this app>",
  "tenant": "bbbbbbb-bbbbb-bbbb-bbbbb-bbbbbbbbbbb"
}

The <your-sub-domain>, also called the service principal name in the Azure documentation. In this example "http://cloud-tomee-azure". It has to be unique across Azure. The appId is the identification of the app service.

Configure Maven

You could continue just using the Azure CLI for authentication but we can also do it permanently with Maven.

In that case we need to edit Maven’s settings.xml so the azure-webapp-maven-plugin can authenticate against Azure:

You can add a new server to ~/.m2/settings.xml like this:

<server>
  <id>azure-auth</id>
  <configuration>
     <client>cccccccc-cccc-cccc-cccc-ccccccccccccccc</client>
     <tenant>bbbbbbb-bbbbb-bbbb-bbbbb-bbbbbbbbbbb</tenant>
     <key><password for this app></key>
     <environment>AZURE</environment>
   </configuration>
</server>

That’s it. You can now build the example and deploy it to Azure just using Maven:

mvn clean install -Pazure-single-jar azure-webapp:deploy

The azure-webapp is explicitly invoked because it relies on you Azure account. The standard TomEE build will not use an Azure account.

The end URL will look like:

https://<your-sub-domain>.azurewebsites.net/cloud-tomee-azure-8.0.0-SNAPSHOT/echo/send-this-back

Notes

At the moment of creation of this example there is a bug on azure with the JAVA_HOME that prevents the deployment. Check: https://github.com/Azure-App-Service/java/issues/11 The workaround is to set the Env. variable on the Azure web console and restart the app.

To deploy the echo app locally you can execute:

mvn tomee:run

You can test the app by calling http://localhost/cloud-tomee-azure-8.0.0-SNAPSHOT/echo/send-this-back

It will return send-this-back.

The echo app is also available with a simple war file that you can deploy on TomEE manually, for testing purposes.

APIs Used