Glassfish Cluster SSH - Tutorial : How to create and configure a glassfish cluster with SSH (Part 1)

0. Presentation

A cluster is a named collection of GlassFish Server instances that share the same applications, resources, and configuration information.

GlassFish Server enables you to administer all the instances in a cluster as a single unit from a single host, regardless of whether the instances reside on the same host or different hosts. You can perform the same operations on a cluster that you can perform on an unclustered instance, for example, deploying applications and creating resources.

In this we will configure a 3 node Glassfish cluster using SSH and using only the command-line util asadmin.

Below is a global picture of the target cluster structure :

The following are the conventions/assumptions that will be used throughout this tutorial

• linux user : gfish
• glassfish domain : domain1
• glassfish cluster name : myCluster

1. Pre-requirements

A. SSH key configuration (Optional but used in this tutorial)

In order for the different instances of glassfish to communicate easily with each other it's a good idea to generate ssh keys for each of the users running the glassfish process (ideally the same user/password combination in each machine).

We will be generating the keys for the same user that runs the glassfish process. For this tutorial it will be assumed the user is gfish

a. Generating the ssh keys

On each of the machines (sever1, sever2, sever3) execute the following command, and leave the default options

[server] ssh-keygen -t rsa

Your output should be similar to the one below :

generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/gfish/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/gfish/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/gfish/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
00:6a:ef:30:65:45:7a:15:1f:f0:65:6d:81:03:cd:1d gfish@server1
The key's randomart image is:
+--[ RSA 2048]----+
|    ..o +oo+o+Eo |
|   . + . o += +  |
|  o + o   o  o   |
| . + . .         |
|  o .   S        |
|   +             |
|    .            |
|                 |
|                 |
+-----------------+

b. Copying the ssh keys to the servers

Once your key is generated you will need to copy your each one of the generated server keys between the different servers allowing you to connect without entering a password.

For that you will need to execute the following command on each one of the servers by slightly modifying it to reflect the target server

[server1] cat /home/gfish/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh gfish@server2 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'

In this example we are copying the ssh key belonging to the server1 to the server2 authorized_keys file this will allow the user gfish to connect to the api1 server without using a password.

As stated before this operation needs to be repeated for each one of the servers by by adapting the syntax to your case

In the end your key distribution should be similar to :

server1 key

server2

server3

server2 key

server1

server3(optional)

server3 key

server1

server2(optional)

c. Authorized_keys2 (optional)

Depending on the ssh version you are using you will probably make a copy of the authorized_keys file and name it authorized_keys2.

This can be done by executing the following command (again on each one of your servers :

cp authorized_keys authorized_keys2

Once the previous steps are completed you should be able to log from one server to another through SSH without the need for a password.

Execute the following command to confirm it:

[server1]ssh gfish@server2

If you are prompted to enter a password when executing the previous command then something went wrong so you should recheck your config.

B. SSH Subsytem

When deploying applications on a cluster they are deployed to the cluster nodes using SFTP. You will need to ensure that the SFTP SSH subsytem is enabled in all of the machines that will be hosting the glassfish instances

To do this please ensure that your sshd_config file (probably under /etc/ssh/sshd_config) has the following line and that it's not commented :

Subsystem       sftp    /usr/libexec/openssh/sftp-server

Otherwise you may run into this kind of message errors when creating the ssh nodes (see troubleshooting)