Setting Up a Thick Client Development Environment

Setting up your system for developing applications requires several additional tasks after you have installed and configured the IBM® FileNet® P8 Platform. (See the IBM FileNet P8 Platform Installation and Upgrade Guide for information on installing and configuring the IBM FileNet P8 Platform. To download this document from the IBM support page, see Accessing IBM FileNet Documentation.)

This section describes the tasks you need to perform when setting up a thick client workstation for your application development environment. The following environments are addressed: Enterprise Java™ Beans (EJB) transport protocol with WebSphere; EJB transport protocol with WebLogic; EJB or Content Engine Web Service (CEWS) transport protocol with JBoss (FileNet P8 4.0.1 and later only); and CEWS transport protocol (non-application-server dependent).

NOTE  To continue with the tasks in this section, you should have already installed and configured the Content Engine client software.

EJB transport protocol with WebSphere

  1. Install the IBM WebSphere® Application Client for WebSphere Application Server (WAS) on your development client workstation.
    Note that the Application Client version must match the WAS version.
  2. Set up the environment to use the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that you installed in step 1. Make sure to set the JAVA_HOME environment variable and JRE bin in the path.
  3. Update the sas.client.props (which you installed in step 1) with the following values:

    com.ibm.CORBA.securityServerHost=<hostname>
    com.ibm.CORBA.securityServerPort=<portnumber>
    com.ibm.CORBA.loginSource=none

    where:

    Setting the loginSource value from prompt (the default) to none can prevent repeated login prompts for user ID and password.

When you run your program, make sure that you:

Other issues

Based on your environment, be aware of the following issues that require additional steps to be taken:

EJB transport protocol with WebLogic

  1. Install a supported JRE on your development client workstation.

    NOTE  Both JRocket or Sun JREs are acceptable. However, JRocket with IIOP in WebLogic 9.x has known problems and is not recommended.
  2. Add the following to your Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) configuration by selecting one of the following two approaches:
  3. Use the t3 protocol.

    Add the weblogic.jar to the classpath. Then specify the t3 protocol by providing a URI of "t3://hostname:7001/FileNet/Engine" in the Content Engine API Connection class. Note that you can use IIOP as the protocol with the wlclient.jar, but it is generally not recommended. IIOP is slower than and not as functional as the t3 protocol. The following code snippet illustrates how to provide the URI for the connection:

    // Get the connection
    String uri = "t3://remotehost:7001/FileNet/Engine";
    Connection conn = Factory.Connection.getConnection(uri);
  4. Specify the location of a JAAS configuration file. You specify that file using a standard command line argument, as shown in the example below:

    -Djava.security.auth.login.config=C:\jaas.conf.WebLogic

    NOTE  The JAAS configuration files are contained in the Jace.jar. With this command, you identify the configuration file to use.

EJB or CEWS transport protocol with JBoss

  1. Install a supported JRE on your development client workstation.
  2. Add the jbossall-client.jar file from C:\<JBOSS_HOME>\client directory to the classpath.
  3. Add the following values to your JNDI configuration by selecting one of the following two approaches:
    1. Supply the following JVM arguments:

      -Djava.naming.factory.initial=org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory
      -Djava.naming.factory.url.pkgs=org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces
      -Djava.naming.provider.url=jnp://<hostname>:1099

    2. Add the following values to a jndi.properties file that is in the classpath:

      java.naming.factory.initial=org.jnp.interfaces.NamingContextFactory
      java.naming.factory.url.pkgs=org.jboss.naming:org.jnp.interfaces
      java.naming.provider.url=jnp://<hostname>:1099


      NOTE  The jndi.properties file must be in the classpath. You could either include the file in a JAR file and add the JAR file to the classpath, or you could create a directory under the classpath and put the file in that directory.

  4. Modify your junit.properties file as follows:
  5. Specify the location of a JAAS configuration file. You specify that file using a standard command line argument, as shown in the example below:

    -Djava.security.auth.login.config=C:\jaas.conf.JBoss

    NOTE  The JAAS configuration files are contained in the Jace.jar. With this command, you identify the configuration file to use.

CEWS transport protocol (non-application-server dependent)

When setting up a thick client development machine using the CEWS protocol, the following tasks are required.

NOTE  Examples assume a default directory of C:\Program Files. If your directory structure is not the default, modify the path in the examples to reflect your directory structure.