The standalone/deployments directory in the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
distribution is the location end users can place their deployment content
(e.g. war, ear, jar, sar files) to have it automatically deployed into the server
runtime.

Users, particularly those running production systems, are encouraged to use the
JBoss EAP management APIs to upload and deploy deployment content instead of
relying on the deployment scanner subsystem that periodically scans this
directory.  See the JBoss EAP documentation for details.

DEPLOYMENT MODES

The filesystem deployment scanner in JBoss EAP 6 and later works differently from
previous JBoss EAP releases. The scanner can operate in one of two different
modes, depending on whether it will directly monitor the deployment content
in order to decide to deploy (or redeploy) it.

1) Auto-deploy mode: The scanner will directly monitor the deployment content,
automatically deploying new content and redeploying content whose timestamp
has changed. This is similiar to the behavior of previous JBoss EAP releases, although
there are differences:

a) A change in any file in an exploded deployment triggers redeploy. Because
EE 6 applications do not require deployment descriptors, there is no attempt
to monitor deployment descriptors and only redeploy when a deployment
descriptor changes.
b) The scanner will place marker files in this directory as an indication of
the status of its attempts to deploy or undeploy content. These are detailed
below.

2) Manual deploy mode: The scanner will not attempt to directly monitor the
deployment content and decide if or when the end user wishes the content to
be deployed or undeployed. Instead, the scanner relies on a system of marker
files, with the user's addition or removal of a marker file serving as a sort
of command telling the scanner to deploy, undeploy or redeploy content.


Auto-deploy mode and manual deploy mode can be independently configured for
zipped deployment content and exploded deployment content. This is done
via the "auto-deploy" attributes on the deployment-scanner element in the
standalone.xml configuration file:

<deployment-scanner scan-interval="5000" relative-to="jboss.server.base.dir"
    path="deployments" auto-deploy-zipped="true" auto-deploy-exploded="false"/>

By default, auto-deploy of zipped content is enabled, and auto-deploy of
exploded content is disabled. Manual deploy mode is strongly recommended for
exploded content, as exploded content is inherently vulnerable to the scanner
trying to auto-deploy partially copied content. Manual deploy mode also allows
deployment resources (e.g. html and css files) to be replaced without
triggering a redeploy of the application.


MARKER FILES

The marker files always have the same name as the deployment content to which
they relate, but with an additional file suffix appended. For example, the
marker file to indicate the example.war file should be deployed is named
example.war.dodeploy. Different marker file suffixes have different meanings.

The relevant marker file types are:

.dodeploy      -- Placed by the user to indicate that the given content should
                  be deployed into the runtime (or redeployed if already
                  deployed in the runtime.)

.skipdeploy    -- Disables auto-deploy of the content for as long as the file
                  is present. Most useful for allowing updates to exploded
                  content without having the scanner initiate redeploy in the
                  middle of the update. Can be used with zipped content as
                  well, although the scanner will detect in-progress changes
                  to zipped content and wait until changes are complete.

.isdeploying   -- Placed by the deployment scanner service to indicate that it
                  has noticed a .dodeploy file or new or updated auto-deploy
                  mode content and is in the process of deploying the content.
                  This marker file will be deleted when the deployment process
                  completes.

.deployed      -- Placed by the deployment scanner service to indicate that the
                  given content has been deployed into the runtime. If an end
                  user deletes this file, the content will be undeployed.

.failed        -- Placed by the deployment scanner service to indicate that the
                  given content failed to deploy into the runtime. The content
                  of the file will include some information about the cause of
                  the failure. Note that with auto-deploy mode, removing this
                  file will make the deployment eligible for deployment again.

.isundeploying -- Placed by the deployment scanner service to indicate that it
                  has noticed a .deployed file has been deleted and the
                  content is being undeployed. This marker file will be deleted
                  when the undeployment process completes.

.undeployed    -- Placed by the deployment scanner service to indicate that the
                  given content has been undeployed from the runtime. If an end
                  user deletes this file, it has no impact.

.pending       -- Placed by the deployment scanner service to indicate that it
                  has noticed the need to deploy content but has not yet
                  instructed the server to deploy it. This file is created if
                  the scanner detects that some auto-deploy content is still in
                  the process of being copied or if there is some problem that
                  prevents auto-deployment. The scanner will not instruct the
                  server to deploy or undeploy any content (not just the
                  directly affected content) as long as this condition holds.

Basic workflows:

All examples assume variable $EAP_HOME points to the root of the JBoss EAP distribution.
Windows users: the examples below use Unix shell commands; see the "Windows
Notes" below.

A) Add new zipped content and deploy it:

1. cp target/example.war $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments
2. (Manual mode only) touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.dodeploy

B) Add new unzipped content and deploy it:

1. cp -r target/example.war/ $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments
2. (Manual mode only) touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.dodeploy

C) Undeploy currently deployed content:

1. rm $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.deployed

D) Auto-deploy mode only: Undeploy currently deployed content:

1. rm $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war

Note that this approach is not recommended with unzipped content as the server
maintains no other copy of unzipped content and deleting it without first
triggering an undeploy temporarily results in a live application with
potentially critical resources no longer available. For unzipped content use
the 'rm $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.deployed' approach.

E) Replace currently deployed zipped content with a new version and deploy it:

1. cp target/example.war/ $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments
2. (Manual mode only) touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.dodeploy

F) Manual mode only: Replace currently deployed unzipped content with a new
   version and deploy it:

1. rm $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.deployed
2. wait for $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.undeployed file to appear
3. cp -r target/example.war/ $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments
4. touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.dodeploy

G) Auto-deploy mode only: Replace currently deployed unzipped content with a
   new version and deploy it:

1. touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.skipdeploy
2. cp -r target/example.war/ $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments
3. rm $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.skipdeploy

H) Manual mode only: Live replace portions of currently deployed unzipped
   content without redeploying:

1. cp -r target/example.war/foo.html $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war

I) Auto-deploy mode only: Live replace portions of currently deployed unzipped
   content without redeploying:

1. touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.skipdeploy
2. cp -r target/example.war/foo.html $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war

J) Manual or auto-deploy mode: Redeploy currently deployed content (i.e. bounce
   it with no content change):

1. touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war.dodeploy

K) Auto-deploy mode only: Redeploy currently deployed content (i.e. bounce
   it with no content change):

1. touch $EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/example.war


Windows Notes:

The above examples use Unix shell commands. Windows equivalents are:

cp src dest --> xcopy /y src dest
cp -r src dest --> xcopy /e /s /y src dest
rm afile --> del afile
touch afile --> echo>> afile

Note that the behavior of 'touch' and 'echo' are different but the
differences are not relevant to the usages in the examples above.
