ccot's questions

I am teaching myself to build clustered Java EE 7 applications. I am focused on Glassfish Server v4.0.

Based on the official documentation (Chapter 7 page 133) , Glassfish can be loadbalanced using Apache Http server using mod_jk. I was reading a bit about the clustering architecutre of glassfish which can be explained by the following two pictures:
(Second picture is taken from the following book)

My question is:
where is the usual location to install Apache in this scenario? Is it installed on the same machine where the Domain Admin Server resides or in its own separate machine?

After the recommendation of using Apache http server in front of glassfish ( check question ), i used the following tutorial and made it work but only on port 80.
What i mean is now i can type:

www.mydomain.com

and it runs. However if i run an application that requires https, ie having in web.xml (a J2EE application)

<transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>

When i type:

www.mydomain.com

it automatically loads:

https://www.mydomain.com:8181

I do not want to show port 8181, i want just :https://www.mydomain.com.

PS: I will be using only ONE application which runs in context "/" .

Following are my configurations:

*workers.properties file:

worker.list=ajp13unsecure, ajp13secure

worker.ajp13unsecure.type=ajp13
worker.ajp13unsecure.host=localhost
worker.ajp13unsecure.port=8009

worker.ajp13secure.type=ajp13
worker.ajp13secure.host=localhost
worker.ajp13secure.port=8009

*httpd.conf file i added:

Listen 443

# Load mod_jk module
# Update this path to match your modules location
LoadModule    jk_module  modules/mod_jk.so

# Where to find workers.properties
# Update this path to match your conf directory location (put workers.properties next to httpd.conf)
JkWorkersFile conf/workers.properties

# Where to put jk logs
# Update this path to match your logs directory location (put mod_jk.log next to  access_log)
# This can be commented out, to disable logging
JkLogFile     logs/mod_jk.log

# Set the jk log level [debug/error/info]
# Only matters if JkLogFile is being used.
JkLogLevel    debug

# Select the timestamp log format
JkLogStampFormat "[%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y] "

# JkOptions indicate to send SSL KEY SIZE
JkOptions +ForwardKeySize +ForwardURICompat -ForwardDirectories

# JkRequestLogFormat set the request format
JkRequestLogFormat "%w %V %T"

# Send everything for context /examples to worker named worker1 (ajp13)
# /examples would most likely be the name of your WebApp (c:/tomcat/webapps/example)
JkMount  /* ajp13secure

# Should mod_jk send SSL information (default is On)
JkExtractSSL On
# What is the indicator for SSL (default is HTTPS)
JkHTTPSIndicator HTTPS
# What is the indicator for SSL session (default is SSL_SESSION_ID)
JkSESSIONIndicator SSL_SESSION_ID
# What is the indicator for client SSL cipher suit (default is SSL_CIPHER)
JkCIPHERIndicator SSL_CIPHER
# What is the indicator for the client SSL certificated? (default is SSL_CLIENT_CERT)
JkCERTSIndicator SSL_CLIENT_CERT

Questions:
What am i missing so that port 8181 doesn't appear in the URL anymore?

Also as i said SSL certificate is already installed in glassfish, do i have to install it in Apache or its ok like that?

PS:i am using

• glassfish v3.0.1
• windows server 2008 r2
• Apache v2.2
• I already installed a godaddy SSL certificate IN glassfish keystore. It works and is running well.

I am hosting a web app on amazon aws, using an ec2 instance.

On that instance i will be running only one application. using glassfish v3.0.1

I do not want to run the app using :

www.mydomain.com:8080 or www.mydomain.com:8181 

I just want to use :

www.mydomain.com or https://www.mydomain.com

so i changed the http-listener-1 and http-listener-2 on glassfish to run on ports (respectively) 80 and 443.

Is this considered bad practice? i'm a software engineer and I usually do not deal with server admin stuff thus not too experienced in those things.

thanks for any guidance.

I will be uploading a web application to amazon ec2 instance in the next couple of weeks.
I am using : windows server 2008 r2 64 bit as an amazon instance along with a 30 GB EBS.
The only confusion i have is database (MySQL) related.

As i am the only developer of this application and there is no DB admin or team to help me host it, how should i tackle the backup and disaster recovery issue?

I noticed that EBS enables me to take snapshots. However i read about amazon's RDS system which does automatic backups, replication, recovery etc...

I would like to have your recommendations for which mechanism should i use (EBS manual snapshot or the RDS system) based on the following facts:

• As i mentioned i am the only person that will be responsible of hosting, securing and managing the application.
• I am not experienced with db admin related stuff (replication, disaster recovery etc...)
• I would like to minimize all db maintenance required tasks and focus more on software engineering, code developing and enhancing.

Is it enough to use EBS snapshot based on these facts? should i better use RDS? or there are other more pragmatic methods out there?

thanks for any help!

Excuse my basic question, but i am a software engineer and not very experienced with server admin.

I am using reCAPTCHA in my j2ee application, and on google's site they say that the reCAPTCHA plugin for java requires modifying DNS caching (put it 30 seconds).
This is mentioned in the following Link (at the bottom of the page "-Dsun.net.inetaddr.ttl=30")

How can i set it up in glassfish v3?

I am building a web app using java EE and glassfish v3. I want to move it to production mode soon, however i have zero experience with using glassfish in production, i would appreciate if you give me some guidance about how to approach the following scenario:

say i have deployed the web app using admin console pointing to the .war file. But what if i want to update this live application, do i need to :

a) undeploy --> build new war file (with updates) --> paste the war file to the app folder -->redeploy?

b) move in only the changed files , ie : .class files , jsp, etc... without undeploying before?