B4J Tutorial Running a B4J Server on Amazon EC2 Linux

This procedure starts from a freshly installed AWS EC2 Linux instance and installs a B4J server, named B4J.jar, configured as a daemon.
This tutorial assumes a basic knowledge of a Linux environment, expecially the vi editor.

Prerequisites

• SSH access with ec2-user
• Device /dev/xvdh is available for data storage

System setup
Login via SSH with ec2-user
Update the system

$ sudo yum -y update

Set timezone

$ sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/clock

Change accordingly to your location

ZONE="Europe/Rome"
UTC=true

$ sudo ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Rome /etc/localtime
$ sudo reboot

Storage setup
Create a single primary partition using fdisk

$ sudo fdisk /dev/xvdh

Format data partition

$ sudo mke2fs -t ext4 -L B4J /dev/xvdh1
$ mkdir /home/ec2-user/B4J
$ sudo vi /etc/fstab

Append this line

LABEL=B4J       /home/ec2-user/B4J      ext4    defaults,noatime        1       1

Mount data partition

$ sudo mount -a
$ chown ec2-user:ec2-user B4J

Java setup
Install Java

$ wget --no-check-certificate --no-cookies --header "Cookie: oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u141-b15/336fa29ff2bb4ef291e347e091f7f4a7/jdk-8u141-linux-x64.rpm
$ sudo yum install -y jdk-8u141-linux-x64.rpm

B4J setup
Upload B4J.jar to /home/ec2-user/B4J via sftp
Create service control script

$ sudo vi /etc/init.d/B4J

#!/bin/bash
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          B4J Server module
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $remote_fs $network $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $remote_fs $network $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start/Stop B4J Server module
### END INIT INFO
# chkconfig: 35 92 1

#customizable options:
#module name
JAR_NAME=B4J.jar
#installation directory
JAR_DIR=/home/ec2-user/B4J

#no need to customize anything below this line
RUNAS_USER=ec2-user
B4J_START="cd ${JAR_DIR} ; nohup java -jar ${JAR_NAME} >nohup.out 2>&1 &"
RUN_USER=$(whoami)

b4j_pid() {
  echo $(ps -f -C java | grep ${JAR_NAME}$ | grep -v grep | awk '{ print $2 }')
}

start() {
  pid=$(b4j_pid)
  if [ -n "$pid" ]; then
    echo "Already running with pid: $pid"
  else
    echo "Starting..."
    if [ "$RUN_USER" == "$RUNAS_USER" ]; then
      echo "Running with current user"
      bash -c "$B4J_START"
    else
      echo "Running with switch user"
      su - $RUNAS_USER -c "$B4J_START"
    fi
    status
  fi
}

stop() {
  pid=$(b4j_pid)

  if [ -n "$pid" ]; then
    echo "Stopping..."
    kill $pid
  else
    echo "Server not running"
  fi
}

status() {
  pid=$(b4j_pid)
  if [ -n "$pid" ]; then
    echo "Running with pid: $pid"
  else
    echo "Not running"
  fi
}


case "$1" in
  start)
    start
    ;;

  stop)
    stop
    ;;

  status)
    status
    ;;

  restart)
    stop
    start
    ;;

  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|status}"
    exit 1

esac

exit 0

Add to system services

$ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/B4J
$ sudo chkconfig --add B4J

Server instance can be controlled with

$ service B4J start
$ service B4J stop

It will also auto-start at system reboot.

 

[tchart]

Awesome stuff!

BTW do you know if the mounts on EC2 Linux are CIFS/SMB? Ive had issues with SQLite on Azure App Service on Linux. The CIFS shares cause SQLite to think its locked.

 

[Alessandro71]

It’s not a share, it’s a mounted ext4 filesystem, so no lock issues.

 

[JackKirk]

Hi,

I'd be interested in knowing what AWS services you are using aside from EC2 - and how you are accessing them.

 

[Alessandro71]

None, just running my B4J server on EC2