What is Wildfly?

Wildfly, formerly known as JBoss AS, or simply JBoss, is an application server authored by JBoss, now developed by Red Hat. WildFly is written in Java, and implements the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) specification.

TLDR

docker run --name wildfly bitnami/wildfly

Docker Compose

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami wildfly Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/wildfly:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/wildfly:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-wildfly.git
cd bitnami-docker-wildfly
docker build -t bitnami/wildfly .

Operating modes

Wildfly can be booted in two different modes. A managed domain allows you to run and manage a multi-server topology. Alternatively, you can run a standalone server instance.

By default, the Bitnami Wildfly Docker image boots in the standalone server mode. To boot in the managed domain mode specify domain.sh as the first argument while running the image.

docker run bitnami/wildfly domain.sh

or using Docker Compose:

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  command: domain.sh

Further Reading:

• Wildfly Operating modes

Command-line options

The simplest way to configure your Wildfly server is to pass custom command-line options when running the image.

docker run bitnami/wildfly -Dwildfly.as.deployment.ondemand=true

or using Docker Compose:

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  command: -Dwildfly.as.deployment.ondemand=true

Note!: To configure the JVM parameters specify them in the environment variable JAVA_OPTS using -e JAVA_OPTS=<parameters> while running the image.

Further Reading:

• Wildfly Command line parameters
• Caveats

Persisting the data

If you remove the container all your data will be lost, and the next time you run the image the data will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

The Wildfly image exposes a volume at /bitnami/wildfly/data, you can mount a directory from your host to serve as the data store. If the directory you mount is empty, the data will be initialized.

docker run -v /path/to/data:/bitnami/wildfly/data bitnami/wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

postgresql:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  volumes:
    - /path/to/data:/bitnami/wildfly/data

Deploying web applications on Wildfly standalone server

In the standalone server mode (default), you either copy a so-called exploded web application, i.e non-compressed or a compressed web application resource .WAR file in the standalone/deployments/ directory of the persistent volume and it will automatically be deployed by Wildfly.

Applications can also be deployed from the web management console.

Accessing your Wildfly server from the host

The image exposes the application server on port 8080 and the management console on port 9990. To access your web server from your host machine you can ask Docker to map random ports on your host to the ports 8080 and 9990 of the container.

docker run --name wildfly -P bitnami/wildfly

Run docker port to determine the random ports Docker assigned.

$ docker port wildfly
8080/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:32775
9990/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:32774

You can also manually specify the ports you want forwarded from your host to the container.

docker run -p 8080:8080 -p 9990:9990 bitnami/wildfly

Access your web server in the browser by navigating to http://localhost:8080 to access the application server and http://localhost:9990/console to access the management console.

Accessing the command line interface

The Command Line Interface (CLI) is a management tool for a managed domain or standalone server. It allows a user to connect to the domain controller or a standalone server and execute management operations available through the de-typed management model.

The Bitnami Wildfly Docker Image ships the jboss-cli.sh client, but by default it will start the standalone server. To start the client instead, we can override the default command Docker runs by stating a different command to run after the image name.

Connecting a jboss-cli.sh container to the Wildfly server container

Step 1: Run the Wildfly image with a specific name

The first step is to start our Wildfly server.

Docker's linking system uses container ids or names to reference containers. We can explicitly specify a name for our Wildfly server to make it easier to connect to other containers.

docker run --name wildfly bitnami/wildfly

Step 2: Run Wildfly as a client and link to our server

Now that we have our Wildfly server running, we can create another container to launch jboss-cli.sh that links to the server container by giving Docker the --link option. This option takes the id or name of the container we want to link it to as well as a hostname to use inside the container, separated by a colon. For example, to have our Wildfly server accessible in another container with server as it's hostname we would pass --link wildfly:server to the Docker run command.

docker run --rm -it --link wildfly:server bitnami/wildfly \
  jboss-cli.sh --controller=server:9990 --user=manager --password=wildfly --connect

We started jboss-cli.sh passing in the --controller option that allows us to specify the hostname and port of the server, which we set to the hostname we created in the link.

Note! You can also run the client in the same container as the server using the Docker exec command.

docker exec -it wildfly jboss-cli.sh --user=manager --password=wildfly --connect

Configuration

Setting the manager password on first run

By default, the manager user is assigned the password wildfly. To secure your Wildfly server you should specify a different password for this user. Passing the WILDFLY_PASSWORD environment variable when running the image for the first time will set the password of the manager user to the value of WILDFLY_PASSWORD.

docker run --name wildfly -e WILDFLY_PASSWORD=password123 bitnami/wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  environment:
    - WILDFLY_PASSWORD=password123

Configuration files

This image looks for Wildfly configuration files in /bitnami/wildfly/conf. You can mount a volume at this location with your own configurations, or the default configurations will be copied to your volume if it is empty.

Step 1: Run the Wildfly image

Run the Wildfly image, mounting a directory from your host.

docker run --name wildfly -v /path/to/wildfly/conf:/bitnami/wildfly/conf bitnami/wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  volumes:
    - /path/to/wildfly/conf:/bitnami/wildfly/conf

Step 2: Edit the configuration

Edit the configurations on your host using your favorite editor.

Step 3: Restart Wildfly

After changing the configuration, restart your Wildfly container for the changes to take effect.

docker restart wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose restart wildfly

Further Reading:

• General configuration concepts

Caveats

The following options cannot be modified, to ensure that the image runs correctly.

-b 0.0.0.0
-bmanagement 0.0.0.0
-Djboss.server.base.dir=/opt/bitnami/wildfly/data/standalone
-Djboss.server.config.dir=/opt/bitnami/wildfly/conf/standalone
-Djboss.server.log.dir=/opt/bitnami/wildfly/logs
-Djboss.domain.base.dir=/opt/bitnami/wildfly/data/domain
-Djboss.domain.config.dir=/opt/bitnami/wildfly/conf/domain
-Djboss.domain.log.dir=/opt/bitnami/wildfly/logs

Logging

The Bitnami Wildfly Docker Image supports two different logging modes: logging to stdout, and logging to a file.

Logging to stdout

The default behavior is to log to stdout, as Docker expects. These will be collected by Docker, converted to JSON and stored in the host, to be accessible via the docker logs command.

docker logs wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose logs wildfly

This method of logging has the downside of not being easy to manage. Without an easy way to rotate logs, they could grow exponentially and take up large amounts of disk space on your host.

Logging to file

To log to file, run the Wildfly image, mounting a directory from your host at /bitnami/wildfly/logs. This will instruct the container to send logs to your directory.

docker run --name wildfly -v /path/to/wildfly/logs:/bitnami/wildfly/logs bitnami/wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  volumes:
    - /path/to/wildfly/logs:/bitnami/wildfly/logs

To perform operations (e.g. logrotate) on the logs, mount the same directory in a container designed to operate on log files, such as logstash.

Maintenance

Backing up your container

To backup your configuration and logs, follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Stop the currently running container

docker stop wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose stop wildfly

Step 2: Run the backup command

We need to mount two volumes in a container we will use to create the backup: a directory on your host to store the backup in, and the volumes from the container we just stopped so we can access the data.

docker run --rm -v /path/to/backups:/backups --volumes-from wildfly busybox \
  cp -a /bitnami/wildfly /backups/latest

or using Docker Compose:

docker run --rm -v /path/to/backups:/backups --volumes-from `docker-compose ps -q wildfly` busybox \
  cp -a /bitnami/wildfly /backups/latest

Note! If you only need to backup configuration, you can change the first argument to cp to /bitnami/wildfly/conf.

Restoring a backup

Restoring a backup is as simple as mounting the backup as volumes in the container.

docker run -v /path/to/backups/latest/conf:/bitnami/wildfly/conf \
  -v /path/to/backups/latest/logs:/bitnami/wildfly/logs \
  bitnami/wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

wildfly:
  image: bitnami/wildfly
  volumes:
    - /path/to/backups/latest/conf:/bitnami/wildfly/conf
    - /path/to/backups/latest/logs:/bitnami/wildfly/logs

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of Wildfly, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/wildfly:latest

or if you're using Docker Compose, update the value of the image property to bitnami/wildfly:latest.

Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container

Before continuing, you should backup your container's configuration and logs.

Follow the steps on creating a backup.

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

docker rm -v wildfly

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose rm -v wildfly

Step 4: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image, restoring your backup if necessary.

docker run --name wildfly bitnami/wildfly:latest

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose start wildfly

Testing

This image is tested for expected runtime behavior, using the Bats testing framework. You can run the tests on your machine using the bats command.

bats test.sh

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue, or submit a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to include the following information in your issue:

• Host OS and version
• Docker version (docker version)
• Output of docker info
• Version of this container (echo $BITNAMI_APP_VERSION inside the container)
• The command you used to run the container, and any relevant output you saw (masking any sensitive information)

License

Copyright 2015 Bitnami

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.