Overview - GlassFish 5

This Release Note covers all point releases for GlassFish 5 that are offered by eApps. Upgrade instructions are included.

eApps recommends, as a best practice, to maintain a staging server where you can test software upgrades before moving them into production. This approach will allow you to minimize the risk of data loss and downtime of your production service when performing software upgrades. If necessary, you can rebuild your staging Virtual Server on demand so that you have a fresh installation to test on. If you need more information about setting up a Virtual Server for staging or testing, please contact eApps Sales.

IMPORTANT: GlassFish 5 has an extensive list of new features and changes, and is the first application server to support Java EE 8 and this release has introduced significant new functionality to GlassFish. See the official GlassFish 5 Release Notes for a list of changes that may cause issues when upgrading: GlassFish 5 Release Notes. Please read this document carefully to understand all the changes in GlassFish 5. Upgrading to this version may significantly impact the operation of your database and applications. All GlassFish 5 documentation is located here: GlassFish 5 Documentation

Before upgrading to GlassFish 5, please carefully read and review the official documentation related to this release. Failure to read, review, and test before upgrading may result in data loss and downtime for your customers.

eApps Release Notes for GlassFish 5

How to upgrade

Highlighted Features and Fixes in GlassFish 5.0

Features

• Java EE Security API 1.0
• Java API for JSON Binding (JSON-B) 1.0
• Servlet 4.0 API with HTTP/2 support
• REST Reactive Client API
• Portable Security API
• Server-Sent Events support (Client & Server-side)
• Support for Java SE 8 capabilities

Fixes

• Java API for JSON Processing (JSON-P) updated to 1.1
• Java API for WebSocket updated to 1.1
• Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) updated to 2.1
• Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java EE (CDI) updated to 2.0
• Java Persistence API (JPA) updated to 2.2
• Common annotations updated to 1.3
• JavaServer Faces (JSF) updated to 2.3
• Java Servlet updated to 4.0
• Bean Validation (BV) updated to 2.0
• Interceptors updated to 1.2

The official Release Notes for GlassFish 5.0 are available here (please note that this is a PDF file) https://javaee.github.io/glassfish/doc/5.0/release-notes.pdf 

How to upgrade

The method you choose to upgrade GlassFish depends on which version of GlassFish you are currently on:

1. If you are on version 4 and wish to upgrade to the latest (version 5.0) you will need to upgrade to version 5.0 by uninstalling version 4 and installing version 5

You will need to be able to connect to your Virtual Server using SSH and work from the command line as the root user.

It is also advised that you back up your existing GlassFish applications and configurations before starting the upgrade process. These files are usually in the /opt/glassfishv4 directories. If you do not have current backups of your applications and configurations and something goes wrong during the upgrade or update process you could have data loss and downtime.

Before upgrading GlassFish make a backup of your database. Follow the instructions for your database: MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL.

GlassFish 4 to GlassFish 5 (ISPmanager 5 only)

Because GlassFish 5 is a major release, you cannot upgrade your existing GlassFish 4 installation in place. You will need to:

1. Stop GlassFish 4
2. Backup your existing /opt/glassfishv4 directory
3. Remove GlassFish 4
4. Install GlassFish 5
5. Redeploy your existing applications from the /opt/glassfishv5 directory to the new GlassFish server

There are some additional steps that are specific to ISPmanager that are covered in that section.

You will need to work from the command line as the root user to uninstall GlassFish 4. After you remove GlassFish, you will install it from the ISPmanager Control Panel.

Before beginning the upgrade process, make a backup of your databases and your existing GlassFish applications and configurations. See the How to upgrade section for more information if necessary.

To upgrade GlassFish in ISPmanager, connect to the Virtual Machine using SSH. Do the following as the root user.

1. Stop GlassFish 4

Stop the glassfish service with the /etc/init.d/glassfish stop command.

[root@eapps-example ~]# /etc/init.d/glassfish stop

It may take a minute or so for the glassfish service to stop.

2. Backup your existing /opt/glassfishv4 directory

Use the mv /opt/glassfishv4 /opt/glassfishv4.orig command to move your existing glassfishv4 directory to a backup location. This maintains your existing files and configurations. If you skip this step you may have data loss.

[root@eapps-example ~]# mv /opt/glassfishv4 /opt/glassfishv4.orig

3. Remove GlassFish 4

Remove GlassFish 4 with the yum remove glassfishv4 command. Remember, if you did not move the /opt/glassfishv4 directory to /opt/glassfishv4.orig you may have data loss after removing GlassFish.[root@eapps-example ~]# yum remove glassfishv4

4. Install GlassFish 5

ISPmanager 4 - go to Server Settings > Applications. GlassFish 5 will be available to install. Note that the default password for the GlassFish Admin Console is shown in this screen.

ISPmanager 5 - go to Settings > Features, and install GlassFish 5.

5. Redeploy your applications

Once GlassFish 5 has been installed, you will need to redeploy your applications from the /opt/glassfishv4.orig directory.