The Remote Server Adapter lets you deploy local plugin projects to remote servers. You can use it to deploy apps you’re developing to a test server for your QA team or to a beta server for your users. It’s easy to set up too. Your server administrator installs Liferay (version 6.1 or newer), installs the Remote IDE Connector app from Liferay Marketplace, and creates a portal administrator account for you. On your local workstation, you simply make sure you have the same version of Liferay installed and you connect to the remote server using the Remote Server Adapter built into your Liferay IDE or Developer Studio. How’s that for convenience!
Figure 1: Liferay IDE's Remote Server Adapter lets you deploy plugins to remote servers, such as your test server or beta server.
Of course, it’s possible to install the Remote IDE Connector application on a production server, but it creates an unnecessary security risk, so we don’t recommend it. On a production server, you shouldn’t update, or hot-fix, plugins using the adapter; your portal system administrator should use normal plugin management mechanism to apply plugin updates and fixes.
This tutorial uses the Remote Server Adapter on Liferay Portal bundled with Apache Tomcat, but you can use the adapter with Liferay Portal running on any application server Liferay Portal supports.
Now you’re ready to configure and use the Remote Server Adapter!
Configuring and Using the Remote Server Adapter
To configure and use the Remote Server Adapter, follow these steps:
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Make sure your remote Liferay Portal instance is running and that you can log in as a portal administrator with your account.
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Launch Liferay IDE and open the new server wizard by clicking File → New → Other; select Server in the Server category and click Next. Select Remote Liferay Server (Liferay 6.1) in the Liferay, Inc. category.
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Enter the IP address of the remote Liferay Portal host into the Server’s host name field. Enter an arbitrary name for the Server name, like Liferay @ IP_address_of_remote_server, then click Next.
Figure 2: Configure the remote Liferay server's information.
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Next, you must define the Liferay Portal runtime stub. Doing so enables plugin projects to use the runtime stub for satisfying their JAR file dependencies. Select the Liferay bundle type based on the version of your local Liferay bundle, browse to the Liferay bundle directory, select it, and click Next.
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On the next page of the wizard, configure your connection to the remote Liferay instance:
- Hostname: Enter the IP address of your remote Liferay Portal instance’s machine.
- HTTP Port: Enter the port it runs on (default: 8080).
- Username and Password: Enter your administrator credentials for the remote Liferay Portal instance.
The Liferay Portal Context Path and Server Manager Context Path default values reflect the defaults set in Liferay Portal instances. If a portal administrator changed these values on the remote portal instance, enter those new values instead. Otherwise, keep the default values set in the wizard.
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Click the Validate Connection button; if no warnings or errors appear, your connection works! If you get any warning or error messages in the configuration wizard, check your connection settings.
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Once Liferay IDE connects to your remote Liferay Portal instance, click Finish in the Remote Liferay Server configuration wizard.
The new remote server appears in Liferay IDE’s Servers tab. This tab appears in the bottom left corner of the Liferay IDE if you’re using the Liferay perspective. The IDE connects to your remote server and displays the remote Liferay Portal instance’s logs in the console. If your remote server is in debug mode, the adapter attaches Eclipse’s Java debugger to the remote process automatically.
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You can change the remote server settings at any time.
To change the settings, double-click on your remote server instance in the Servers tab to open the configuration editor, where you can modify the settings. The configuration editor also contains settings for publishing resources. You can choose to publish resources automatically after changes are made, automatically publish resources after a build event, or never to publish them automatically.
Figure 3: The remote server's configuration editor lets you modify remote settings, specify how resources are published, and set time limits for server operations.
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As you desire, deploy plugins to the remote portal instance.
As you deploy plugins to the remote server, your console displays messages confirming their deployment. As you make changes to your plugin project, you can republish the project so the changes take effect on the remote server. To manually publish changes, right click on the server in the Servers view and select Publish.
Great! Now that you know how to use Liferay IDE to deploy plugin projects to remote servers, you can more easily integrate your remote portal instances into your testing workflow.