HomeDirect Bank - Installation and Configuration Instructions

Welcome to HomeDirect! This Enterprise Java application uses J2EE^TM technology, and is intended to be a design and development example to accompany the book "Developing Enterprise Java Applications with J2EE and UML".

This document describes how to install and run the HomeDirect Bank example on Windows 2000 or NT. HomeDirect was built to take advantage of the many elements already present in the J2EE reference implementation - including the server platform, database, and deployment tools. As such, the installation procedure involves configuring several aspects of J2EE 1.3 - Beta 2 Release. Please be sure to follow these instructions closely.

Also note this example was tested with the latest available version of J2EE 1.3 at the time of writing, which is the Beta 2 Release. It is anticipated that the final release of J2EE 1.3 might introduce some changes that could impact this example, but they should be minor in nature.

1. Install the J2SE 1.3 and J2EE 1.3 - Beta 2 Release software development kits for Windows.
   Older versions of these SDKs will not work. This example may also work with J2SE 1.4, but this hasn't been tested  as J2SE 1.4 is not available at the time of this writing. 

   You can download and install them from:
   

   • Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.3
     http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/download-windows.html
   
   
   
   • Java 2 SDK, Enterprise Edition, version 1.3 - Beta 2 Release
     http://java.sun.com/j2ee/download.html.


2. Configure JAVA_HOME environment variable.
   From Start->Settings->Control Panel, choose to edit the System settings. Click on Advanced->Environment Variables, and then set a new variable called JAVA_HOME with the directory where you installed the J2SE SDK, typically C:\jdk1.3.



3. Configure J2EE_HOME environment variable.
   In the same location as JAVA_HOME, set another new variable called J2EE_HOME with the directory where you installed the J2EE SDK, typically C:\j2sdkee1.3.



4. Configure the Cloudscape database server.
   Under the %J2EE_HOME% directory, edit the file config\resource.properties. Add the lines for the HomeDirectDB entry to the end of the list of databases. The lines you add will look like this:
   
   jdbcDataSource.5.name=jdbc/HomeDirectDB
jdbcDataSource.5.url=jdbc:cloudscape:rmi:HomeDirectDB;create=true
   
   Save the file.



5. Start the Cloudscape database server.
   This command will start the Cloudscape server. You'll want to run this command in a separate window. Change to the %J2EE_HOME%\bin directory and run:
   
   cloudscape -start



6. Unzip the HomeDirect example code for J2EE 1.3
   Use a ZIP decompression tool to unzip HomeDirect.zip, to the directory C:\HomeDirect. All of the code will be found under C:\HomeDirect\j2ee1.3. We'll refer to this directory as %HomeDirect% in the rest of these instructions.



7. Populate the HomeDirect database.
   This command will reset the HomeDirect database, populating it with preset tables and data. You can run this command whenever you want to reset the state of the database. Change to the %HomeDirect%\sql directory and run the command:
   
   Resetdb



8. Start the J2EE server.
   This command will start the J2EE server. You'll want to run this command in a separate window. Change to the %J2EE_HOME%\bin directory and run:
   
   j2ee -verbose



9. Start the deploy tool.
   This command will start the J2EE application deployment tool. You'll want to run this command in a separate window. In the same %J2EE_HOME%\bin directory run:
   
   deploytool



10. Deploy the application.
    Click on the File menu, and then Open Application.... Select the file %HomeDirect%\HomeDirect.ear. Next, click on the Tools menu, and then Deploy Application. Click through the dialog boxes to complete the deployment.