Setting up JBoss to auto reconnect after database outage

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Darren Melanson
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If you had a database outage or failure while JBoss was up, you’re likely in a situation where you would have to restart JBoss because the database connections didn’t get reconnected for you. You’re likely also faced with a massive set of log files due to the data source complaining about it not being able to connect to the database.

If you want JBoss to automatically reconnect the data source pool(s) for you, here’s some settings to use (only valid if using a “local-tx-datasource”):

1) <autoReconnect>true</autoReconnect>
2) <check-valid-connection-sql>an efficient select statement</check-valid-connection-sql>
3) <failOverReadOnly>false</failOverReadOnly>
4) <maxReconnects>50</maxReconnects>
5) <initialTimeout>15</initialTimeout>

In the above settings, if the data source connectivity is lost (database down or network failure) – then JBoss will automatically attempt to reconnect 50 times every 15 seconds. You can obviously set those numbers to values suitable to your environment. It’s also important to set the failOverReadOnly flag to false as it ensures that recovered connections are writable.

Additionally, some people prefer to include a valid and efficient SQL statement in the “check-valid-connection”, it’s completely optional but a good practice in environments where stale connections are common. Optionally, there’s also “new-connection-sql” which will check on newly created connections.

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About Darren Melanson

Darren is a development manager working on the ADEP product in Adobe Systems.
This entry was posted in Adobe LiveCycle ES, Adobe LiveCycle ES2 (9.0.x). Bookmark the permalink.

13 Responses to Setting up JBoss to auto reconnect after database outage

  1. HDao says:
    March 8, 2011 at 5:33 am

    Thanks for posting this topic but is there one for WebSphere environment?

    • Darren Melanson says:
      March 8, 2011 at 7:51 am

      WebSphere will handle this automatically for you without any additional changes.

  2. walter says:
    April 5, 2011 at 12:50 am

    Hi!

    Where will you put these configuration? Is it in the *-ds.xml?

    And will this work if I did not put the
    tag?

    Thanks!

    • Darren Melanson says:
      April 5, 2011 at 4:57 am

      Walter, yes – these settings go in the data source configuration xml files. Not sure I understand your second question.

  3. Andrew says:
    September 6, 2011 at 9:09 am

    Hi, do you mind sharing the version of JBoss this works with? I’ve only seen references to the autoReconnect feature in combination with MySQL (and then only as an option). Thanks!

  4. Martin says:
    March 7, 2012 at 11:33 am

    hi

    Do you know how to use “autoReconnect” element in “xa-datasource” tag.

    could you tell me where i can find the jboss org authority’s doc to use “autoReconnect” element ?
    thank a lot

  5. david says:
    May 21, 2012 at 6:08 pm

    Hi,

    How would jbossas 5.0.0 behave during the database outage for 2hrs without autoreconnect param and with only valid-connection-checker-class-name *-ds.xml file

  6. parveen says:
    August 10, 2012 at 7:43 am

    i am not able to autoconnect in jboss 7…as this configuration does not work in jboss 7 ..please tell me how to reconnect in jboss7

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