A sample glassfish-resources.xml

A sample glassfish-resources.xml file that defines a global datasource and its underlying jdbc connection pool:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE resources PUBLIC "-//GlassFish.org//DTD GlassFish Application Server 3.1 Resource Definitions//EN" "http://glassfish.org/dtds/glassfish-resources_1_5.dtd">
<resources>
<jdbc-connection-pool name="jdbc/test-pool" res-type="javax.sql.DataSource"
datasource-classname="org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDataSource"
pool-resize-quantity="1" max-pool-size="5" steady-pool-size="0"
statement-timeout-in-seconds="60" >
   <property name="serverName" value="localhost" />
   <property name="portNumber" value="1527" />
   <property name="dataBaseName" value="sun-appserv-samples" />
   <property name="User" value="APP" />
   <property name="Password" value="APP" />
   <property name="connectionAttributes" value=";create=true" />
   <property name="driverType" value="4" />
 </jdbc-connection-pool>

 <jdbc-resource jndi-name="jdbc/test-ds" pool-name="jdbc/test-pool" />
</resources>

To create the declared jdbc resources with GlassFish asadmin command:

$ asadmin add-resources $HOME/glassfish-resources.xml
Command : JDBC connection pool jdbc/test-pool created successfully.
Command : JDBC resource jdbc/test-ds created successfully.
Command add-resources executed successfully.

To delete both resources:

$ asadmin delete-jdbc-connection-pool
--cascade true jdbc/test-pool
JDBC Connection pool jdbc/test-pool deleted successfully
Command delete-jdbc-connection-pool executed successfully.

To create, delete or list these jdbc resources in a cluster, simply add target option to the asadmin command:

$ asadmin add-resources --target cluster1 $HOME/glassfish-resources.xml
instance1:
Command : JDBC connection pool jdbc/test-pool created successfully.
Command : JDBC resource jdbc/test-ds created successfully.

instance2:
Command : JDBC connection pool jdbc/test-pool created successfully.
Command : JDBC resource jdbc/test-ds created successfully.

Command : JDBC connection pool jdbc/test-pool created successfully.
Command : JDBC resource jdbc/test-ds created successfully.
Command add-resources executed successfully.


$ asadmin list-jdbc-resources cluster1
jdbc/test-ds
Command list-jdbc-resources executed successfully.


$ asadmin list-jdbc-connection-pools cluster1
__TimerPool
DerbyPool
jdbc/test-pool
Command list-jdbc-connection-pools executed successfully.


$ asadmin delete-jdbc-connection-pool --cascade true --target cluster1 jdbc/test-pool
CLI031 Warning: Option "target" is obsolete and will be ignored.
JDBC Connection pool jdbc/test-pool deleted successfully
instance1:
JDBC Connection pool jdbc/test-pool deleted successfully

instance2:
JDBC Connection pool jdbc/test-pool deleted successfully

Command delete-jdbc-connection-pool executed successfully.

You can also create jdbc resources in GlassFish admin console, or via asadmin specifying command-line options. More details are in How to create jdbc connection pool and DataSource in GlassFish

Another usage of glassfish-resources.xml is to include it inside application, e.g., WEB-INF/glassfish-resources.xml for web app, META-INF/glassfish-resources.xml for ejb jar, etc. The declared resources are created upon deployment, and disposed of upon undeployment. More details in GlassFish embedded, JPA, EJB, DataSource and glassfish-resources.xml