For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

Deploy the Application Center Console and Services with Ant tasks

Use Ant tasks to deploy the Application Center Console and Services to an application server, and configure data sources, properties, and database drivers that are used by Application Center.

Before you begin

• Complete the procedure at Create and configuring the database for Application Center with Ant tasks.
• You must run the Ant task on the computer where the application server is installed, or the Network Deployment Manager for WebSphere® Application Server Network Deployment. If we want to start the Ant task from a computer where MobileFirst Server is not installed, we must copy the following files and directories to that computer:
  • The library mf_server_install_dir/MobileFirstServer/mfp-ant-deployer.jar
  • The web applications (WAR and EAR files) in mf_server_install_dir/ApplicationCenter/console
  • The directory that contains the binary files of the aapt program, from the Android SDK platform-tools package: mf_server_install_dir/ApplicationCenter/tools/android-sdk
  • The Ant sample files that are in mf_server_install_dir/ApplicationCenter/configuration-samples

  Note: The mf_server_install_dir placeholder represents the directory where you installed MobileFirst Server.

Procedure

1. Copy the Ant file that corresponds both to our application server, and your DBMS. The files for configuring Application Center are named after the following pattern:

   configure-appcenter-<appserver>-<dbms>.xml

2. Edit the Ant file, and replace the placeholder values with the properties at the beginning of the file.
3. Run the following command to deploy the Application Center Console and Services to an application server:

   ant -f configure-appcenter-<appserver>-<dbms>.xml install

   We can find the Ant command in mf_server_install_dir/shortcuts.

   Note: With these Ant files, we can also do the following actions:

   • Uninstall Application Center, with the target uninstall.
   • Update Application Center with the target minimal-update, to apply a fix pack.

4. Save the Ant file. You might need it later to apply a fix pack or perform an upgrade. If you do not want to save the passwords, we can replace them by "************" (12 stars) for interactive prompting.
5. If you installed on WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile, or Apache Tomcat, check that the aapt program is executable for all users. If needed, we must set the proper user rights. For example, on UNIX / Linux systems:

   $ chmod a+x mf_server_install_dir/ApplicationCenter/tools/android-sdk/*/aapt*

Parent topic: Install the Application Center with Ant tasks