Frequently asked questions

The following questions are bound to be asked more than once, and it would therefore be useful for all students to have access to the answers. Please see if your own question is answered here before sending an email.

The {start,stop,update}-linux.sh scripts do not work under UNIX!

2009-11-14 13:55

If you are using tcsh as shell (which is default@CS), these seem to be some problem with the scripts included in the development environment. To fix this, replace the first line of each script with:

#!/usr/local/bin/bash

Why doesn't my service work?

2009-08-26 11:05

A short checklist:
1. Is tomcat running? Check http://yourmachine:yourport/
2. Is the service deployed? Check http://yourmachine:yourport/axis2/services/listServices. If you cannot see the wsdl of your service, the .aar file did not include the .wsdl file.
3. Can your client run? Ensure that the client side classpath is correct, and that the client uses the same version of the code as the service. Also ensure that you are envoking the correct (i.e., your own service), and not someone else's.
4. So, the client runs, and calls your service, but something goes wrong? A good insight into what happens on the service-side can be obtained by reading the content of $CATALINA_HOME/log/catalina.out.
5. Potential problems on the service side include missing libraries (some classes were not included in the your .aar file), and misconfiguration (is the correct service implementation class specified in services.xml?).
6. To detect and understand errors in message formats, use the TCPMon.

What is a Service-Oriented Architecture?

2009-08-26 09:46

A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a software architecture built around the concept of interoperating software services, that is, software modules that are ubiquitously available to clients over networks. In Service-Oriented Architectures services act in many capacities, they can , e.g., be both clients and servers, be light-weight interfaces to legacy components, be logical components composed of other services, or be interfaces to other Service-Oriented Architectures themselves. Today, Service-Oriented Architectures are commonly constructed using Web Services and find use in a number of software development scenarios due to their inherent scalability, flexibility, and integrability.