3.5. Installation Results

All of the installation methods create the same final directory layout. The resulting Geronimo directory will look something like this:

The text files are informational only, and can be freely moved or removed. The directories are the interesting part:

bin/

Holds the JARs used to start the server and run the offline deploy tool

config-store/

Holds subdirectories for modules that can be run in Geronimo. An application might be such a module, as might a resource such as a Connector or database pool. Some or all of these configuration modules will be started when the Geronimo server is started. The subdirectories are numbered sequentially, and the config-store/index.properties file contains a list of which modules are located in which numbered subdirectories. The Geronimo deployment tools maintain the contents of this directory automatically.

lib/

Holds libraries required to load the most basic parts of Geronimo -- the foundation (or "kernel") which in turn loads all the other application, resource, and service modules.

repository/

Holds shared libraries which the application and resource modules can refer to. Not everything in this directory will be loaded -- each library will be loaded only when a module that depends on it is loaded. You might add entries here for database drivers or libraries that should be visible to multiple application modules without being separately distributed with each application.

schema/

Holds a reference copy of the XML Schema definitions for all the J2EE and Geronimo deployment descriptors, as well as the definitions of all the Geronimo configuration files.

var/

Holds some files pertaining to the runtime state of the server, such as log files, the transaction log, security realm configuration files, and a list of the configuration modules that were running the last time the server was running.

None of these directories should be moved or altered. Only a limited number of files in them should even be edited (one example of an editable file is the properties file that configures users and password for the default security realm).

In addition to the directories listed above, the custom and automated installers create two more subdirectories:

installer-temp/

Holds the customized Geronimo deployment plans for all of the core services. This might be useful if you want to further customize and redeploy one of the core configurations. This capability should not be taken lightly, however, as deploying a bad configuration of a core service may cripple the Geronimo installation. More information on the default services is provided in Chapter 19, Overview of Core Geronimo Services [EMPTY].

Uninstaller/

Holds an executable JAR that can be used to uninstall Geronimo.