JBoss EAP footprint too large after applying an update

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP)
    • 6.x
    • 7.x
  • Any patch/update applied via the patch apply command

Issue

  • When we apply cumulative patches, installation size significantly increases.
  • Is there a way to shrink the size of a patched EAP installation so that redundant files are cleaned up or removed?
  • When applying a patch, the same software seems to be applied over and over again.
  • How to get a version of EAP without leaving the old modules and libraries from prior updates?
  • How can we remove extra copies of jars from old JBoss patches?

Resolution

Users can remove prior patch applications using this CLI command while JBoss EAP is running.

  • Standalone mode:

      /core-service=patching:ageout-history

  • Domain mode:

    Run the command once for each host:

      /host=master/core-service=patching:ageout-history

This will ensure that only the cumulative set of changes is kept. Prior updates will be removed.

Running this command will prevent patch jars from accumulating at the cost of not being able to roll back to prior patch versions, i.e. rollback mechanism will not working.

Root Cause

A cumulative patch/update has two main considerations:

  • contains a comprehensive set of changes including the changes from prior updates
  • has applicable installation for any prior version in the update stream

This is accomplished by bundling prior updates into the most recent one, but it also has the effect of increasing the patch size for every update. The same is true during patch application as every necessary update is used in order to update JBoss EAP to the latest version.

In EAP 8.x this is solution is no longer needed because we have a new patch management system that does not keep multiple copies of modified jars anymore.

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