commandline tool Glassfish appclient doesn't see deployed EJB - glassfish

Question

I'm working my way through a book about "Java EE 7 for Glassfish", with the server installed on Fedora Linux.
I have a simple stateless session bean SimpleSessionBean deployed on the server and I am trying to approach that SimpleSessionBean via SessionBeanClient and the Glassfish command line tool appclient, running a client jar. Everything from the book, so it should work. The client however can't find SimpleSessionBean. Apparently a class path issue. In the server logs nothing happened.
I can't find any pointers how Glassfish should be properly installed. Everything works within the server. I can approach installed war files from facelets running in a browser.
It is probably a matter of setting $PATH right or something or some other environment variable. Any pointers to relevant literature?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
UPDATE1: error message
From the bash terminal window where I run appclient:
[fedora#localhost bin]$ ./appclient -client /home/fedora/Downloads/6886EN_04_Code/ch04_src/simplesessionbeanclient/target/simplesessionbeanclient.jar
Jul 06, 2017 12:52:57 PM org.glassfish.apf.impl.DefaultErrorHandler error
SEVERE: Class [ Lnet/ensode/glassfishbook/SimpleSession; ] not found.
Error while loading [ class net.ensode.glassfishbook.SessionBeanClient ]
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: net/ensode/glassfishbook/SimpleSession
at net.ensode.glassfishbook.SessionBeanClient.invokeSessionBeanMethods(SessionBeanClient.java:12)
at net.ensode.glassfishbook.SessionBeanClient.main(SessionBeanClient.java:19)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: net.ensode.glassfishbook.SimpleSession
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:381)
at org.glassfish.appclient.client.acc.ACCClassLoader.findClass(ACCClassLoader.java:237)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
UPDATE2: From the Glassfish book:
We are using Maven to build our code. For this example, we used
the Maven Assembly plugin (http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-assembly-plugin/) to build a client JAR file
that includes all dependencies; this frees us from having to specify
all the dependent JAR files in the -classpath command-line option
of the appclient utility. To build this JAR file, simply invoke mvn
assembly:assembly from the command line.
SOLUTION: the missing link was producing a client jar with additional jar's "on board" so to speak. Proceed as follows (at least in Eclipse): select pom.xml > right-click > Run As > Maven build... > enter in Goals field: assembly:assembly> Apply/Run.
The result will be that you will find TWO jars under your target folder: xxxclient.jar and xxxclient-jar-with-dependencies.jar.
From the command line in bash execute from the folder with latter jar:
/path_to/appclient -client xxxclient-jar-with-dependencies.jar
After a very long wait (on my $200 mini Linux box) the HelloWorld-ish server EJB gets finally properly called.

Answer 1

Your assumption is right.
You are missing net.ensode.glassfishbook.SimpleSession in your classpath.
From an older book online:
...executed through the appclient utility. This utility can be found at
[glassfish installation directory]/glassfish/bin/. Assuming this path
is in the PATH environment variable, and assuming we placed our client
code in a JAR file called simplesessionbeanclient.jar, we would
execute the above client code by typing the following command in the
command line:
appclient -client simplesessionbeanclient.jar
It seems that you've started from
.../bin/./appclient -client
/home/fedora/Downloads/6886EN_04_Code/ch04_src/simplesessionbeanclient/target/simplesessionbeanclient.jar
You need SimpleSession.class in your CLASSPATH (or in a jar in that classpath).
Usually java checks the current directory first (which is your bin folder). If the class is not found (its not, since its in your simplesessionbeanclient folder), it searches for that class in the classpath (where you did not add the simplesessionbeanclient folder).
Try
appclient -client simplesessionbeanclient.jar
from the folder where simplesessionbeanclient.jar is located.
If you don't want to add the appclient folder to your path start with
/your/path/to/appclient -client simplesessionbeanclient.jar
(again from the folder where simplesessionbeanclient.jar is located)
Update:
If you still get a ClassNotFoundException have a look if it is missing in your jar file (jars are Zip-File, you could use your Zip-Tools):
jar tf simplesessionbeanclient.jar
if there is a SimpleSession.class

Answer 2

I did the following to fix my problem:
Use appclient -classpath (instead of appclient -client)
Use the regular project JARs (instead of the one generated by mvn assembly:assembly)
Deploy the EJB to Glassfish (simplesessionbean.jar)
The example code from a more recent book "Java EE 8 Application Development" by David R. Heffelfinger (the same author of "Java EE 7 for Glassfish") is almost exactly the same (the only minor difference is classes are packaged in "net.ensode.javaee8book" instead of "net.ensode.glassfishbook").
When running appclient.bat -client simplesessionbeanclient-jar-with-dependencies.jar I kept getting:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: <mainclass>
errors. This was because the POM was assembling a manifest with <mainClass> value of "net.ensode.glassfishbook.SessionBeanClient" (instead of "net.ensode.javaee8book.SessionBeanClient"). So I decided to avoid using the -client option for appclient.bat and switched to -classpath which allowed me to specify the main class on the command line (which is easier than updating the POM or refactoring the packages to suit the manifest).
But then when running the appclient command:
PS C:\home\programs\java_ee_sdk-8u1\glassfish5\glassfish\bin> .\appclient.bat -classpath "C:\home\code\Java-EE-8-Application-Development-Code-Samples-master\ch04_src\simplesessionbean\target\simplesessionbean.jar;C:\home\code\Java-EE-8-Application-Development-Code-Samples-master\ch04_src\simplesessionbeanclient\target\simplesessionbeanclient.jar" net.ensode.javaee8book.SessionBeanClient
I kept getting:
Root exception is javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: net.ensode.javaee8book.SimpleSession#net.ensode.javaee8book.SimpleSession not found]]
errors. This was solved by deploying the EJB (simplesessionbean.jar) to Glassfish via the Admin Console (this missing step was not mentioned in the book). Running the appclient.bat command then worked.
Screenshot of appclient.bat (takes about 15 seconds to load):
Screenshot of EJB deployment:
Alternatively
You can manually compile the client to include all the dependencies by copying SimpleSession.java and SimpleSessionBean.java from the "simplesessionbean" project to the "simplesessionbeanclient" project (remember to refactor the package statements). This will generate simplesessionbeanclient.jar with the EJBs included (Nb: you still have to deploy the EJBs to the GlassFish server). Also make sure that the <mainClass> element in the POM points to the correct package.
You can now use the -client option: