Whats new in liferay 6.2 API - Part 1

In this post we will cover the changes that comes along with Liferay Portal 6.2 in liferay-portlet.xml DTD file.

Connecting Liferay with Another Database

In the following post we will connect liferay with some third party database (legacy database):

Method 1:

1. Create Service.xml

2. Create ext-spring.xml file as /WEB-INF/src/META-INF/ext-spring.xml

You wont believe but yes we are done!!


Method 2:

1. Make an entry in portal-ext.properties file for another database:

2. create service.xml:

3. create ext-spring.xml file:


done!


NOTE: In both the above methods, we have to create the table manually in the database.

Liferay Ehcache Configuration : Distributed Caching in Liferay

Liferay Portal uses Ehcache to support distributed caching.

1. Enable distributed caching

To enable the distributed caching in liferay portal just set the following property in the portal-ext.properties file.

cluster.link.enabled=true

2. Default Hibernate cache settings

In Liferay Portal, hibernate is configured to use the Ehcache and default caching configurations are specified in the hibernate-clustered.xml file.

Following configuration is used by default for all the Liferay entities.



3. Customizing Hibernate Cache Settings

Let say we want to customize the hibernate cache settings for MBMessage Entity. Following are the steps to achieve our goal -

create a new folder say myEhcache in the [Tomcat Home]/webapps/ROOT /WEB-INF/classes/ folder and copy the default hibernate-clustered.xml file in the myEhcache folder.

Edit the hibernate-clustered.xml file and an entry for MBMessage Entity



4. Add an entry to portal-ext.properties file to provide the path of your custom hibernate-clustered.xml file

    net.sf.ehcache.configurationResourceName=/myEhcache/hibernate-clustered.xml

Restart the server.

5. Viewing Cache Configuration in jconsole -

jconsole can be used to view the current cache settings applied. Following is screenshot displaying the cache configuration for MBMessageImpl class:


As we customized the Hibernate cache settings, Cache settings for the clustered environment can also be configured via following files -

1.  liferay-single-vm.xml

2. liferay-multi-vm-clustered.xml