What's new in Payara Server 154 ?

Originally published on 29 Oct 2015
Last updated on 06 Jan 2020

As we move into November, the time has come for a new release of Payara Server. We had a focus on fixing bugs and adding the little features that make your life easier over any new big features for this release, but do not worry, we are not running short on big ideas to implement - just time!

As you’ve likely noticed, we’ve added an extra “.1” to our version number. This is to reflect the fact that Oracle released GlassFish 4.1.1 recently, and that we’re up to date with it. Our version numbering system is explained in our wiki, here.
For this release, we’ve also begun the process of writing and uploading the Javadoc for our additional and extended modules. The first of the Javadocs to be uploaded is the Javadoc for the Payara Micro API – you can find it here.Click here to download Payara server 4.1.1.1.154

If you’ve read the release notes, you’ll know that the payaradomain domain now uses embedded Derby for the default JDBC Resource (jdbc/__default). This can help make experimenting and testing your applications a little easier, as you will no longer need to worry about starting an external Derby process for your standalone instances.
To maintain drop-in-replacement compatibility with GlassFish 4.1.1, this change has only been made to the payaradomain domain; the jdbc/__default resource in domain1 still uses the original external Derby database.
Do note that you will need to create a new JDBC resource and connection pool that uses an external database if you intend to have multiple instances using the same datastore, as the jdbc/__defaultresource is now bound to the JVM of each instance.

DISABLED JMS Broker Type

For those of you who wish to replace the JMS broker used in Payara Server, you can now disable OpenMQ using this new option. In the Admin Console, you can find it under Java Message Service in an instance or cluster’s config.

Take note that setting it to DISABLED will not fully disable OpenMQ; to fully disable OpenMQ, you need to set the type to DISABLED, and delete the default JMS connection factories and pools.

Update Centre Removed

Given that we don’t use this feature, and currently have no plans to rewrite it to work with Payara Server, the decision was made to remove it. Its removal will get rid of the irrelevant warning messages that get logged when using the Admin Console due to the module's presence.

REST Management Interface Fixed

It was pointed out to us that the REST Management interface was broken. A required header was not being sent when certain commands were run from this interface, which led to these requests being refused and a blank screen being shown. This has now been fixed, and all commands should now work from this interface again.

Updated Modules, Bug Fixes, and Other Enhancements

As previously mentioned, we had a push on bug fixing and smaller enhancements for this release; we managed to squeeze in:
•   11 Updated Modules
•   11 Enhancements
•   25 Bug Fixes (36 if you also count the fixes from the GlassFish upstream)
These fixes and enhancements include the previously mentioned ones, as well as smaller ones, such as an enhancement allowing you to disable size-based log rotation by setting it to zero (in the same way you can disable time-based log rotation), and a fix to EclipseLink that allows Converters to treat primitive and wrapper types as equivalent (as per JSR338 10.6).
For the full list, you can find the release notes here.

Keep Contributing!

We greatly appreciate your feedback and contributions to the Payara project, and hope that you’ll continue to contribute! If there are any features that you want to see, or any bugs that you’ve found and want to report, just raise an issue to our GitHub project and we’ll look into it!

Payara Server 4.1.1.154 - Download Here!