Last days I'm working on Liferay based project with JBossAS 5.1 used as server.

Since during redeploy I've met strange problems from ehcache used as second-level cache (in general it works well, but looks like during redeploy it cannot find some classes/methods from Hibernate) I've decided to try to use JBoss Cache as second-level cache for hibernate.

OK, first try is failed - I did not managed to make it working - but I hope I will able soon - any comments or suggestions will be very helpful!

Until now - to make Liferay to use JBoss Cache - I changed portal.properties (in my case, since I'm working in ext-environment I've edited portal-ext.properties) to contains:

hibernate.cache.provider_class=
hibernate.cache.region.factory_class=org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.JndiMultiplexedJBossCacheRegionFactory
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cachefactory=java:CacheManager
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.entity=mvcc-entity
hibernate.cache.region.jbc2.cfg.query=local-query
hibernate.cache.region_prefix=tempdb

Don't have clear ideas about all these configurations - just got it from Hibernate + JBoss Cache tutorial.

His settings said to use cache from JBoss service CacheManager (got from JNDI) - what is nice -  it is possible to configure cache to work (for example) clustering on server-level, and use this cache in different applications.

Also - note:

1. JBoss Cache and CacheManager service is included (by default) only into all configuration, so, you need run JBoss in this configuration and deploy Liferay into it
2. If you are using ant-script to clean/deploy ext-environment - please be sure it is not removed libraries from <jboss>/server/all/lib folder - if removed - please return them back

Why it is failed?

So, as I told - in my case it is not working. During starting Liferay I've got exception:

Caused by: org.hibernate.cache.CacheException: unsupported access type [read-write]
    at org.hibernate.cache.jbc2.entity.EntityRegionImpl.buildAccessStrategy(EntityRegionImpl.java:66)
    at org.hibernate.impl.SessionFactoryImpl.<init>(SessionFactoryImpl.java:256)
    at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1327)

I've checked sources - yes, this class supports only AccessType.READ_ONLY & AccessType.TRANSACTIONAL. There is TODO to add support for READ_WRITE - but - looks like it is not implemented yet.

As I checked - for all classes in liferay mappings - read-write strategy is used for class-cache, so, it is failed to use JBoss Cache...

How to fix?

I do not have clear idea for now. I see few steps:

• Understand why read-write is not supported - and is it difficult to add such support?
• use wrapper - to convert requested read-write access-type into read-only - but - it need to be investigated - probably such change of strategy will produce ome problems during Liferay working - or big performance degradation.

OK, at least for now it is not top priority for me - so, leave it for some future time.