Run Modes with Use Cases In AEM 6.2 - Part1

Run Modes is the most interesting feature in AEM. This allows you to tune your AEM instance for a specific purpose; for example, author/publish, qa, development, intranet or others.

Why Run Modes?

• Uniquely identify an environment and instances
• Unique configurations based on the environment
• OSGi Component Creation for a specific environment
• Bundle Creation for a specific environment

There are two types of run modes:

• Primary Run Mode
• Secondary Run  Mode

Primary Run Modes are:

• Author: This instance is used for complete development and authoring purpose.
• Publish: This is the actual environment that can be accessed by end-users.
• nosamplecontent: This instance is having no sample content(like geometrixx,we-retail not available).It is highly recommended in a production environment because it is very secure and it provides no sample configurations.lt makes your instance production-ready, by disabling CRXDE lite, webdav, etc
• samplecontent: having sample content like a geometrixx-all package. This is just for the help of developers, not required on any server.

Note: Primary Run Modes can’t be changed once the aem jar is started. So at the time of AEM instance startup only, we need to finalize which primary run mode is required.

Combination of primary run modes also happen:

• Author+samplecontent
• Author+nosamplecontent
• Publish+samplecontent
• Publish+nosamplecontent

Secondary Run Modes are:

• Dev Server
• QA Server
• UAT Server
• Prod Server

We can create our own customized run modes on the basis of location( i.e., us, uk), language or any other basis.

Where we define Run mode?

• By Changing  in sling:properties file

Steps to follow:

1. Go to crx-quickstart/conf directory of aem instance and add the below line:

            sling.run.modes= author, dev

Fig- Set the run mode in a sling.properties file

• Using the -r option: When you start the AEM instance by command prompt then set “-r” option in the command.

Example: java -jar jar-name -r dev,sameplecontent

• By Renaming Jar: cq5-<run-mode>-p<port-number>

Example: publish instance :  cq5-publish -p4503.jar

Author instance:  cq5-author-p4502.jar

Note: Only primary run modes  (ex: author, publish) are applicable for renaming jar.

• By adding JVM arguments:  When you start the AEM instance by command prompt then set the jvm parameter in the command. This will be something like this:

Java -jar JAR_NAME -Dsling.run.modes=publish,prod,us  

How to check the run mode of running AEM instances?

• Go to Felix Console.
• Go to the Status tab in Navigation and click on sling settings option.
• Here you can see the Run Modes

Fig - Check the run mode of running AEM instance

• You can directly go to http://localhost:4502/system/console/status-slingsettings

USE CASE OF RUN MODE IN THE PROJECT

Problem Statement:

In Felix Configurations, there is a configuration named as DAY CQ MAIL SERVICE. Now let's say we have a requirement of using smtp.port=25 in author, Dev, US server but smtp.port=465 in Author, QA, UK  Server. (Here US and UK are the locations of servers)

Solution:

Create Run Modes:

• Go to Crxde.
• Go to /apps/my-project

Create Configurations for Author,Dev Server which is in US:

• Create a folder (sling:folder) with the name config.author.dev.us
• Create a sling:osgiConfig type of node named com.day.cq.mailer.DefaultMailService.config.

Note: Node name should be the same name as the Persistent Identity (PID) of the configuration in the OSGi Console.

• Add the following properties in this config for Dev Server:

Fig - Adding the mail service configuration for DEV, US-run mode

• Run an AEM instance on Author, Dev, US Environment by using any of the options explained above.
• Check the run mode of running AEM instance

Fig- AEM instance is in AUTHOR, DEV, US-run mode

• Now Check the mail Configurations

Fig- Check the configuration in Felix console for DEV, US-run mode aem instance

Create Configurations for Author, QA Server which is in the UK:

• Create a folder (sling:folder) with the name config.author.qa
• Create a sling:osgiConfig type of node named com.day.cq.mailer.DefaultMailService.config
• Add the following properties in this config  for QA Server:

Fig - Adding the mail service configuration for QA, UK run mode

• Run an AEM instance on Author, QA, UK Environment by using any of the options explained above.
• Check the run mode of running AEM instance

Fig- AEM instance is in AUTHOR, QA, UK run mode

• Now Check the mail Configurations in Felix Console

Fig- Check the configuration in felix console for QA, UK run mode aem instance

The minimum possible configurations for AEM environments.

Fig- Minimal possible configuration in any AEM project

Note: Every run mode tries to find out the best possible match available for configuration. If multiple configurations for the same PID are applicable, the configuration with the highest number of matching run modes is applied.