Using Ant to deploy EAR to remote websphere application server

Question

I want to automatically deploy a EAR file build in our continuous integration server to a websphere application server. I looked up the Ant task wsdeploy, but the documentation really isn't helpful at all. I added this to my ant script:

WSDeploy Ant task

<classpath>
    <fileset dir="${dir.was.plugins}">
        <include name="**/*.jar" />
    </fileset>
</classpath>
<taskdef name="wsdeploy" classname="com.ibm.websphere.ant.tasks.WSDeploy" />
<target name="deploy">
    <wsdeploy inputFile="myearfile.ear"
              outputFile="myearfile_fordeployment.ear"
              classpath="${classpath}"
              debug="true"
              ignoreErrors="false"
              noValidate="false"
              trace="true" />
</target>

My Problem

I don't know how to specify the remote server address and I'd be glad to get some links to tutorials or maybe a working Ant snippet to deploy an EAR to the websphere server.

We already have some SCP and SSHEXEC tasks running for the portlets, and they're calling the XMLAccess interface to place and start the portlets. Do I have to adapt that scripts for the EAR too or is that a completely wrong way to automatically deploy an EAR file?

---

UPDATE 2

I rewrote my ant script and now there is no ClassNotFoundException anymore. Still, there is an unexpected behavior: The script wants to use a profile I never specified...

Call to Ant:

%WAS_HOME%\bin\ws_ant.bat -Duser.install.root="%WAS_HOME%\profiles\EXPECTEDPROFILE" -f buildall.xml "%1"

I want to run all this with EXPECTEDPROFILE, but the error message that is following suggests that there is another profile UNEXPECTEDPROFILE involved.

Output:

wasListApps:
  [wsadmin] WASX7023E: Fehler beim Erstellen der "SOAP"-Verbindung zu "MYHOST". Informationen zur Ausnahme: com.ibm.websphere.management.exception.ConnectorNotAvailableException: com.ibm.websphere.management.exception.ConnectorNotAvailableException: ADMC0016E: Das System kann keinen SOAP-Connector erstellen, um die Verbindung zum Host MYHOST an Port MYPORT herzustellen.
  [wsadmin] WASX7213I: Dieser Script-Client ist mit keinem Serverprozess verbunden. Pr?fen Sie, ob in der Protokolldatei /PATH/TO/UNEXPECTEDT/PROFILE/logs\wsadmin.traceout n?here Einzelheiten enthalten sind.
  [wsadmin] WASX8011W: Das AdminTask-Objekt ist nicht verfügbar.
  [wsadmin] WASX7015E: Beim Ausf?hren des Befehls "$AdminApp list" ist eine Ausnahme eingetreten. Informationen zur Ausnahme:
  [wsadmin] com.ibm.ws.scripting.ScriptingException: WASX7206W: Der Application Management Service ist nicht aktiv. Die Befehle f?r die Anwendungsverwaltung k?nnen nicht ausgef?hrt werden.
  [wsadmin] Java Result: 103

UPDATE 1

Using wsinstallapp

After reading JoseKs answer I tried to use wsinstallapp to install my application with this Ant target:

<taskdef name="wsInstallApp" classname="com.ibm.websphere.ant.tasks.InstallApplication" classpath="${dir.was.plugins}/com.ibm.ws.runtime_6.1.0.jar" />

<target name="deploy" depends="EAR">
    <wsInstallApp
        wasHome="${WAS_HOME}"
        ear="MYAPPLICATION.ear"
        options=""
        properties=""
        profile=""
        conntype="SOAP"
        host="${TargetServer}"
        port="${TargetPort}"
        user="${TargetUser}"
        password="${TargetPwd}"
        failonerror="true" />
</target>

But this is what I get:

deploy:
[wsInstallApp] Anwendung wird installiert [/path/to/MYAPPLICATION.ear]...
  [wsadmin] Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main
  [wsadmin]     at com.ibm.wsspi.bootstrap.WSPreLauncher.launchEclipse(WSPreLauncher.java:335)
  [wsadmin]     at com.ibm.wsspi.bootstrap.WSPreLauncher.main(WSPreLauncher.java:91)
  [wsadmin] Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main
  [wsadmin]     at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:496)
  [wsadmin]     at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:631)
  [wsadmin]     at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:349)
  [wsadmin]     at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:597)
  [wsadmin]     ... 2 more

I don't know why the task is searching for an Eclipse class...

Answer 1

I believe the ant task for actually deploying the EAR onto the remote Websphere is wsInstallApp as documented here

<taskdef name="wsInstallApp" classname="com.ibm.websphere.ant.tasks.InstallApplication"/>




<wsInstallApp
                  wasHome="location of websphere installation"
                  ear="the ear file you wish to install"
                  options="the options to pass to the installation process"
                  properties="java properties file containing attributes to set in the JVM System properties"
                  profile="a script file to be executed before the main command or file"
                  conntype="specifies the type of connection to be used."
                  host="the host to connect to"
                  port="the port on the host to connect to"
                  user="user ID to authenticate with"
        password="password to authenticate with"
        failonerror="true | false"/>