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Steps to deploy play framework application to production environment?

I got stuck in the steps to deploy the play-java application to standalone server. I am using Ubuntu instance running onEc2 machine. After reading the official documentation I followed these steps:
Install typesafe activator to $Home/activator
Copy my project folder to $Home/activator/projects using Jenkins
Run cd $Home/activator/projects/project
Run dist command. It generate the project sh file
Run cd $HOME/activator/projects/sample/target/universal. It shows me three things i.e. sample-1.0.zip , tmp.
Run unzip sample-1.0.zip
Run cd $Home/activator/sample/target/universal/sample-1.0/bin. It shows me two scripts i.e. sample (for mac and linux) and smaple.bat (for windows).
Now, I tried to run this command as documentation says: sample-1.0/bin/sample -Dplay.crypto.secret="abcdefghijk" but it got stuck and shows nothing except a prompt on terminal.
What next steps are required to run the application in daemon mode. So that server will continue to run always?
Another question is why do I need to follow these steps because just after copying the project I can easily run activator run command to sample folder to run the server.
EDIT-1
Now I am getting Error: Could not find or load main class play.core.server.ProdServerStart while running sample -Dplay.crypto.secret="abcdefghijk" command

Play Framework modes
Play like other frameworks can run in different modes because we are usually like to run our program in different situation and these situations need their configuration. Production is one of play modes. In this mode as the name suggested we are ready to deploy our application where user can use.As a result requirements are different.
Some common configuration in Production mode :
We are confining https
Using production data base not testing one
Play doesn't show errors
Play framework run as long term process and if you are log out of your server your application will run
If your app fails Play will clone another application and run that so your app run forever except you turn it off.
and so on (it is based on your Production config file)
Your answer :
If you just want to test your app in remote server and see what happened, it's okay to use activator run this command runes Play app in development mode and application will killed if you exit or log off (error will shows up and so on). But if you want to use your app for Production it is necessary to run all of these steps.

Jenkins job list changes when running as a service and from CLI

I was running jenkins as a service on my windows machine, and I had setup a few jobs. Now, when I shutdown the service and ran the same jenkins from command line, using "java -jar jenkins.war", all jobs are gone. Now, I thought it would delete configuration, and i started it back as service. Now, all the jobs were back again. Why does this happen?

I solved this by setting JENKINS_HOME to the jenkins folder, and the launching java -jar jenkins.war

Start Tomcat on Console from Jenkins

I have a batch file which start Tomcat as follows (when running it on Windows it works fine)
...
start C:\Users\root\tomcat\tomcat2\bin\startup.bat
The batch file is called from Jenkins as follows
I have this error in the Jenkins Consol at the end of the build
D:\jenkins\workspace\Start 3T2>start C:\Users\root\tomcat\tomcat2\bin\startup.bat
Process leaked file descriptors. See http://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Spawning+processes+from+build for more information
Finished: SUCCESS
When I check the task manager I see that the server is started but in background. I need actually to start Tomcat it in the Console.
This is what I did :
I added -Dhudson.util.ProcessTree.disable=true in jenkins-slave.xml
used to start jenkins slave service.
I added set BUILD_ID=dontkillme in startup.bat to stop Jenkins from
stopping the process in the end.
I think Tomcat start correctly in the end but not in Console. I'm running Windows 2012 server/Tomcat7/Jenkins 1.578.
Any idea on how to start Tomcat in a Console ?

AFAIK, if you're trying to start Tomcat console on a given machine which has Jenkins configured as service, it will not work. To make it work, you will have to connect to the given machine using JNLP. In case it's a standalone system and you want to open a Tomcat console using Jenkins, you will have to set up a Slave on the same machine and that too using JNLP (Launch slave agents via Java Web Start) in the Launch method section in Jenkins > Manage Jenkins > Manage Nodes > Slave Node's Configure page.
You can connect to the slave using any of the methods shown below. You will see the below option as soon as you configure the slave node and click Save. I ran the highlighted command from the Win command prompt. In my set up, i had configured Master and Slave on the same machine. I have Win 7 Professional, 64-bit laptop.
Once you run the command, you will see a small window that will pop-up and will display 'Connected' message as shown below:
At least for me, i checked that hudson.util.ProcessTree.disable=true & BUILD_ID parameters were not required. The only thing that i needed was to make sure that the following property is unset: HUDSON_SERVER_COOKIE
P.S.: You might have to make sure to start JNLP on reboot. A start-up script will do that. Also, ensure that your project/job is tied to the given slave which is running using JNLP mechanism.

i was going crazy with this , as shutdown.sh worked from Window-Master-Jenkin-->Linux-Slave-Jenkins, but startup.sh was not happening on my linux-slave-jenkins though startup.sh execution showed success message, as there were no logs anywhere, it was difficult to troubleshoot, not sure how and why setting up "export HUDSON_SERVER_COOKIE= " just before running startup.sh worked. Anyway Thanks a lot.

Running exe files with Hudson on Windows 8

I am attempting to have a Hudson job run a windows executable on a Windows 8 VM. When I attempt to run the exe file I get the error:
java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "C:\hudson\workspace\workspaceName\installer\bin\fileToExecute.exe": CreateProcess error=740, The requested operation requires elevation
Has anyone run into this and had it run automatically? I can't just have the exe file on the VM and set its permissions because a new copy gets downloaded at the start of each build.
Thanks in advance.

Disclaimer: I have not tried this with Windows 8.
First things first, even if you succeed to launch an .exe application from Hudson/Jenkins, it will be running under a different session, probably invisible to you. I've managed to achieve the workarounds for this with PsExec as detailed here:
Open Excel on Jenkins CI
With the above method, you will be able to launch an application and actually see it in the logged in session.
If your application does require elevated permissions for whatever reason, you've got to add -h switch to PsExec

How do I run a Java .jar file as a Windows service on Windows Server 2008?

How do I run a Java .jar file as a Windows service on a Windows 2008 server? I have a jar file called SomeJavaFile.jar located under the C:\SomeDirectory directory on a Windows Server 2008 box. I usually just run this jar manually in the command line with: java –cp SomeJavaFile.jar com.ctg.SomeJavaFile and I let it run 24/7.
The problem with our Windows Server is if it restarts I need to run it as a service so it will automatically start as a service upon startup, because our processing for Vistakon runs 24/7. I have Googled around and tried to use a service wrapper and the sc.exe command to create the service.
I put the wrapper service.exe in the C:\SomeDirectory\. I use the following command to create it: sc.exe SomeJavaService binPath= “C:\SomeDirectory\service.exe \”java –jar C:\SomeDirectory\SomeJavaFile.jar\”” type= own start= auto error= ignore. This creates the SomeJavaService service correctly but when I try to start it I get an error that says the service on Local Computer started then stopped.
Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs. Do I need to alter my sc.exe command to have the exact previous working command line maybe, by adding in the com.ctg.SomeJavaFile? So should I change This jar should just run in the background and constantly poll/ping the C:/poll directory then if there is data present it processes the data and sends an export file to another directory.
I have used this same .jar file for years successfully and it hasn't changed, but I cannot get it to run as a Windows service. This is the site I use to get the service wrapper http://code.google.com/p/simple-service-wrapper/. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

"winsw" is the standalone version of the Windows Service installer shipping with the Glassfish Java EE reference implementation.
Works well, but is not a fully polished product - I have used it for exactly this purpose for a couple of years. Requires .NET in some recent version on the Windows machine.
https://github.com/kohsuke/winsw

I think that the best bet would be wrap your java app with Procrun of Apache Commons Daemon .
Procrun is a set of applications that allow Windows users to wrap
(mostly) Java applications (e.g. Tomcat) as a Windows service.
The service can be set to automatically start when the machine boots
and will continue to run with no user logged onto the machine.

As per my analysis,
The Idle Solution will be writing a VC++ (.net) Windows Service creation program to launch the .bat (that triggers the jar file)/.exe as a System service with all the required call back methods to SCM.
Note : 1. Wrapping the process with sc.exe / srvany.exe would not work as it does not have any call back process to the SCM (Service Control Manager). 2. And java service Wrapper is a third party API (many are LGPL licensed).

If you start your Java code from commandline by using java -j some.jar does it run until you terminate the program, or does it stop by itself?
There needs to be a NON-Deamon Thread, that is running all the time. A JVM will terminate, if there is no thread running, that is not flagged as daemon.
If you have a little budget, buy an installer tool. I use instll4j. With that tool, you can create service launcher and install them during instllation.

The following solution is working fine for me having OpenFire Connection Manager (which is a jar file) running as service on Windows Server.
Download and install the Non-Sucking Service Manager
I didn't use the batch made by OpenFire team, because it didn't work for me (dependencies not found error...) So, make a batch file with the following code :
#ECHO OFF
cd /D "E:\connection_manager\lib"
java -jar startup.jar
and save it as cm_startup.bat in the bin folder of connection manager.
After that you can create the service with NSSM.
So, open a cmd.exe and run the following command :
nssm install ConnManager "E:\connection_manager\lib\cm_startup.bat"
.
Doc & examples
More documentation and examples for the Non-Sucking Service Manager here : https://nssm.cc/usage Actually NSSM as a lot of options available.
Here is a more complexe example :
nssm install solr "%JavaExe%" -Dsolr.solr.home="\"%CD%\solr"\"
-Djetty.home="\"%CD%"\" -Djetty.logs="\"%CD%\logs"\" -cp
"\"%CD%\lib\*.jar"\";"\"%CD%\start.jar"\" -jar "\"%CD%\start.jar"\"