The official documentation tells to use 'ant' to build and install/deploy EJBCA. The reason is that the properties files are part of the compiled Java archive.

As would Raymond Hettinger say:

There must be a better way!

There is! You can build the Java archive in advance and deploy it as a RPM package. It has the benefit of preventing mistakes in manual tasks and enforcing the same configuration on a farm of servers.

To build the RPM, you must have the following files in the SOURCES directory:

• ejbca_ee_<version_underlined>.zip (e.g. ejbca_ee_6_9_0_2.zip)
• ejbca-custom (Official documentation)
• <any_patch_you_want_to_apply>.diff

You must update the SPEC file to match the list of patches you want to apply.

Just create a symlink to /opt/ejbca/dist/ejbca.ear in the JBoss deployments directory.

If you have different environments (e.g. production + pre-production), just create 2 different SPEC files (e.g. ejbca-prod and ejbca-prep) based on this one.

If you have different EJBCA instances (e.g. CA + OCSP responders), just create 2 different SPEC files (e.g. ejbca-ca and ejbca-ocsp) based on this one.