AMS Dispatcher local setup

[Mahesh_Gunaje]

Hello Team,

I have referred the article: https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-experience-manager/how-to-quickly-set-up-disp...

After running each command, able to run the container.

Now, I need to use my project dispatcher folders, files.I have a client AMS project. It has dispatcher/src folder. Here, I can see these folders
conf
conf.d
conf.dispatcher.d
conf.modules.d

Could you please help with using these folders, files. Where I need to keep the project specific folders, fields and the commands that I need to use from start till end.

cc @Luca_Moreau  @SantoshSai  @arunpatidar 

Thanks in advance

[giuseppebag]

hi @Mahesh_Gunaje,

I think you can find uselful this guide here. Pay attention to part:

Run Dispatcher Validator: This command generates the dispatcher configurations inside the out folder based on the contents of the src folder. Whenever you make changes to the dispatcher, you need to delete the out folder and regenerate the configurations.

According to the official guide, you can run the dispatcher using the command with

$ ./bin/docker_run_hot_reload.sh <src-folder> <aem-publish-host>:<aem-publish-port> <dispatcher-port>

where <src-folder> should be the folder from your repository. Since you are using hot reload, any modifications to dispatcher files will be automatically fetched and applied.

[Mahesh_Gunaje]

Hi @giuseppebag  

I am looking for AMS dispatcher local setup. Whether above doc will help for AMS disp setup? Title says, its for AEMaaCS

Thanks

[giuseppebag]

Then you can follow the README of https://github.com/adobe/aem-dispatcher-docker under the section "Remote web server":

Copy files to docker container

cd _your_project_/dispatcher/etc/httpd
docker cp . dispatcher:/etc/httpd/

Connecting to the Dispatcher terminal

You can run shell commands inside the dispatcher container.

docker exec -it dispatcher /bin/bash

Reloading the Dispatcher

You can reload the dispatcher with following command:

kill -HUP `cat /var/run/httpd/httpd.pid`

However, please also consider this warning from the repository when updating folder content.

A disadvantage with docker cp is that it only copies and does not sync the directory contents and will require manual intervention if files were deleted locally.

[SantoshSai]

Hi @Mahesh_Gunaje,

What @giuseppebag suggested (using docker cp) won’t work well for AMS dispatcher setups. AMS dispatcher is a bit different from AEMaaCS dispatcher, and the approach is not just copying files into the container.

For AMS-style local dispatcher you need to mount your project’s dispatcher src folder directly into the container instead of copying. That way, your configs under dispatcher/src/ (conf, conf.d, conf.dispatcher.d, conf.modules.d) are automatically picked up and changes hot-reloaded.

Adobe actually has a dedicated guide for AMS local dispatcher setup here:
How to quickly set up Dispatcher locally for AEM AMS using AEM SDK

The key difference is:

• Instead of copying (docker cp), you mount your dispatcher src folder into the container when you run it

Here:

• ~/path-to-your-project/dispatcher/src → points to your AMS dispatcher src folder

• host.docker.internal:4503 → your local publish instance host/port

• 8080 → port where dispatcher will be available locally

This way, your conf/, conf.d/, conf.dispatcher.d/, and conf.modules.d/ are all picked up from your repo structure without manual copying.