That's what happens when you start JBoss as root

In your console log...


18:31:24,312 ERROR [org.jboss.as.server] (Controller Boot Thread) JBAS015956: Caught exception during boot: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.jboss.as.controller.persistence.ConfigurationFile.createHistoryDirectory(ConfigurationFile.java:389) [jboss-as-controller-7.1.x.incremental.129.jar:7.1.x.incremental.129] at org.jboss.as.controller.persistence.ConfigurationFile.successfulBoot(ConfigurationFile.java:270) [jboss-as-controller-7.1.x.incremental.129.jar:7.1.x.incremental.129] at org.jboss.as.controller.persistence.BackupXmlConfigurationPersister.successfulBoot(BackupXmlConfigurationPersister.java:65) [jboss-as-controller-7.1.x.incremental.129.jar:7.1.x.incremental.129] at org.jboss.as.controller.AbstractControllerService.finishBoot(AbstractControllerService.java:200) [jboss-as-controller-7.1.x.incremental.129.jar:7.1.x.incremental.129] at org.jboss.as.server.ServerService.boot(ServerService.java:277) [jboss-as-server-7.1.x.incremental.129.jar:7.1.x.incremental.129] at org.jboss.as.controller.AbstractControllerService$1.run(AbstractControllerService.java:156) [jboss-as-controller-7.1.x.incremental.129.jar:7.1.x.incremental.129] at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722) [rt.jar:1.7.0_21]

Fix:

chown -R youruser: $JBOSS_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone_xml_history/

Slap yourself upside the head for such a foolish mistake