5- Web application deployment
Juan M. Gimeno, Josep M. Ribó
January, 2008
INDEX
Contents
Introduction to web applications with Java technology
1. Introduction.
2. HTTP protocol
3. Servlets
4. Servlet container: Tomcat
5. Web application deployment
1
INDEX
5- Web application deployment. Contents
• Concept
• Web application file structure
• Deployment descriptor
• Location of a web application
• WAR files
• An example: deployment of a web application containing
a servlet
• Deployment on a running Tomcat server
• Package-structures servlets
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Concept INDEX
Web application deployment. Concept
Deployment of a web application
Deploy a web application means to make it ready to be
used by its clients
This is achieved by:
• structuring the files that constitute the web application
in a certain standard way and by
• installing (usually, just moving) it in a certain location
of the server
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. File structure INDEX
Application deployment. File Structure
The root directory of a web app. (WebDir) should
contain the following files:
• Static files (.html/.png...): e.g., header.html, update-
Form.html, logo.png
They can also be located in a given directory (e.g. html)
• JSP pages: e.g., showcatalog.jsp, dbUpdate.jsp
They can also be located in a given directory (e.g. web)
• WEB-INF (directory)
This directory contains the deployment descriptor and the
java packages needed by the web application
This directory is explained in the following slide
• META-INF (directory)
It contains some meta information about the jar or war
files
jar/war files are explained below
The context.xml file (if the application has any) is also
put here
The context.xml file is explained below
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. File structure INDEX
The WEB-INF directory is constituted by:
• web.xml ( Web Application Deployment Descriptor)
File which contains information about the web application.
This file describes the servlets (and possibly other compo-
nents) that are used by the application. In particular, it
contains:
– Complete name of the classes that contain the servlets
used by the application
– Mapping of those classes to logical names used to refer
to them in the application
– Inicialization parameters for servlets
– Container-managed security constraints
• classes (directory)
Directory which contains classes which are used in the
web application (e.g., beans and servlets). This classes
are organized into directories according to their package
structure.
(e.g., the class elems.Book will be stored as
classes/elems/Book.class
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. File structure INDEX
• lib (directory)
Directory which contains classes which are used in the
web application (e.g., beans and servlets). This classes
are packaged and compressed in a .jar file. Example:
classes.jar
WebDir
web
BuyProcess.jsp
WEB-INF
classes
elems
Book.class
Cart.class
lib
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. File structure INDEX
Application deployment. Deployment
descriptor
Deployment descriptor:
It is a file called WEB-INF/web.xml which contains infor-
mation useful in order to deploy the web application
Some information that can be included in the web.xml file of
a web application:
• Servlet aliases (see below)
• Time limit for sessions (see Session module)
• Tag libraries (see .....***)
• Global parameters for the application
• Some security configuration
• JNDI references for application resources (see ****)
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. File structure INDEX
The following example shows the general structure of the
web.xml file associated to a web application. Most tags are
optional. Other tags are also possible and have been omitted
in this example
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app>
<context-param> ...</context-param>
<servlet>...</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>...</servlet-mapping>
<welcome-file-list> ... </welcom-file-list>
<taglib>...</taglib>
<ejb-ref>...</ejb-ref>
</web-app>
A complete description of the web.xml deployment descriptor
can be found at:
• http://java.sun.com/webservices/docs/1.0/tutorial/doc/
JavaWSTutorialTOC.html
• In addition, some of them will be presented in this course
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. File structure INDEX
A very important remark:
The directory WEB-INF must be located exactly in the direc-
tory labeled as DocBase in the context declaration:
<Context path="/mywebap" docBase="/home/josepma/WebDir"
reloadable="true" debug="0"/>
WebDir
WebDir applic Incorrect
WEB-INF WEB-INF
classes classes
elems elems
Book.class Book.class
Cart.class Cart.class
lib lib
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Location INDEX
Application deployment. Location
A web application should be deployed within a specific
directory called root directory of the web application
Let WebDir be the root directory of a specific web application
If Tomcat is used as a container, WebDir can be located:
1. At CATALINA HOME/webapps
2. In a context defined at
CATALINA HOME/conf/server.xml
3. In a context.xml file
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Location INDEX
1. At CATALINA HOME/webapps
(i.e., CATALINA HOME/webapps/WebDir)
2. At any directory that has been defined as a context
with docBase="/.../WebDir" in the configuration file:
CATALINA HOME/conf/server.xml
Contexts are defined by means of the following declaration
in server.xml:
<Context path="/mywebap" docBase="/home/josepma/WebDir"
reloadable="true" debug="0"/>
The directory WebDir (root directory) has been located in
/home/josepma and is accessed:
http://ingrid.udl.net:8080/mywebap
mywebap acts as the web application name
This option, although legal, is discouraged since
Tomcat 6.0
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Location INDEX
3. At any directory that has been defined within a .xml
file in the Tomcat conf directory
CATALINA HOME/conf/engine name/host name/webap name.xml
Example:
The location of the application mywebap may be described
by means of the following file:
CATALINA HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost/mywebap.xml
with the following contents:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<Context path="/mywebap" docBase="/home/josepma/WebDir"
debug="0"/>
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. war file INDEX
Application deployment. Web ARchive file
All the files that constitute a web application can be packa-
ged and compressed into a jar file which has war extension
and which is called web archive file
In Tomcat, war files are automatically deployed in the fo-
llowing cases:
1. If the war file (e.g., test.war)is located in the directory:
CATALINA HOME/webapps
When Tomcat starts up, a directory
CATALINA HOME/webapps/test is created and the contents of
test.war is unpackaged to this directory
2. If the docBase property of a context declaration (in the
file CATALINA HOME/conf/server.xml or in a context file at
CATALINA HOME/conf), contains a war file:
<Context path="/servletTest"
docBase="/home/josepma/test/test.war"
reloadable="true" debug="0" />
When Tomcat starts up, a directory
CATALINA HOME/webapps/servletTest is created and the con-
tents of test.war is unpackaged to this directory
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Deployment example INDEX
An example of web application deployment
with servlets
Example location:
introapweb/examples/ex5.1
This example shows how to deploy the application described
in example 3.3
That application is composed of:
• A static html page formParam.html (an html form)
• A servlet class Parameter.java (which must be compiled
to Parameter.class)
When the form is sent, the servlet class Parameter.class
should be executed in the server
In this example we will explore how to compile and map a
servlet in a web application
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Deployment example INDEX
Deployment procedure:
1. Select a physical directory where the application will
be developed
We choose /home/josepma/web
2. Create the directory structure for the web application:
• Directory /home/josepma/web/WEB-INF
• Directory /home/josepma/web/WEB-INF/classes
• Directory /home/josepma/web/WEB-INF/lib
3. Put the file formParam.html in the directory
/home/josepma/web
4. Compile the servlet with:
==> javac -classpath SERVLET-JAR-PATH Parameter.java
SERVLET-JAR-PATH is the path of the servlet-api.jar file. This
file contains the package javax.servlet which is necessary to com-
pile servlets
For Tomcat 6.0, this path is CATALINA HOME/lib/servlet-api.jar
The result of this compilation process is the file
Parameter.class
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Deployment example INDEX
5. Put Parameter.class into the directory
/home/josepma/web/WEB-INF/classes
6. Create the file /home/josepma/web/WEB-INF/web.xml con-
taining (at least) the following data:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Servlet1</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>Parameter</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Servlet1</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/serv</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
This file defines the servlet class and maps it to the label
/serv
7. Create the file ex5.1.war in the directory
/home/josepma/web
From this directory issue the following command:
==> jar cvf ex5.1.war *
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Deployment example INDEX
8. Copy the file ex5.1.war to CATALINA HOME/webapps
Tomcat will deploy the web application at this moment. A
new directory:
CATALINA HOME/webapps/ex5.1
with the same contents as ex5.1.war will be created
9. Access the web application with the following ad-
dress:
http://localhost:8080/ex5.1/formParam.html
10. Access the servlet with the following address:
http://localhost:8080/ex5.1/serv
Check that the html form formParam.html contains the
following line:
<form action="http://localhost:8080/ex5.1/serv"
method="get">
Or, better, with a relative path:
<form action="serv"
method="get">
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Deployment example INDEX
Deployment of a war file with the Tomcat
manager
The copy of the war file to CATALINA HOME/webapps is not always
possible because that directory may be write protected.
In this case the deployment of a web application can be done
using the Tomcat manager web application
Deployment procedure with the Manager application:
1. At CATALINA HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml add the
following line
<user username="someuser"
password="somepassw"
roles="manager"/>
Now, the user someuser has the manager rights
2. At the Tomcat welcome page (e.g., http://someServer:8080)
select the Tomcat Manager link and log in with the user-
name and password stated at previous step
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Intro. to web applications in Java. 5- Web application deployment. Deployment example INDEX
3. Deploy the .war file in the section war file to deploy of
the manager page
This action will copy the .war file to the folder stated
in the appBase attribute of the Host section in the
CATALINA HOME/conf/server.xml file
The autoDeploy attribute should be set to true
<Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps"
unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true"
xmlValidation="false" xmlNamespaceAware="false">
The appBase attribute has by default the value of webapps
(which points to CATALINA HOME/webapps)
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Automation INDEX
Automation of web application building and
deployment
• The process of building and deploying a web appli-
cation may be automated
• The automation process is achieved by the use of
the ant application
The ant application is a build tool that interprets and
executes a file called build.xml which contains the
instructions that are required to build and deploy the
web application
• ant is an open-source project which is a part of Apache
Jakarta project. It has a similar purpose to make,
however there are some important differences between
both tools
In the Java world, ant is usually the preferred option
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Automation INDEX
Process to automate the building and deployment of a
web application
1. Create a development file structure
The web application is usually developed using a file struc-
ture similar to the following:
• src
It contains the source code of the java classes of the web
application (servlets, beans, classes to define tags...)
• dd
It contains the deployment descriptors (e.g., web.xml)
• web
It contains html, jsp, image files...
• build.xml
The build.xml file contains the procedure to build and
deploy the web application
The syntax and semantics of the build.xml file is
beyond the scope of this module.
See http://ant.apache.org for a description
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Automation INDEX
2. At the root directory execute the ant build tool:
==> ant <some-objective>
This command will execute the commands contained in the
build.xml file which are necessary to achieve that objective
The build.xml file contains a default objective which is
executed if the objective at the command line is ommitted:
==> ant
Usually, the default objective builds and deploys the web
application
The building and deployment processes lead to two issues:
• A new directory usually called build is created. That
directory contains the compiled java classes and possibly
the required java libraries
• A file webAppName.war is created and copied to
CATALINA HOME/webapps
Now the application is deployed and can be used
3. Access the web application
http://myserver.net:8080/webAppName
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Automation INDEX
Automation of web application building and
deployment. Example
Example location:
introapweb/examples/ex5.2
• General description
This is the example 5.1 with the building and deployment
processes automated using the ant build tool
• Building and deployment process
From the root directory (introapweb/examples/ex5.2) exe-
cute:
==>ant
Access http://localhost:8080/ex5.2/formParam.html
• Cleaning the generated staff
Execute:
==>ant clean
The build directory, the ex5.2.war file and the
CATALINA HOME/webapps/ex5.2.war will be deleted
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Package-structures servlets INDEX
Other issues: package-structured servlets
If the servlet classes are organized into Java packages,
this must be reflected in the directory hierarchy under
/WEB-INF/classes/
For example, a Java class named:
com.mycompany.mypackage.MyServlet.class
would need to be stored in a file named:
/WEB-INF/classes/com/mycompany/mypackage/MyServlet.class
In addition, the first line of the file MyServlet.java will be
the following:
package com.mycompany.mypackage;
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Package-structures servlets INDEX
Other issues: package-structured servlets
The file WEB-INF/web.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Servlet2</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>com.mycompany.mypackage.MyServlet
</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Servlet2</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/serv2</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
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5. The web layer. 5.5 Web applications deployment. Package-structures servlets INDEX
References
• Servlet 2.3 specification
http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/final/jsr053/
• web.xml file structure:
http://java.sun.com/webservices/docs/1.0/tutorial/doc/
JavaWSTutorialTOC.html
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