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

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 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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