Configure embedded jetty with web.xml?

Question

I am trying to generate both a war with my web application as well as a self contained jar file with embedded jetty. For the embedded jetty (the jar file distribution) I add a servlet as follows:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    Server server = new Server(8080);

    ServletContextHandler context = new ServletContextHandler(ServletContextHandler.SESSIONS);
    context.setContextPath("/");
    server.setHandler(context);

    context.addServlet(new ServletHolder(new HelloServlet()),"/*");

    server.start();
    server.join();
}

The war file distribution uses a web.xml file that contains the following in the web-app section:

<servlet>
    <servlet-class>com.example.HelloServlet</servlet-class>
    <servlet-name>SimplestServer</servlet-name>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>HelloServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

This works. However, I want to get rid of the duplication between the two approaches. I.e., when I add a new servlet I want to have to configure it in only one location. Can I load and use the web.xml file from the embedded jetty?

Answer 1

Use a org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext

Example:

package jetty;

import org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server;
import org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext;

public class OnWebApp
{
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
    {
        // Create a basic jetty server object that will listen on port 8080.
        // Note that if you set this to port 0 then a randomly available port
        // will be assigned that you can either look in the logs for the port,
        // or programmatically obtain it for use in test cases.
        Server server = new Server(8080);

        // The WebAppContext is the entity that controls the environment in
        // which a web application lives and breathes. In this example the
        // context path is being set to "/" so it is suitable for serving
        // root context requests and then we see it setting the location of
        // the war. A whole host of other configurations are available,
        // ranging from configuring to support annotation scanning in the
        // webapp (through PlusConfiguration) to choosing where the webapp
        // will unpack itself.
        WebAppContext webapp = new WebAppContext();
        webapp.setContextPath("/");
        webapp.setWar("path/to/my/test.war");

        // A WebAppContext is a ContextHandler as well so it needs to be set to
        // the server so it is aware of where to send the appropriate requests.
        server.setHandler(webapp);

        // Start things up! By using the server.join() the server thread will
        // join with the current thread.
        // See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/Thread.html#join()
        // for more details.
        server.start();
        server.join();
    }
}

Note that you will build a normal WAR file, and use it with Jetty.

If you have special requirements such as Annotation scanning or JNDI, then you'll need to get into configuration specification.

// Enable parsing of jndi-related parts of web.xml and jetty-env.xml
org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.Configuration.ClassList classlist =
   org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.Configuration.ClassList.setServerDefault(server);

// Enable JNDI
classlist.addAfter("org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.FragmentConfiguration",
   "org.eclipse.jetty.plus.webapp.EnvConfiguration",
   "org.eclipse.jetty.plus.webapp.PlusConfiguration");

// Enable Annotation Scanning
classlist.addBefore("org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.JettyWebXmlConfiguration",
  "org.eclipse.jetty.annotations.AnnotationConfiguration");

For a longer example of this in a WebAppContext, see the ServerWithAnnotations example.

Also note that you will have all of the webapp classloader rules in place using this technique as well. Meaning you will have a classloader for the webapp and another one for the server. This is important to understand.

There are a few tweaks you can do to the WebAppContext for classloaders, but you can't eliminate them, just control how they behave.

WebAppContext webapp = new WebAppContext();
// ... various setup of the webapp ...
// Flip the classloader priority from servlet spec where webapp is first to
// Standard java behavior of parent (aka Server classloader) is first.
webapp.setParentLoaderPriority(true);

See also:

• WebAppContext.setClassLoader(ClassLoader classloader)
• WebAppContext.addServerClass(String classOrPackage)
• WebAppContext.addSystemClass(String classOrPackage)

Answer 2

I ended up using Joakim's approach, but pointing at the webapp directory instead of the war file.

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    Server server = new Server(8080);

    String rootPath = SimplestServer.class.getClassLoader().getResource(".").toString();
    WebAppContext webapp = new WebAppContext(rootPath + "../../src/main/webapp", "");
    server.setHandler(webapp);

    server.start();
    server.join();
}