Setting a default CookieManager on WebLogic has no effect

Question

I think you are twisting the CookieManager API intended use. Please reference the documentation and the CookieManager documentation. Your vendor's requirement is to maintain the session cookie sent by the server. For this requirement to be achieved you want TWO steps:

Within the Spring container, wire a Spring bean which holds the method invocation CookieHandler.setDefault(new CookieManager());
Within the client code initialize a URI instance which will identify the cookies in the CookieStore

Step 1

Assuming you are using Spring 3.1 or later, please find below your Configuration Class:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc   // this annotation imports the class  WebMvcConfigurationSupport which bootstraps web mvc
@ComponentScan(basePackages = { "com.orgname"  })
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Bean
public ViewResolver viewResolver() {

    InternalResourceViewResolver viewResolver = new InternalResourceViewResolver();
    viewResolver.setViewClass(JstlView.class);
    viewResolver.setPrefix("/view/jsp/");
    viewResolver.setSuffix(".jsp");
    return viewResolver;
}

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
    registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/resources/");
}

/**
 * This method invocation bean stands for the method call:
 * CookieHandler.setDefault(new CookieManager());
 * which should be done at the beginning of an HTTP session to bootstrap
 * the Java 6 Http state management mechanism for the application as a whole. 
 * (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/networking/cookies/cookiehandler.html)
 * 
 */
@Bean(name="cookieHandlerSetDefaultBean") 
public MethodInvokingFactoryBean methodInvokingFactoryBean() { 
    MethodInvokingFactoryBean methodInvokingFactoryBean = new MethodInvokingFactoryBean();
    methodInvokingFactoryBean.setTargetClass(CookieHandler.class);
    methodInvokingFactoryBean.setTargetMethod("setDefault");
    CookieManager cookieManager = new CookieManager();
    methodInvokingFactoryBean.setArguments(new Object[]{cookieManager}); 
    return methodInvokingFactoryBean; 
}
}

Step 2

Given that your client class is a Spring Service or Component. Please find below its code.

/**
 * This service aggregates the default CookieManager as explained in the API 
 * (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/net/CookieManager.html). 
 * A system-wide CookieManager that is used by the HTTP protocol handler 
 * can be retrieved by calling CookieHandler.getDefault(). 
 * A CookieManager is initialized with aآ CookieStoreآ which manages storage
 * A CookieStore supports add(cookie) and getCookie() methods
 * A CookieStore is responsible of removing Cookie instances which have expired.
 *
 */
@Service(value="serviceConfigBean")
@DependsOn(value="cookieHandlerSetDefault")    //This is the bean initialized in the Configuration class. It is needed to be initialized before the container initializes the Service 
public class ClientCookiesStore {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ClientCookiesStore.class);

    protected CookieStore inmemoryCookieStore;

    protected URI clientURI;

/**
 * The @PostConstruct (lifecycle callback method) indicates this method should be invoked after all 
 * dependency injection is complete. Thus helps in initializing any resources needed by the 
 * service.
 * 
 * In this particular initializing method:
 * (as per http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/net/CookieManager.html
 *  and http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/networking/cookies/cookiemanager.html)
 * The CookieHandler default is installed in the application via 
 * a method invoking factory bean, namely "cookieHandlerSetDefault" which 
 * exists in the java configuration file WebConfig.java

 * (1) A cookieManager property needs 2 steps setup as indicated in the code
 * (2) The internal in-memory implementation of the CookieStore interface is initialized 
 *      through the cookieManager defaults. It is assigned to the inmemoryCookieStore property.  
 * (3) Since a CookieStore aggregates many groups of cookies, each group is identified 
 *     by a URI instance. ClientCookiesStore is associated with the Client URI as indicated in 
 *     the code.  
 * 
 * @throws Exception
 */
@PostConstruct
protected void initializeBean() throws Exception {
    //      (1) Step#1 Initialize a CookieManager with the current Http session default 
    //                  which was already set in the configuration class
    CookieManager cookieManager = (CookieManager)CookieHandler.getDefault();    
    //          Step#2 Then set up the CookiePolicy.
    cookieManager.setCookiePolicy(CookiePolicy.ACCEPT_ALL);
    //      (2) Assign a CookieStore instance to the in-memory cookie store implemented by the API
    inmemoryCookieStore =  cookieManager.getCookieStore();
    //      (3) Initialize URI instance which will identify the Client cookies in the CookieStore 

    try {
        clientURI = new URI("http://vendor.webservices.com/endpoint");
    } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
        throw new Exception("URISyntaxException created while creating a URI instance for url= "+clientUrl);
    }
}

}

All what is left are the 2 methods to add a new cookie and to retrieve the cookie from the inmemory store. Both methods belong to the above ClientCookiesStore Class.

public List<HttpCookie> getCookiesList() throws Exception {
    List<HttpCookie> httpCookiesList = inmemoryCookieStore.get(clientURI);
    return httpCookiesList;
}

public void addCookie(HttpCookie newCookie) {
        inmemoryCookieStore.add(clientURI, newCookie);
}