Difference between revisions of "Jetty/Howto/Use Jetty with Ant"

Revision as of 12:14, 22 September 2010

Introduction

The Ant Jetty plugin is available in the /extras/ant location. This plugin makes it possible to start a Jetty web server directly from the Ant build script, and, to embed the Jetty web server inside your build process. Its purpose is to provide almost the same functionality as the Jetty plugin for Maven: dynamic application reloading, working directly on web application sources, and a tight integration with the build system.

A demo for the Ant Jetty plugin is provided in jetty-contrib repository. It's good to compile Jetty before running these tests, because the demo depends on Jetty JARs from the Maven repository. Alternatively, you can download these JARs manually from one of the Maven repositories. Please see build.xml file in jetty-ant-demo folder for a list of required JARs.

Modifying build.xml from jetty-ant-demo is also the easiest way to start playing with this plugin.

Starting Ant

The Ant plugin depends on Jetty JARs, and so far it's necessary to build Jetty and then the Ant plugin directly from sources. Here's how it goes:

1. Get the latest jetty sources from http://dist.codehaus.org/jetty/
2. Unpack jetty and build it with mvn install (If you don't have Maven yet, get it from http://maven.apache.org/)
3. Go to the extras/ant/ folder and build the ant plugin with 'mvn install'
4. Go to <your M2 repo root>/repository/org/eclipse/jetty/jetty-ant and get the jetty-ant plugin JAR.
5. Get these files to run Jetty with JSP/Servlets support (find these in <your M2 repo root>/repository/org/eclipse/jetty):
   • jetty.jar
   • jetty-util.jar
   • jetty-plus.jar
   • jetty-naming.jar
   • servlet-api-2.5.jar
   • jsp-api-2.1.jar
   • jsp-2.1.jar
   • and core-3.1.1.jar from <M2 repository>/org/eclipse/jdt/core/3.1.1/
6. Put all the JARs inside one lib directory (let's say jetty-lib).

Preparing the build.xml file

Let's start with an empty build.xml:

<project name="Jetty-Ant integration test" basedir=".">
</project>

Then, you must define a jetty task:

<project name="Jetty-Ant integration test" basedir=".">
  <path id="jetty.plugin.classpath">
     <fileset dir="jetty-lib" includes="*.jar"/>
  </path>
  <taskdef classpathref="jetty.plugin.classpath" resource="tasks.properties" loaderref="jetty.loader" />
</project>

Now you are ready to add a new target with Jetty container declaration:

<project name="Jetty-Ant integration test" basedir=".">
  <path id="jetty.plugin.classpath">
    <fileset dir="jetty-lib" includes="*.jar"/>
  </path>
  <taskdef classpathref="jetty.plugin.classpath" resource="tasks.properties" loaderref="jetty.loader" />
 
  <target name="jetty.run">
    <jetty />
  </target>
</project>

Starting jetty on port 8080 is then a simple matter of executing ant jetty.run from the command line.

Deploying web applications

To add web applications to the Jetty web server, now put extra webapp tags inside jetty tag. Notice, that a tempDirectory attribute has been added to the 'jetty' task to specify where temporary files are stored.

 
<project name="Jetty-Ant integration test" basedir=".">
  <path id="jetty.plugin.classpath">
    <fileset dir="jetty-lib" includes="*.jar"/>
  </path>
  <taskdef classpathref="jetty.plugin.classpath" resource="tasks.properties" loaderref="jetty.loader" />
 
  <target name="jetty.run">
    <jetty tempDirectory="jetty-temp">
      <webApp name="webapp1" warfile="webapp1.war" contextpath="/webapp1" />
    </jetty>
  </target>
</project>

You can put many webapp tags inside jetty tag, thus deploying many web applications simultaneously.

Plugin syntax

There are many ways to configure jetty tasks:

• 'tempDirectory–specifies the Jetty temporary web directory:

 <jetty tempDirectory="jetty-temp" />

• requestLog–defines a request logger:

 
 <jetty ... requestLog="your.fancy.request.logger"/>

• jettyXml–applies additional configuration via a standard jetty.xml file:

 
 <jetty ... jettyXml="path/to/jetty.xml"/>

• systemProperties–adds system properties when starting Jetty:

 
 <jetty ...>
   <systemProperties>
     <systemProperty name="jetty.status" value="Jetty Rocks!"/>
   </systemProperties>
 </jetty>

• connectors–defines Jetty connectors:

 
 <typedef name="selectChannelConnector" classname="org.eclipse.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector"
                            classpathref="jetty.plugin.classpath" loaderref="jetty.loader" />
 ...
 <jetty ...>
   <connectors>
     <selectChannelConnector port="8090" />
   </connectors>
 </jetty>

• userRealms - adds authentication via user "realms":

> 
 <typedef name="jdbcRealm" classname="org.eclipse.jetty.security.HashUserRealm"
                  classpathref="jetty.plugin.classpath" loaderref="jetty.loader" />
 ...
 <jetty ...>
   <userRealms>
     <userRealm name="realm1" config="path/to/realm/config" />
   </userRealms>
 </jetty>

There are also many ways to configure web applications with webapp tag:

• name–name of a web application, which is used by DefaultServlet to display application description

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp name="name" .../>
 </jetty>

• warfile–path to .war file or a directory with web application contents:

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp warfile="/path/to/war/file/or/web/application/contents" .../>
 </jetty>

• contextPath–a context path a particular web application will be deployed to, and thus where it will be accessible (http://localhost:8080/webapp in this case):

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp contextPath="/webapp" .../>
 </jetty>

• jettyEnvXml–path to jettyEnv.xml file with JNDI resource declarations

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp jettyEnvXml="/path/to/jettyEnv.xml" .../>
 </jetty>

• webXml–path to web.xml file. If not specified, the default (location-of-war-file/WEB-INF/web.xml) location is used:

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp webXmlFile="/path/to/web/xml" .../>
 </jetty>

• 'scanTargets and 'scanIntervalSeconds'–points to special files/folders that need to be scanned, and specifies scanner interval in seconds. If any of the files changes, the web application is automatically reloaded. You can adjust interval and scanned files per web application.

All files included with <classes/> or <lib/> tags areautomatically scanned for changes if you provide scanIntervalSeconds parameter in the <jetty/> tag. There's no need to add them using the <scanTargets/> section.

 <jetty ...>
   <webapp ... scanIntervalSeconds="5">
     <scanTargets dir="path/to/included/resources">
       <include name="filename/patterns" />
     </scanTargets>
   </webapp>
 </jetty>

• lib–specifies which libraries need be included for a particular web application (treated as files inside WEB-INF/lib folder). Multiple lib tags are allowed.

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp ...>
     <lib dir="path/to/jar/folder" includes="*.jar" excludes="not-needed.jar" />
   </webapp>
 </jetty>

• classes–specifies which folder contains web application classes (treated as WEB-INF/classes folder). Multiple classes tags are allowed.

 
 <jetty ...>
   <webapp ...>
     <classes dir="path/to/classes/folder" includes="*.class" />
   </webapp>
 </jetty>

• 'connectors–specifies additional web application connectors