Jetty/Reference/webdefault.xml

Introduction

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Direct Link to updated documentation: http://www.eclipse.org/jetty/documentation/current/webdefault-xml.html

The webdefault.xml file saves web applications from having to define a lot of house-keeping and container-specific elements in their own web.xml files. For example, you can use it to set up mime-type mappings and JSP servlet-mappings. Jetty applies webdefault.xml to a web application before the application's own WEB-INF/web.xml, which means that it cannot override values inside the webapp's web.xml. It uses the jetty.xml syntax. Generally, it is convenient for all webapps in a Jetty instance to share the same webdefault.xml file. However, it is certainly possible to provide differentiated webdefault.xml files for individual web applications.

The webdefault.xml file is located in $(jetty.home)/etc/webdefault.xml.

Using webdefault.xml

You can specify a custom configuration file to use for specific webapps, or for all webapps. If you do not specify an alternate defaults descriptor, Jetty automatically uses webdefault.xml.

Creating a Custom webdefault.xml for One WebApp

You can specify a custom webdefault.xml for an individual web application in that webapp's jetty-web.xml as follows:

<Configure class="org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext">
  ...
  <!-- Set up the absolute path to the custom webdefault.xml -->
  <Set name="defaultsDescriptor">/my/path/to/webdefault.xml</Set>
  ...
</Configure>

The equivalent in code is:

import org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext;
 
    ...
 
    WebAppContext wac = new WebAppContext();
    ...
    //Set up the absolute path to the custom webdefault.xml.
    wac.setDefaultsDescriptor("/my/path/to/webdefault.xml");
    ...

Alternatively, you can use a classloader to find the resource representing your custom webdefault.xml.

Creating a Custom webdefault.xml for Multiple WebApps

If you want to apply the same custom webdefault.xml to a number of webapps, provide the path to the file in jetty.xml either to the hot deployer (Context Provider) or the static deployer (WebAppProvider). For example:

<Configure class="org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext">
    ...
    <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.WebAppDeployer">
        ...
        <Set name="defaultsDescriptor">/my/path/to/webdefault.xml</Set>
    </New>
    ...
</Configure>

Using the Jetty Maven Plugin

Similarly, for the Jetty Maven Plugin, you provide a customized webdefault.xml file for your webapp as follows:

<project>
    ...
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            ...
            <artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <webAppConfig>
                  ...
                  <defaultsDescriptor>/my/path/to/webdefault.xml</defaultsDescriptor>
                </webAppConfig>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        ...
    </plugins>
    ...
</project>

Additional Resources

• web.xml Reference–reference information for web.xml files
• override-web.xml–a web.xml-formatted file, applied after the webapp's web.xml
• jetty.xml Reference–more information about jetty.xml