glassfish-web.xml vs sun-web.xml vs web.xml

glassfish web.xml
sasha_trn picture sasha_trn · Sep 27, 2013 · Viewed 28k times · Source

Could someone explain the main differences (or provide a link to) between glassfish-web.xml, sun-web.xml and web.xml?

Can I use just glassfish-web.xml in my webapp and skip the others?

Answer

John Clingan picture John Clingan · Sep 27, 2013
  • web.xml: Standard deployment descriptor defined by Java EE (Servlet JSR in particular, but used by many JSRs). It is used to specify the metadata used by the web container to deploy the application in a portable manner across application servers (such as the URL endpoint of a servlet). In Java EE 6 and beyond, it is optional (depending on technologies that you use) when metadata is provided by annotations in your Java code, like @WebServlet.
  • glassfish-web.xml: Each application server offers implementation-specific features. To configure these features for GlassFish, use glassfish-web.xml. This is documented in the GlassFish Documentation.
  • sun-web.xml: Legacy application-server specific deployment descriptor, and has been replaced by glassfish-web.xml. It no longer made sense to have this name after Sun was acquired by Oracle. This file name is still supported for backwards compatibility, but you should migrate to glassfish-web.xml.

You may or may not need a web.xml file. It depends on the Java EE features you use. By default, don't use any of these files and simply use Java EE annotations like @WebServlet. As you build out your app and perhaps begin using some features that require the web.xml file (like to define the JavaServer Faces FacesServlet), then use a web.xml file. As for the glassfish-web.xml, you only use one if you have GlassFish-specific features to configure for your application.

The Java EE tutorial is also a good way to learn Java EE, and is bundled with the Java EE 7 SDK along with GlassFish 4.

Related questions

Could not open ServletContext resource

This is quite similar question to one older but the solution did not work for me. I have a WAR package. In web.xml <context-param> <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name> <param-value>classpath:application-context.xml&…

Read More
Security constraint in web.xml for authenticated users without role memberships

I am quite desperate, because I think there must be an easy solution to my problem but I am searching - to no avail. I am using a custom Realm in Glassfish 3.1.1. This custom realm (implements AppservPasswordLoginModuleInterface) takes a security …

Read More
Where should I put the log4j.properties file?

I wrote a web service project using netbeans 6.7.1 with glassfish v2.1, put log4j.properties to the root dir of project and use: static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(MyClass.class); in Constructor: PropertyConfigurator.configure("log4j.properties"); and in functions: …

Read More