Webapp Runner
Webapp Runner is designed to allow you to launch an exploded or compressed war that is on your filesystem into a
tomcat container with a simple java -jar
command. It currently supports Tomcat 9, older versions of webapp-runner
for other Tomcat versions are no longer maintained.
Table of Contents
- Usage
- Store your sessions in Redis
- Store your sessions in memcache
- Using behind a reverse proxy server
- Options
- Development
- License
Usage
Webapp Runner is a standalone CLI tool that runs a WAR file. The simplest usage looks like this:
$ java -jar webapp-runner.jar path/to/project.war
Maven
You can use the Maven dependency plugin to download Webapp Runner as part of your build. This will eliminate the need for any external dependencies other than those specified in your build to run your application.
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.3.0</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>copy</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<artifactItems>
<artifactItem>
<groupId>com.github.heroku</groupId>
<artifactId>webapp-runner</artifactId>
<version>${webapp-runner.version}</version>
<destFileName>webapp-runner.jar</destFileName>
</artifactItem>
</artifactItems>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
Now when you run maven package
, Webapp Runner will be downloaded for you. You can then launch your application with:
$ java -jar target/dependency/webapp-runner.jar target/<appname>.war
Excluding Memcached and Redis libraries
Webapp Runner bundles Memcached and Redis client libraries into it's package. These libraries can cause
conflicts with similar libraries in your application. This frequently manifests itself as a
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError
.
If you do not require these client libraries (because you are storing session data in some other way), you can exclude
them by using webapp-runner-main
instead of webapp-runner
:
<artifactItem>
<groupId>com.github.heroku</groupId>
<artifactId>webapp-runner-main</artifactId>
<version>${webapp-runner.version}</version>
<destFileName>webapp-runner.jar</destFileName>
</artifactItem>
Store your sessions in Redis
Webapp Runner includes a session manager that stores sessions in redis.
To use it, add --session-store redis
to your startup command:
$ java -jar webapp-runner.jar --session-store redis target/<appname>.war
The session store is configured via the following environment variables:
REDIS_URL
Store your sessions in memcache
Webapp Runner includes a session manager that stores sessions in memcache.
To use it, add --session-store memcache
to your startup command:
$ java -jar webapp-runner.jar --session-store memcache target/<appname>.war
The session store is configured via the following environment variables:
MEMCACHE_SERVERS
MEMCACHE_USERNAME
MEMCACHE_PASSWORD
Using behind a reverse proxy server
If you are using webapp-runner behind a proxy server, you can set the proxy base url within tomcat:
$ java -jar webapp-runner.jar --proxy-base-url https://example.com target/<appname>.war
If you pass an HTTPS base url, e.g. https://example.com, secure flag will be automatically added to session cookies. This indicates to the browser that cookies should only be sent over a secure protocol.
Options
Usage: <main class> [options]
Options:
--access-log
Enables AccessLogValue to STDOUT
Default: false
--access-log-pattern
If --access-log is enabled, sets the logging pattern
Default: common
--basic-auth-pw
Password to be used with basic auth. Defaults to BASIC_AUTH_PW env
variable.
--basic-auth-user
Username to be used with basic auth. Defaults to BASIC_AUTH_USER env
variable.
--bind-on-init
Controls when the socket used by the connector is bound. By default it
is bound when the connector is initiated and unbound when the connector
is destroyed., default value: true
Default: true
--compressable-mime-types
Comma delimited list of mime types that will be compressed when using
GZIP compression.
Default: text/html,text/xml,text/plain,text/css,application/json,application/xml,text/javascript,application/javascript
--context-xml
The path to the context xml to use.
--enable-basic-auth
Secure the app with basic auth. Use with --basic-auth-user and
--basic-auth-pw or --tomcat-users-location
Default: false
--enable-client-auth
Specify -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore and -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword in
JAVA_OPTS
Default: false
--enable-compression
Enable GZIP compression on responses
Default: false
--enable-naming
Enables JNDI naming
Default: false
--enable-ssl
Specify -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore, -Djavax.net.ssl.keystoreStorePassword,
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore and -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword in
JAVA_OPTS. Note: should not be used if a reverse proxy is terminating
SSL for you (such as on Heroku)
Default: false
--expand-war-file
Expand the war file and set it as source
Default: true
--expanded-dir-name
The name of the directory the WAR file will be expanded into.
Default: expanded
--help
--max-threads
Set the maximum number of worker threads
Default: 0
--memcached-transcoder-factory-class
The class name of the factory that creates the transcoder to use for
serializing/deserializing sessions to/from memcached.
--path
The context path
Default: <empty string>
--port
The port that the server will accept http requests on.
Default: 8080
--proxy-base-url
Set proxy URL if tomcat is running behind reverse proxy
Default: <empty string>
--scanBootstrapClassPath
Set jar scanner scan bootstrap classpath.
Default: false
--session-store
Session store to use (valid options are 'memcache' or 'redis')
--session-store-ignore-pattern
Request pattern to not track sessions for. Valid only with memcache
session store. (default is '.*\.(png|gif|jpg|css|js)$'. Has no effect
for 'redis')
Default: .*\.(png|gif|jpg|css|js)$
--session-store-locking-mode
Session locking mode for use with memcache session store. (default is
all. Has no effect for 'redis')
Default: all
--session-store-operation-timeout
Operation timeout for the memcache session store. (default is 5000ms)
Default: 5000
--session-store-pool-size
Pool size of the session store connections (default is 10. Has no effect
for 'memcache')
Default: 10
--session-store-ssl-endpoint-identification
Enables or disables SSL endpoint identification for the redis session
store. (default is true. Has no effect for 'memcache')
Default: true
--session-timeout
The number of minutes of inactivity before a user's session is timed
out.
--shutdown-override
Overrides the default behavior and casues Tomcat to ignore lifecycle
failure events rather than shutting down when they occur.
Default: false
--temp-directory
Define the temp directory, default value: ./target/tomcat.PORT
--tomcat-users-location
Location of the tomcat-users.xml file. (relative to the location of the
webapp-runner jar file)
--uri-encoding
Set the URI encoding to be used for the Connector.
--use-body-encoding-for-uri
Set if the entity body encoding should be used for the URI.
Default: false
--secure-error-report-valve
Set true to set ErrorReportValve properties showReport and showServerInfo to false. This protects from Apache stacktrace logging of malicious http requests.
Default: false
-A
Allows setting HTTP connector attributes. For example: -Acompression=on
Syntax: -Akey=value
Default: {}
See the Tomcat documentation for a complete list of HTTP connector attributes.
Development
To run the entire suite of integration tests, use the following command:
$ ./mvnw clean install -Pintegration-test
To run an individual integration test, use a command like this:
$ ./mvnw clean install -Pintegration-test -Dinvoker.test=memcache-test