Deploying Java Applications to Jetty

Eclipse Jetty is a free web server and javax.servlet container used to run Java web applications. Jetty has been part of the Eclipse Foundation since 2009; it is open-source and free for commercial use and distribution, as well as local development needs. It includes support for HTTP/2, WebSocket, OSGi, JMX, JNDI, JAAS and many other integrations. It can also be standalone or used to embed a webserver into devices, tools, frameworks, and more. While Jetty does not implement the entire Jakarta EE specification, most Java IDEs include templates (e.g., Maven archetypes) to create the necessary project structure to build and deploy a web applications in Jetty.

Overview & Concepts

Jetty is built on Java and requires the Java JRE to run. It does not include separate Windows and Linux scripts; instead, you start the server directly from Java:

java -jar start.jar

Jetty does not include a Graphical User Interface (GUI), so you can only make changes via the command line. For example, you would make configuration changes by passing parameters to the java -jar start.jar command (i.e., java -jar start.jar --add-to-start=https,http2).

Jetty does not come with the components required to run as a Windows service, but you can use third-party tools to configure it. See Jetty's documentation for more information. Jetty contains scripts to run as a Linux/Unix service out of the box. You can read more in the Jetty documentation.

Deploying Java Web Applications to Jetty

The standard way of deploying Jetty applications is copying a WAR file to $JETTY_HOME\webapps and letting Jetty's deployment scanner run and automatically deploy the file.

You can also customize application deployments in Jetty using the Jetty Deployable Descriptor XML File.

If you are using a non-standard web application structure or static files, you will need to set up a custom Deployable Descriptor File.

Automation with BuildMaster

The process of deploying Jetty in BuildMaster follows the same pattern as the manual process.

Example OtterScript plan:

set $JETTY_HOME = $EnvironmentVariable(JETTY_HOME);

# the ProfitCalcJava artifact contains  org.inedo.profitcalc-1.2.3.war
Deploy-Artifact ProfitCalcJava
(
    To: $JETTY_HOME\webapps
);