What is Winstone?
Winstone is a command line interface around Jetty 10.0.x, which implements
Servlet 4.0 (JakartaEE 8/javax.servlet.*), WebSocket/JSR-356, and HTTP/2 support. It is used as the default
embedded servlet container in Jenkins (via executable-war module)
and can be used by any other web applications that wants to be self-contained.
History
Winstone was originally a from-scratch servlet container by Rick Knowles with a good command line interface. Over time, the upstream development has halted, and it became impractical to maintain a from-scratch servlet implementation on our own. To reduce this maintenance burden, the gut of Winstone has been removed and delegated to Jetty, while CLI was preserved, and we called it Winstone 2.0.
License
The license of Winstone inherits its original license by Rick.
The Web-App DTD files (everything in the src/javax/servlet/resources and
src/javax/servlet/jsp/resources folders) are covered by the licenses
described at the top of each file (usually as licensed by Sun Microsystems).
As of v0.8.1, all other files are dual-licensed, under either the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL) as described in LICENSE-LGPL.txt, or the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) as described in LICENSE-CDDL.txt.
The goal of dual-licensing is to make Winstone as attractive as possible to distributors of commercial webapps, while ensuring everyone benefits from any improvements. The CDDL allows free distribution with any commercial applications, while distribution with a GPL licensed webapp is also possible under the LGPL. If you are unclear about which license applies to an application you wish to distribute or sell, please contact me.
Using Winstone
To run a single war file:
java -jar winstone.jar --warfile=<location of warfile> (+ other options)
To run a directory full of war files:
java -jar winstone.jar --webappsDir=<location of webapps directory> (+ other options)
To run locally exploded web archive:
java -jar winstone.jar --webroot=<location of webroot> (+ other options)
To run different web applications for diffent virtual hosts:
java -jar winstone.jar --hostsDir=<location of hosts directory> (+ other options)
Command-line options
Winstone Servlet Engine, (c) 2003-2006 Rick Knowles
Usage: java winstone.jar [--option=value] [--option=value] [etc]
Required options: either --webroot OR --warfile OR --webappsDir OR --hostsDir
--webroot = set document root folder.
--warfile = set location of warfile to extract from.
--webappsDir = set directory for multiple webapps to be deployed from
Other options:
--javaHome = Override the JAVA_HOME variable
--toolsJar = The location of tools.jar. Default is JAVA_HOME/lib/tools.jar
--config = load configuration properties from here. Default is ./winstone.properties
--prefix = add this prefix to all URLs (eg http://localhost:8080/prefix/resource). Default is none
--commonLibFolder = folder for additional jar files. Default is ./lib
--extraLibFolder = folder for additional jar files to add to Jetty classloader
--logThrowingLineNo = show the line no that logged the message (slow). Default is false
--logThrowingThread = show the thread that logged the message. Default is false
--debug = set the level of debug msgs (1-9). Default is 5 (INFO level)
--httpPort = set the http listening port. -1 to disable, Default is 8080
--httpListenAddress = set the http listening address. Default is all interfaces
--httpKeepAliveTimeout = how long idle HTTP keep-alive connections are kept around (in ms; default 5000)?
--httpsPort = set the https listening port. -1 to disable, Default is disabled
--httpsListenAddress = set the https listening address. Default is all interfaces
--httpsKeepAliveTimeout = how long idle HTTPS keep-alive connections are kept around (in ms; default 5000)?
--httpsKeyStore = the location of the SSL KeyStore file. Default is ./winstone.ks
--httpsKeyStorePassword = the password for the SSL KeyStore file. Default is null
--httpsKeyManagerType = the SSL KeyManagerFactory type (eg SunX509, IbmX509). Default is SunX509
--httpsRedirectHttp = redirect http requests to https (requires both --httpPort and --httpsPort)
--http2Port = set the http2 listening port. -1 to disable, Default is disabled
--httpsSniHostCheck = if the SNI Host name must match when there is an SNI certificate. Check disabled per default
--httpsSniRequired = if a SNI certificate is required. Disabled per default
--http2ListenAddress = set the http2 listening address. Default is all interfaces
--excludeCipherSuites = set the ciphers to exclude (comma separated, use blank quote " " to exclude none) (default is
// Exclude weak / insecure ciphers
"^.*_(MD5|SHA|SHA1)$",
// Exclude ciphers that don't support forward secrecy
"^TLS_RSA_.*$",
// The following exclusions are present to cleanup known bad cipher
// suites that may be accidentally included via include patterns.
// The default enabled cipher list in Java will not include these
// (but they are available in the supported list).
"^SSL_.*$",
"^.*_NULL_.*$",
"^.*_anon_.*$"
--controlPort = set the shutdown/control port. -1 to disable, Default disabled
--useJasper = enable jasper JSP handling (true/false). Default is false
--sessionTimeout = set the http session timeout value in minutes. Default to what webapp specifies, and then to 60 minutes
--sessionEviction = set the session eviction timeout for idle sessions in seconds. Default value is 180. -1 never evict, 0 evict on exit
--mimeTypes=ARG = define additional MIME type mappings. ARG would be EXT=MIMETYPE:EXT=MIMETYPE:...
(e.g., xls=application/vnd.ms-excel:wmf=application/x-msmetafile)
--requestHeaderSize=N = set the maximum size in bytes of the request header. Default is 8192.
--responseHeaderSize=N = set the maximum size in bytes of the response header. Default is 8192.
--maxParamCount=N = set the max number of parameters allowed in a form submission to protect
against hash DoS attack (oCERT #2011-003). Default is 10000.
--useJmx = Enable Jetty Jmx
--qtpMaxThreadsCount = max threads number when using Jetty Queued Thread Pool
--jettyAcceptorsCount = Jetty Acceptors number
--jettySelectorsCount = Jetty Selectors number
--usage / --help = show this message
Security options:
--realmClassName = Set the realm class to use for user authentication. Defaults to ArgumentsRealm class
--argumentsRealm.passwd.<user> = Password for user <user>. Only valid for the ArgumentsRealm realm class
--argumentsRealm.roles.<user> = Roles for user <user> (comma separated). Only valid for the ArgumentsRealm realm class
--fileRealm.configFile = File containing users/passwds/roles. Only valid for the FileRealm realm class
Access logging:
--accessLoggerClassName = Set the access logger class to use for user authentication. Defaults to disabled
--simpleAccessLogger.format = The log format to use. Supports combined/common/resin/custom (SimpleAccessLogger only)
--simpleAccessLogger.file = The location pattern for the log file(SimpleAccessLogger only)
Configuration file
You don't really need a config file, but sometimes it's handy to be able to use the same settings each time without running through the command history.
Winstone looks for a config file winstone.properties in the current directory
(or in the location specified with --config) at startup. It loads
the properties in this file, overrides them with any supplied command
line properties, and then starts itself.
This is just intended as a handy feature for people who want to cache regular startup options, rather than using batch files.
Deployment choices
The simplest way to use winstone is with a single webapp. To do this, just supply the warfile or webroot directory as an argument:
java -jar winstone.jar <webroot or warfile>, (this method auto-detects the type) orjava -jar winstone.jar --webroot=<webroot>, orjava -jar winstone.jar --warfile=<warfile>
If you need to support multiple webapps, use the --webappsDir switch,
to which you pass a directory that contains multiple warfiles/webroots.
java -jar winstone.jar --webappsDir=<dir containing multiple webroots>
The directory becomes the prefix name for that webapp (so hello becomes /hello, etc).
The directory named ROOT becomes the no-prefix webapp.
So, for example, if you had a directory /usr/local/webapps which contained
sub-directories ROOT and test, if you executed
java -jar winstone.jar --webappsDir=/usr/local/webapps, you would find that
the test folder would act as a webroot for requests prefixed with
/test, while other requests would go to the webapp in the ROOT folder
If you need multiple hosts (sometimes called name-based virtual hosting),
there is an option --hostsDir. This acts in a similar way to the --webappsDir switch,
but it defines an extra level of sub-directories, the top being a per-host directory
and the second a per-webapp directory as with --webappsDir.
The directory name becomes the host name: that is, a directory named www.blah.com
will only serve requests with the host header www.blah.com, unless it is the default
host. If a directory named "default" is found, it becomes the default host.
If no default directory is found, the first directory in the list (alphabetically)
becomes the default host.
java -jar winstone.jar --hostsDir=<dir containing multiple host directories>
HTTP/2 Support
Old versions of Java 8 doesn't come with ALPN support. So you need to include alpn jar in the bootclasspath.
The version to use depends on your used jvm version.
To include in the bootclasspath, simply add an option -Xbootclasspath/p: to your jvm start script, this must contains
a path to the alpn boot jar.
Sample
-Xbootclasspath/p:/Users/olamy/repository/org/mortbay/jetty/alpn/alpn-boot/8.1.11.v20170118/alpn-boot-8.1.11.v20170118.jar
To find the version to use you can look at this table
You have to include the used ALPN processor with an extra configuration option. You can download the version from:
The jar must be included using the option: --extraLibFolder=extra (path to a directory containing the jars)
With JDK 8u252+ or Java 9+ you do not need anymore to include the ALPN jar in the bootclasspath but only the jar jetty-alpn-java-server in the extraLibFolder
Development
If you have some unit test failures you may add an interface/ip alias such
sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.2
Changelog
See GitHub releases, or for older versions this page.