weblogic.xml Deployment Descriptor Elements

The following sections describe the deployment descriptor elements that you define in the weblogic.xml file under the root element <weblogic-web-app>:

The weblogic-version element indicates the version of WebLogic Server on which this Web Application is intended to be deployed. This element is informational only and is not used by WebLogic Server.

The security-role-assignment element declares a mapping between a security role and one or more principals in the realm, as shown in the following example.

The following table describes the elements you can define within a security-role-assignment element.

Element	Required Optional	Description
<role-name>	Required	Specifies the name of a security role.
<principal-name>	Required	Specifies the name of a principal that is defined in the security realm. You can use multiple <principal-name> elements to map principals to a role. For more information on security realms, see Managing WebLogic Security.

The reference-descriptor element maps a name used in the Web Application to the JNDI name of a server resource. The reference-description element contains two elements: The resource-description element maps a resource, for example, a DataSource, to its JNDI name. The ejb-reference element maps an EJB to its JNDI name.

The following table describes the elements you can define within a resource-description element

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<res-ref-name>	Required	Specifies the name of a resource reference.
<jndi-name>	Required	Specifies a JNDI name for the resource.

The following table describes the elements you can define within a ejb-reference-description element

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<ejb-ref-name>	Required	Specifies the name of an EJB reference used in your Web Application.
<jndi-name>	Required	Specifies a JNDI name for the reference.

The session-descriptor element contains the session-param element, which defines parameters for HTTP sessions, as shown in the following example:

The following table describes the valid session parameter names and values you can define within a session-param element:

Parameter Name	Default Value	Parameter Value
CookieDomain	Null	Specifies the domain for which the cookie is valid. For example, setting CookieDomain to .mydomain.com returns cookies to any server in the .mydomain.com domain. The domain name must have at least two components. Setting a name to .com or *.net is not valid. If unset, this parameter defaults to the server that issued the cookie. For more information, see Cookie.setDomain() in the Servlet specification from Sun Microsystems.
CookieComment	Weblogic Server Session Tracking Cookie	Specifies the comment that identifies the session tracking cookie in the cookie file. If unset, this parameter defaults to WebLogic Session Tracking Cookie. You may provide a more specific name for your application.
CookieMaxAgeSecs	-1	Sets the life span of the session cookie, in seconds, after which it expires on the client. If the value is 0, the cookie expires immediately. The maximum value is Integer.MAX_VALUE, where the cookie lasts forever. If set to -1, the cookie expires when the user exits the browser. For more information about cookies, see Using Sessions and Session Persistence in Web Applications.
CookieName	JSESSIONID	Defines the session cookie name. Defaults to JSESSIONID if unset. You may set this to a more specific name for your application. When using ProxyByExtension, you may use either the ;jsessionid identifier or the ?jsessionid identifier to pass rewritten URLs.
CookiePath	Null	Specifies the pathname to which the browser sends cookies. If unset, this parameter defaults to / (slash), where the browser sends cookies to all URLs served by WebLogic Server. You may set the path to a narrower mapping, to limit the request URLs to which the browser sends cookies.
CookiesEnabled	true	Use of session cookies is enabled by default and is recommended, but you can disable them by setting this property to false. You might turn this option off to test.
CookieSecure	false	If set, the client's browser will only send the cookie back over an HTTPS connection. This ensures that the cookie ID is secure and should only be used on websites that exclusively use HTTPS. Once this feature is enabled, session cookies over HTTP will no longer work; if your client is directed to a non-HTTPS location the session will not be sent.
EncodeSessionIdInQueryParams	false	By default, when you use the HTTPServletResponse.encodeURL(URL) method to encode a URL in the HTTP response, the session identifier is added to the URL as a path parameter after the ; character in the URL. This behavior is defined by the Servlet 2.3 J2EE specification, implemented as of Version 6.1 of WebLogic Server. In Versions 6.0 and previous of WebLogic Server, however, the default behavior was to add the session identifier as a query parameter after the ? character in the URL. To enable this old behavior, set this session parameter to true. Note: You typically use this parameter when WebLogic Server interacts with Web Servers that do not completely comply with the Servlet 2.3 specification.
InvalidationIntervalSecs	60	Sets the time, in seconds, that WebLogic Server waits between doing house-cleaning checks for timed-out and invalid sessions, and deleting the old sessions and freeing up memory. Use this parameter to tune WebLogic Server for best performance on high traffic sites. The minimum value is every second (1). The maximum value is once a week (604,800 seconds). If unset, the parameter defaults to 60 seconds.
PersistentStoreDir	session_db	If you have set PersistentStoreType to file, this parameter sets the directory path where WebLogic Server will store the sessions. The directory path is either relative to the temp directory or an absolute path. The temp directory is either a generated directory under the WEB-INF directory of the Web Application, or a directory specified by the context-param javax.servlet.context.tmpdir. Ensure that you have enough disk space to store the number of valid sessions multiplied by the size of each session. You can find the size of a session by looking at the files created in the PersistentStoreDir. Note that the size of each session can vary as the size of serialized session data changes. You can make file-persistent sessions clusterable by making this directory a shared directory among different servers. You must create this directory manually.
PersistentStorePool	None	Specifies the name of a JDBC connection pool to be used for persistence storage.
PersistentStoreTable	wl_servlet_sessions	Applies only when PersistentStoreType is set to jdbc. This is used when you choose a database table name other than the default.
PersistentStoreType	memory	Sets the persistent store method to one of the following options: memory—Disables persistent session storage. file—Uses file-based persistence (See also PersistentStoreDir, above). jdbc—Uses a database to store persistent sessions. (see also PersistentStorePool, above). replicated—Same as memory, but session data is replicated across the clustered servers. cookie—All session data is stored in a cookie in the user's browser. replicated_if_clustered—If the Web application is deployed on a clustered server, the in-effect PersistentStoreType will be replicated. Otherwise, memory is the default.
PersistentStoreCookieName	WLCOOKIE	Sets the name of the cookie used for cookie-based persistence. For more information, see Using Cookie-Based Session Persistence.
IDLength	52	Sets the size of the session ID. The minimum value is 8 bytes and the maximum value is Integer.MAX_VALUE.
TimeoutSecs	3600	Sets the time, in seconds, that WebLogic Server waits before timing out a session, where x is the number of seconds between a session's activity. Minimum value is 1, default is 3600, and maximum value is integer MAX_VALUE. On busy sites, you can tune your application by adjusting the timeout of sessions. While you want to give a browser client every opportunity to finish a session, you do not want to tie up the server needlessly if the user has left the site or otherwise abandoned the session. This parameter can be overridden by the session-timeout element (defined in minutes) in web.xml. For more information, see session-config.
JDBCConnectionTimeoutSecs	120	Sets the time, in seconds, that WebLogic Server waits before timing out a JDBC connection, where x is the number of seconds between.
URLRewritingEnabled	true	Enables URL rewriting, which encodes the session ID into the URL and provides session tracking if cookies are disabled in the browser.
ConsoleMainAttribute		If you enable Session Monitoring in the WebLogic Server Administration Console, set this parameter to the name of the session parameter you will use to identify each session that is monitored.
TrackingEnabled	true	Tells the webapp to keep track of the session between requests, in one of the following ways: SessionCookie URLEncoding If this is set to false, the session is not tracked, cookies coming in with the response are ignored, and the URL is not encoded.

The jsp-descriptor element defines parameter names and values for JSPs. You define the parameters as name/value pairs. The following example shows how to configure the compileCommand parameter. Enter all of the JSP configurations using the pattern demonstrated in this example:

<jsp-descriptor>
     <jsp-param>
          <param-name>
            compileCommand
          </param-name>
          <param-value>
            sj
          </param-value>
     </jsp-param>
</jsp-descriptor>

The following table describes the parameter names and values you can define within a <jsp-param> element.

Parameter Name	Default Value	Parameter Value
compileCommand	javac, or the Java compiler defined for a server under the configuration /tuning tab of the WebLogic Server Administration Console	Specifies the full pathname of the standard Java compiler used to compile the generated JSP servlets. For example, to use the standard Java compiler, specify its location on your system as shown below: <param-value> /jdk130/bin/javac.exe </param-value> For faster performance, specify a different compiler, such as IBM Jikes or Symantec sj.
compileFlags	None	Passes one or more command-line flags to the compiler. Enclose multiple flags in quotes, separated by a space. For example: <jsp-param> <param-name>compileFlags</param-name> <param-value>"-g -v"</param-value> </jsp-param>
compilerclass	None	Name of a Java compiler that is executed in WebLogic Servers's virtual machine. (Used in place of an executable compiler such as javac or sj.) If this parameter is set, the compileCommand parameter is ignored.
debug	None	When set to true this adds JSP line numbers to generated class files to aid debugging.
encoding	Default encoding of your platform	Specifies the default character set used in the JSP page. Use standard Java character set names. If not set, this parameter defaults to the encoding for your platform. A JSP page directive (included in the JSP code) overrides this setting. For example: <%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=custom-encoding"%>
compilerSupports Encoding	true	When set to true, the JSP compiler uses the encoding specified with the contentType attribute contained in the page directive on the JSP page, or, if a contentType is not specified, the encoding defined with the encoding parameter in the jsp-descriptor. When set to false, the JSP compiler uses the default encoding for the JVM when creating the intermediate .java file.
exactMapping	true	When true, upon the first request for a JSP the newly created JspStub is mapped to the exact request. If exactMapping is set to false the webapp container generates non-exact url mapping for JSPs. exactMapping allows path info for JSP pages.
keepgenerated	false	Saves the Java files that are generated as an intermediary step in the JSP compilation process. Unless this parameter is set to true, the intermediate Java files are deleted after they are compiled.
noTryBlocks	false	If a JSP file has numerous or deeply nested custom JSP tags and you receive a java.lang.VerifyError exception when compiling, use this flag to allow the JSPs to compile correctly.
packagePrefix	jsp_servlet	Specifies the package into which all JSP pages are compiled.
pageCheckSeconds	1	Sets the interval, in seconds, at which WebLogic Server checks to see if JSP files have changed and need recompiling. Dependencies are also checked and recursively reloaded if changed. If set to 0, pages are checked on every request. If set to -1, page checking and recompiling is disabled.
precompile	false	When set to true, WebLogic Server automatically precompiles all modified JSPs when the Web Application is deployed or re-deployed or when starting WebLogic Server.
verbose	true	When set to true, debugging information is printed out to the browser, the command prompt, and WebLogic Server log file.
workingDir	internally generated directory	The name of a directory where WebLogic Server saves the generated Java and compiled class files for a JSP.
compiler	javac	Sets the JSP compiler for use with this instance of WebLogic Server.
superclass	weblogic.servlet.jsp.JspBase	Provides a means to override the default superclass for JSPs. The JSPs are compiled as servlet classes extending from this base class.
printNulls	true	When set to true, WebLogic Server prints the string "null". Setting printNulls to false ensures that WebLogic Server will print an empty string rather than the "null" string.

The <container-descriptor> element defines general parameters for Web Applications.

Add the <check-auth-on-forward/> element when you want to require authentication of forwarded requests from a servlet or JSP. Omit the tag if you do not want to require re-authentication. For example:

Note that the default behavior has changed with the release of the Servlet 2.3 specification, which states that authentication is not required for forwarded requests.

If the redirect-content-type element is set, then the servlet container sets that type on the response for internal redirects (for example, for welcome files).

If the redirect-content element is set, then the servlet container will use that as the value for the user readable data used in a redirect.

The <redirect-with-absolute-url> element controls whether the javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse.SendRedirect() method redirects using a relative or absolute URL. Set this element to falseif you are using a proxy HTTP server and do not want the URL converted to a non-relative link.

The <charset-params> Element is used to define codeset behavior for non-unicode operations.

Use the <input-charset> element to define which character set is used to read GET and POST data. For example:

The following table describes the elements you can define within a <input-charset> element

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<resource-path>	Required	A path which, if included in the URL of a request, signals WebLogic Server to use the Java character set specified by <java-charset-name>.
<java-charset-name>	Required	Specifies the Java characters set to use.

Use the <charset-mapping> element to map an IANA character set name to a Java character set name. For example:

The following table describes the elements you can define within a <charset-mapping> element

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<iana-charset-name>	Required	Specifies the IANA character set name that is to be mapped to the Java character set specified by the <java-charset-name> element.
<java-charset-name>	Required	Specifies the Java characters set to use.

Use the virtual-directory-mapping element to specify document roots other than the default document root of the Web application for certain kinds of requests, such as image requests. All images for a set of Web applications can be stored in a single location, and need not be copied to the document root of each Web application that uses them. For an incoming request, if a virtual directory has been specified servlet container will search for the requested resource first in the virtual directory and then in the Web application's original document root. This defines the precedence if the same document exists in both places.

The following table describes the elements you can define within the virtual-directory-mapping element.

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<local-path>	Required	Specifies a physical location on the disk.
<url-pattern>	Required	Contains the URL pattern of the mapping. Must follow the rules specified in Section 11.2 of the Servlet API Specification.

Use this element to specify a class for URL pattern matching. The WebLogic Server default URL match mapping class is weblogic.servlet.utils.URLMatchMap, which is based on J2EE standards. Another implementation included in WebLogic Server is SimpleApacheURLMatchMap, which you can plug in using the url-match-map element.

Configure the URLMatchMap to be used in weblogic.xml as in the following example:

The following table describes the elements you can define within the preprocessor element.

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<preprocessor-name>	Required	Contains the canonical name of the preprocessor.
<preprocessor-class>	Required	Contains the fully qualified class name of the preprocessor.

The preprocessor-mapping element defines a mapping between a preprocessor and a URL pattern.

The following table describes the elements you can define within the preprocessor-mapping element.

Element	Required/ Optional	Description
<preprocessor-name>	Required
<url-pattern>	Required

The security-permission element specifies a single security permission based on the Security policy file syntax. Refer to the following URL for Sun's implementation of the security permission specification:

The context-root element defines the context root of this stand-alone Web Application. If the Web application is part of an EAR, not stand-alone, specify the context root in the EAR's application.xml file. A context-root setting in application.xml takes precedence over context-root setting in weblogic.xml.

The order of precedence for context root determination for a Web application is as follows:

This is an equivalent of <run-as> for init method for servlets. For the <init-as> element, you must specify a valid prinicipal name. This name should not be a group or role name.

This is an equivalent of <run-as> for destroy method for servlets. For the <destroy-as> element, you must specify a valid prinicipal name. This name should not be a group or role name.