Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Release Notes

Features and Enhancements in Web Server 7.0

Web Server can be configured to run as a 64–bit application on the SolarisTM, SPARC® and AMD64 platforms.

Web Server provides comprehensive command-line interface support, consolidated configuration, enhanced security with elliptic curve cryptography support, and clustering support. It also comes with a robust built-in migration tool that helps migrate applications and configurations from Web Server 6.0 and Web Server 6.1 to Web Server 7.0.

Sun Java System Web Server includes the following new features:

JMX Based Management Infrastructure

Web Server management infrastructure is based on the modern distributed Java Management Extensions (JMXTM) technology. JMX technology provides tools for building distributed, web-based, modular and dynamic solutions for managing and monitoring devices, applications, and service-driven networks. JMX helps to manage and monitor instances, configurations, and web applications across clustered Web Server deployments.

Redesigned Administration Server Interface

The Administration Server is a specially configured Web Server instance on which the administration applications are deployed. An administration instance runs on each node in the server farm. Of these nodes, one node is configured to be the Administration Server and the rest are configured to be Administration Nodes.

The web-based Administration Server is redesigned to make common tasks easier to access and complex tasks easier to accomplish.

The Administration Server includes the following new features:

For more information on using the administration interface to perform administrative tasks, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Guide.

Command-Line Interface Support

The command-line interface enables you to easily configure and administer the server.

The administration CLI has the following key features:

For more information on the commands, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 CLI Reference Manual.

Sun N1 Service Provisioning System Support

Web Server is integrated with Sun N1TM Service Provisioning Server 5.2. Sun N1 Service Provisioning System is an application provisioning tool that eliminates the need for custom scripts. With the integration of Web Server with Sun N1 Service Provisioning System, as an administrator, you do not need to write custom scripts for installing multiple Web Servers in a datacenter environment or in a server farm.

Consolidated Configuration Files

Configuration files in Web Server are rearranged and consolidated to simplify administration.

In the earlier versions of Web Server, the configuration files in userdb were shared by all instances, while the information contained in these files was often instance-specific. In Web Server 7.0, configuration files from the userdb directory are removed. Their functionality is incorporated into the server.xml file in the config directory. Configuration files from the alias and httpacl directories are moved into the config directory. These changes consolidate instance-specific configuration information within the instance-specific config directory.

For information about the configuration files, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Configuration File Reference.

JNDI Support

The Java Naming and Directory InterfaceTM (J.N.D.I.) API provides seamless connectivity to heterogeneous enterprise naming and directory services.

Java Database Connectivity and Connection Pooling Support

Web Server provides out-of-the-box, seamless Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBCTM), technology and supports a wide range of industry-standard and customized JDBC drivers.

Web Server supports JDBC connection pooling, that is, a group of reusable connections for a particular database. Because creating each new connection is time consuming, the server maintains a pool of available connections to increase performance. When an application requests a connection, it obtains a connection from the pool. When an application closes a connection, the connection is returned to the pool.

For information on creating JDBC connection pools, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Guide.

Integrated Java Web Services Developer Pack 2.0 Technologies

Web Server includes Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) 2.0 and XML technologies. Web services developed by using Java WSDP can be deployed on Web Server as a web application by using the wadm command.

Web Server 7.0 provides support for security features such as XML Encryption, XML Digital Signature, and support for message security provider.

For more information on Java WSDP 2.0, see the following resource:

http://java.sun.com/webservices/jwsdp/index.jsp

Java WSDP 2.0 samples are located at the following location. These samples can be deployed on Web Server 7.0.

http://java.sun.com/webservices/downloads/2.0_preview_webservicespack.html

Lightweight Session Replication Support

Web Server supports cluster-based session replication and failover. Session replication and failover provides high availability to web applications by replicating HTTP sessions from one server instance to another in the same server cluster. Because each HTTP session has a backup copy on a remote instance, a server failure that renders one instance in the cluster unavailable does not disturb session continuity.

For more information on Light Weight Session Replication support, Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Guide.

URL Redirection and Rewriting with Regular Expressions

Web Server 7.0 introduces enhanced support for regular expressions and conditional processing in the obj.conf configuration file.

Key enhancements include the following:

You can use these new features to define flexible URL rewriting and redirection rules such as those possible with mod_rewrite from the Apache HTTP server. Unlike mod_rewrite, regular expressions and conditional processing in Web Server 7.0 can be used at any stage of request processing, even with third-party plug-ins.

For more information on regular expressions and URL rewrite functions, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Configuration File Reference.

Extensive Real-Time Monitoring Support

In addition to the monitoring facilities in earlier versions of Web Server, Web Server adds the following enhancements:

For more information on Monitoring feature in Web Server, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Guide.

Integrated Reverse Proxy

Reverse Proxy is integrated with Web Server. Reverse Proxy can be executed as an internal module. In Web Server 6.1, the Reverse Proxy plug-in had to be downloaded separately and installed.

Web Server provides GUI and CLI support for configuring the reverse proxy.

For information about configuring reverse proxy, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Guide.

Enhanced Security

Web Server supports a wide variety of technologies that allow data encryption and validation, request authentication, and server process protection. Key security feature enhancements include the following:

Elliptic Curve Cryptography Support

Sun Java System Web Server has always supported RSA keys. In addition to the continued support for RSA keys, Web Server 7.0 introduces support for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC).

ECC is the next generation of public-key cryptography for mobile or wireless environments. ECC is based on a set of algorithms for key generation, encryption, and decryption for performing asymmetric cryptography.

Important features of ECC are:

For more information on how to use ECC in Web Server, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Update 1 Administrator’s Guide.

Sun Java Studio Enterprise Support

Web Server 7.0 supports Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8.1. Sun Java Studio software is Sun's powerful, extensible IDE for Java technology developers. Sun Java Studio 8.1 is based on the NetBeans software, and integrated with the Sun Java platform.

The plug-in for the Web Server can be obtained in the following ways:


Note –

Sun Java Studio 8.1 plug-in for Web Server works only with a local web server. That is, the IDE and the web server must be installed on the same machine.


For information about using the web application features in Sun Java Studio 8.1, see the following tutorial:

http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javatools/jsenterprise/learning/tutorials/index.jsp

For more information about Sun Java Studio 8, visit:

http://www.sun.com/software/sundev/jde/

Localization Support

Web Server is available in the following languages: