Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Release Notes for Microsoft Windows

What's New in Web Server 7.0

Web Server 7.0 is a major new release with significant enhancements in the Administration Infrastructure. In addition, Web Server can now be configured to run as a 64–bit application on the Solaris^TM, SPARC® and AMD64 platforms.

Web Server 7.0 provides comprehensive command-line interface support, consolidated configuration, enhanced security with elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) 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 Sun Java System Web Server 7.0.

Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 implements many new features.

JMX Based Management Infrastructure

Web Server 7.0 management infrastructure is based on modern distributed Java Management Extensions (JMX) technology. The JMX provides the tools for building distributed, web-based, modular and dynamic solutions for managing and monitoring devices, applications, and service-driven networks. JMX helps manage and monitor 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 server runs on each node in the server farm. Of these servers, one server is configured to be the master server (Administration Server) and the rest are configured to be slave servers. Each of the slave servers is referred to as an Administration Node.

The HTML driven administration server is redesigned to make common tasks easier to access and complex tasks easier to accomplish.

New features in the Administration Server are as follows:

Web-based wizards for performing the most common tasks
Enhanced command-line interface (CLI) support for server configuration and administration tasks
Administration Node to manage remote Web Server instances
Centralized configuration store
Support for deploying Web Server configuration information on multiple machines (nodes). This feature extends to support Web Server in a server farm (clusters).
Built-in management and monitoring of server clusters

Command-Line Interface Support

The Web Server 7.0 command-line interface supports configuration and administration of the server, thus ensuring easy manageability.

The key features of administration CLI are as follows:

Embedded Java Command Language (JACL) shell for scripting
Extensible CLI, which means, more commands can be added to the CLI by using the third-party plug-ins if required
Support for both remote mode and local mode of execution of commands for configuration, lifecycle, runtime maintenance, and runtime monitoring of the administration server
Auto completion of commands when you type one or more character followed by a tab key
Elegant CLI-based operational modes including single mode, shell mode, and file mode

N1 Grid Container (Service Provisioning Support)

Web Server 7.0 is integrated with N1^TM Grid Service Provisioning Server 5.2 (N1GSP). N1GSP is an application provisioning tool that eliminates the need for custom scripts. With the integration of Web Server with N1GSP, 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 7.0 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, the configuration files from 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 config directory. These changes consolidate instance-specific configuration information within the instance-specific config directory.

Java Servlet 2.4 and JavaServer Pages (JSP) 2.0 Support

Web Server 7.0 includes a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE^TM) compliant implementation of the Java Servlet 2.4 and JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) 2.0 specifications. Web Server 7.0 web container provides the flexibility and reliability needed to design and deploy web applications that comply with Java technology standards.

Servlets provide a component-based, platform-independent method for building web-based applications, without the performance limitations of CGI programs. JSP technology is an extension of the servlet technology that supports authoring of HTML and XML pages with dynamic content.

For information about these technologies, see the following resource at http://java.sun.com/j2ee/1.4/docs/tutorial/doc/index.html

JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) 1.1 and Java Server Faces 1.1 Support

The JavaServer^TM Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) 1.1 provides custom tags that encapsulate core functionality common to many Web applications. JSTL provides support for structural tasks such as iteration and conditionals, tags for manipulating XML documents, internationalization tags, SQL tags, and commonly used functions.

Web Server 7.0 supports JavaServer Faces technology. JavaServer Faces simplifies building user interfaces for JavaServer applications.

For information about these technologies, see the following resource:

http://java.sun.com/j2ee/1.4/docs/tutorial/doc/index.html

JNDI Support

The Java Naming and Directory Interface^TM (JNDI) 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 (JDBC^TM), and supports a wide range of industry-standard and customized JDBC drivers.

Web Server 7.0 supports JDBC connection pooling that is a group of reusable connections for a particular database. Because creating each new physical 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 about creating JDBC connection pools, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Administrator's Guide.

Java SE 5.0 and 6.0 Support

Web Server 7.0 supports the 32–bit version of the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 5.0 and Java SE 6.0. For the 64-bit version of Web Server, the 64–bit version of Java Development Kit (JDK^TM) software support is available. The 64–bit version of Web Server is currently supported only on the Solaris Operating System.

Web Server 7.0 with the default installation option installs the co-packaged JDK version 1.5.0_09 software along with the Web Server. You can choose any other certified JDK version either during the installation or after the installation of Web Server.

To use the JDK version 1.6.0, download the software from the following location:

http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

Integrated Java Web Services Developer Pack 2.0 Technologies

Java Web Services Developer Pack 2.0 (JWSDP 2.0) XML technologies are included with Web Server 7.0. The web service developed on JWSDP can be deployed on Web Server 7.0 as a web application by using the wadm command.

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

For more information about JWSDP 2.0, see http://java.sun.com/webservices/jwsdp/index.jsp.

The JWSDP 2.0 samples are located at http://java.sun.com/webservices/downloads/2.0_preview_webservicespack.html. These samples can be deployed on Web Server 7.0.

Session Replication Support

Web Server 7.0 supports the cluster-based session replication and failover. The purpose of session failover is to provide high availability to web applications. High availability of web applications is achieved by replicating HTTP sessions from one instance to another server instance of the same server cluster. That is, each HTTP session has a backup copy on a remote instance. In the event of server failure that renders one instance in the cluster unavailable, the cluster still maintains session continuity.

URI Redirect Support Based on Regular Expression

Web Server 7.0 is enhanced to support regular expressions (also known as “patterns”) and request time parameter interpolation in configuration files. In addition, wildcard pattern-matching support is extended to server.xml. URL redirecting is implemented as Server Application Function (SAF) in Web Server 7.0. The redirect SAF lets you redirect URIs that match a certain prefix. (A URI is the part of the URL a web browser sends in its HTTP request.) You specify that prefix with the from parameter and the URL to redirect to with either the url or url-prefix parameters. In Web Server 7.0, the from parameter is optional. If from is omitted, all URIs are redirected.

In the obj.conf file, SAF parameters are supported with new <If>, <ElseIf>, and <If> tags. These tags contain directives. Using these tags, you can define conditions under which the directives are executed. These tags can also be used to dynamically generate SAF parameters.

Unlike Apache's mod_rewrite function, the <If> tag provides the following flexibilities:

Can manipulate URI, path, header fields, and response bodies
Works at any stage of request processing
Works with any SAF, including third-party plug-ins

For more information about regular expressions and URL rewrite functions, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Administrator's Guide.

Extensive Real-Time Monitoring Support

In addition to the monitoring facilities in earlier versions of Web Server, Web Server 7.0 adds the following monitoring enhancements:

Monitor Servlet, JSP, and JSTL container characteristics
Monitor process and virtual server statistics from within the Administration Server
Integrates with the Java Enterprise System Monitoring Framework (Java ES-MF), which makes Web Server 7.0 monitoring information available within the Java ES-MF
Can access monitoring data as Message Beans (MBeans) by using JConsole, JES-MF, or any JMX compliant client applications

Integrated Reverse Proxy Plug-in and FastCGI Plug-in Support

Reverse Proxy and FastCGI plug-ins are integrated with Web Server 7.0. These plug-ins can be executed as internal modules. In Web Server 6.1, these plug-ins had to be downloaded separately and installed.

Web Server 7.0 provides GUI and CLI support for configuring the reverse proxy plug-in.

Enhanced Security

Web Server 7.0 supports a wide variety of technologies that enable data encryption and validation, request authentication, and server process protection. Key security feature enhancements include the following:

Denial of Service (DoS) attack protection enhancements
Cross-site scripting protection through the native sed(1)-based input filtering
Web Services Security:
- IETF XML Digital Signature
- W3C XML Encryption
Integrated the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) support
WebDAV access control
The LDAP auth-db is enhanced to make search expressions and match attributes configurable
Enhancements to LDAP interaction and Microsoft Active Directory Interoperability
Support for migration of certificate (JKS) from Apache or Tomcat
Support for dynamically applied Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs)

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 as follows:

Compared to traditional cryptosystems like RSA, ECC offers equivalent security with smaller key sizes. This means faster computations and lower power consumption, as well as memory and bandwidth savings.
ECC operates on elliptic curves. You must pick a curve and a key length. Curves are standardized and given names by various organizations: NIST, ANSI, SECG. These standards include the key length so that in practice you only need to pick one of the predefined curve names. Web Server 7.0 supports all the curves currently specified.

For more information on how to use ECC in Web Server, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7 Administrator's Guide.

NetBeans 5.0 and 5.5 Support

Web Server 7.0 provides plug-ins to integrate with the NetBeans^TM Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for deploying and debugging web applications. NetBeans is a complete development environment to create Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) based web applications with the standard components.

In addition to the deployment of web applications, the plug-in also provides support for the following activities:

Manage instances, such as start or stop server instances
Enable or disable applications
Create server wide resources, such as JDBC resources and JDBC connection pools

For information about NetBeans, see http://www.netbeans.org/kb/index.html.

For more information about using NetBeans with Web Server, see http://webserver.netbeans.org.

Sun Java Studio Enterprise Support

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

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

From the companion CD in the Sun Java System Web Server Media Kit
By using the companion AutoUpdate feature of Sun Java Studio
From the download center for Sun Java System Web Server

Note –

Sun Java Studio 8.1 plug-in for Web Server 7.0 works only with a local Web Server. That is, the IDE and the Web Server must have been installed on the same machine.

For information about using the web application features in Sun Java Studio 8.1, see the tutorial at http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javatools/jsenterprise/learning/tutorials/#jse8.

For more information about Sun Java Studio 8, see http://www.sun.com/software/sundev/jde/.

Localization Support

Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 beta is available in the following languages:

French
German
Spanish
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Korean