Migrating Web Application Modules

Migrating applications from Application Server 6.x to Sun Java System Application Server 8.2 does not require any changes to the Java code or Java Server Pages. However, you must change the following files:

• web.xml

• ias-web.xml

The Application Server adheres to J2EE 1.4 standards, according to which, the web.xml file inside a WAR file must comply with the revised DTD at http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd. This DTD is a superset of the previous versions’ DTD, hence only the <! DOCTYPE definition needs to be changed inside the web.xml file, which is to be migrated. The modified <! DOCTYPE declaration looks like:

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.// 
                        DTD Web Application 2.3//EN" 
                        "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">

In Application Server Enterprise Edition 8.2, the name of this file is changed to sun-web.xml.

This XML file must declare the Application Server-specific properties and resources that are required by the Web application.

If the ias-web.xml of the Application Server 6.5 application is present and does declare Application Server 6.5 specific properties, then this file needs to be migrated to Application Server standards. The DTD file name has to be changed to sun-web.xml. For more details, see URL http://wwws.sun.com/software/dtd/appserver/sun-web-app_2_4-1.dtd

Once you have made these changes to the web.xml and ias-web.xml files, the Web application (WAR file) can be deployed from the Application Server’s deploytool GUI interface or from the command line utility asadmin. The deployment command must specific the type of application as web.

Invoke the asadmin command line utility by running asadmin.bat file or the asadmin.sh script in the Application Server’s bin directory.

The command at the asadmin prompt is:

asadmin deploy -u username -w password
-H hostname 
-p adminport 
--type web 
[--contextroot contextroot] 
[--force=true] 
[--name component-name] 
[--upload=true] filepath