Web Container Settings

Set Web container settings in the GlassFish Server Administration Console by navigating to the Configurations->configuration-name->Web Container node. Follow the instructions in the online help for more information. Alternatively, you can configure Web container settings by following the instructions in Chapter 6, Administering Web Applications, in Oracle GlassFish Server 3.1 Administration Guide.

• Session Properties: Session Timeout

• Manager Properties: Reap Interval

• Disable Dynamic JSP Reloading

Session Properties: Session Timeout

Session timeout determines how long the server maintains a session if a user does not explicitly invalidate the session. The default value is 30 minutes. Tune this value according to your application requirements. Setting a very large value for session timeout can degrade performance by causing the server to maintain too many sessions in the session store. However, setting a very small value can cause the server to reclaim sessions too soon.

Manager Properties: Reap Interval

Modifying the reap interval can improve performance, but setting it without considering the nature of your sessions and business logic can cause data inconsistency, especially for time-based persistence-frequency.

For example, if you set the reap interval to 60 seconds, the value of session data will be recorded every 60 seconds. But if a client accesses a servlet to update a value at 20 second increments, then inconsistencies will result.

For example, consider the following online auction scenario:

• Bidding starts at $5, in 60 seconds the value recorded will be $8 (three 20 second intervals).

• During the next 40 seconds, the client starts incrementing the price. The value the client sees is $10.

• During the client’s 20 second rest, the GlassFish Server stops and starts in 10 seconds. As a result, the latest value recorded at the 60 second interval ($8) is be loaded into the session.

• The client clicks again expecting to see $11; but instead sees is $9, which is incorrect.

• So, to avoid data inconsistencies, take into the account the expected behavior of the application when adjusting the reap interval.

Disable Dynamic JSP Reloading

On a production system, improve web container performance by disabling dynamic JSP reloading. To do so, edit the default-web.xml file in the config directory for each instance. Change the servlet definition for a JSP file to look like this:

<servlet>
  <servlet-name>jsp</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet</servlet-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>development</param-name>
    <param-value>false</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>xpoweredBy</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>genStrAsCharArray</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
  </init-param>  <load-on-startup>3</load-on-startup>
</servlet>