These release notes contain important information about the Sun JavaTM System Web Server 7.0 release. These notes address new features and enhancements, installation notes, known problems, and other late-breaking issues. Read this document before you begin using the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 (Web Server 7.0).
These release notes contain the following sections:
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 SolarisTM, 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.
JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) 1.1 and Java Server Faces 1.1 Support
Integrated Java Web Services Developer Pack 2.0 Technologies
Integrated Reverse Proxy Plug-in and FastCGI Plug-in Support
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.
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
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
Web Server 7.0 is integrated with N1TM 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.
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.
Web Server 7.0 includes a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EETM) compliant implementation of the Java Servlet 2.4 and JavaServer PagesTM (JSPTM) 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
The JavaServerTM 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
The Java Naming and Directory InterfaceTM (JNDI) provides seamless connectivity to heterogeneous enterprise naming and directory services.
Web Server provides out-of-the-box, seamless Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBCTM), 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.
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 (JDKTM) 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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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)
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.
Web Server 7.0 provides plug-ins to integrate with the NetBeansTM 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.
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
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/.
Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 beta is available in the following languages:
French
German
Spanish
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Korean
The following table summarizes platform support.
Windows has only the 32–bit version of Web Server 7.0 on the x64 platform.
Vendor |
Architecture |
Operating System |
Minimum Required Memory |
Recommended Memory |
Recommended Disk Space |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft |
Intel x86/AMD |
Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4 Windows XP SP2 Windows 2003 Enterprise Server SP1 (32 bit) |
128 MB |
512 MB |
550 MB |
This section lists the browsers supported on Windows platforms.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later
NetscapeTM 7.0 or later
You cannot install Web Server 7.0 to a directory that contains an earlier version of Web Server. You can, however, migrate the existing installation after installing Web Server 7.0 to a new directory.
Documents for Web Server 7.0 are available as online files in PDF and HTML formats. The following table lists the tasks and concepts described in each document.
Web Server 7.0 beta includes a subset of the full product documentation. The full documentation will not be available until the product is publicly released.
Table 1–2 Web Server 7.0 Documentation Roadmap
This section lists the important known issues and limitations at the time of Web Server 7.0 beta release.
The following table lists the known issues in installation.
Table 1–3 Known Issues in Installation
Problem ID |
Description |
---|---|
6492159 |
Java ES 5 Web Server is creating two instances Java ES Installer is updating the WS_DOCROOT value in the properties file. For this reason, the configurator is creating two instances for the Web Server. Workaround: None. |
6408072 |
Need icons for objects in Programs folder. The objects in the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 folder are created with default Windows program icons and do not have specific icons that denote Sun programs. Workaround: None. |
6311607 |
Installer crashes in CLI mode if the administration password is >= 8 characters. If the administration user password is greater than eight characters, any invalid input to the administration port, web server port, or the administration user ID crashes the installer. Workaround: When installing Web Server 7.0 by using the command-line interface (CLI), the administration password must be set to less than (<) eight characters. |
6287206 |
Cannot install if the setup is started from a shared folder on the network. On the Windows platform, you are unable to install the product when the installer setup.exe is started from a shared network folder on another machine. Workaround: None. |
6408072 |
On Windows, need icons for objects in Programs folder. The objects in the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 folder on Windows are created with default Windows program icons and do not have specific icons that denote Sun programs. |
6492144 |
On Windows, CLI installer does not handle ctrl+c while entering the password. The installer does not accept ctrl+c and hence the terminal becomes unusable. |
4988156 |
Installing the standalone product over an existing JES installation and vice-versa is not supported Installing the stand-alone product Web Server 7.0 over an existing Java Enterprise System (JES) installation is not supported. JES users of the Web Server must use the JES installer to upgrade to the newer version of the Web Server. Workaround: None. |
The following table lists the known issues in migration.
Table 1–4 Known Issues in Migration
For detailed migration information, see the Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Installation and Migration Guide. This guide contains information about migrating from version 4.1 to 7.0, and from version 6 and compatible versions to 7.0.
The following table lists the known issues in the core of the server.
Table 1–5 Known Issues in Core
Problem ID |
Description |
---|---|
6395374 |
Incorrect hostname for Web Server on Windows |
The following table lists the known issues in the administration.
Table 1–6 Known Issues in Administration
Problem ID |
Description |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
6513089 |
Value missing in the server.xml file when restarting the Web Server instance. When you restart the Web Server instance, the following error message is displayed:
Workaround: Follow these steps:
FQDN is the fully qualified domain name of your host system. |
|||
6492144 |
On Windows platform, CLI installer does not process Control+C during password entry. The installer does not accept Control+C, so the terminal becomes unusable. Workaround: None. |
|||
6479247 |
Dialog box to enter the token password appears on restarting an instance after the deployment. This behavior is not seen on other platforms. Workaround: None. |
|||
6432106 |
Sun Java System Portal Server search throws exception after Web Server upgrade. The Portal Server search functionality throws an exception when upgrading Web Server from Java ES 4 to Java ES 5. Workaround: Note – Move the existing libdb-3.3.dll and libdb_java-3.3.dll library files to an appropriate location, somewhere outside the Web Server's private directories. After the Portal Server libraries are in a suitable location, that path must be specified for the <libdb-3.3.dll path>:<libdb_java-3.3.dll path> in the following commands. On the Windows platform, perform the following steps:
|
|||
6425144 |
wadm does not update classpath correctly if classpath contains semicolon “;”. When you set the classpath by using the wadm.bat file, if the classpath contains a semicolon, the full classpath is not updated in the server.xml file. Only the path before semicolon “;” is updated. Workaround: Use one of the following workarounds.
|
|||
6364924 |
A node can be registered to multiple admin servers which may cause a configuration conflict. You can register a node to a second administration server without canceling the registration with the first administration server. However, this registration leads to the nodes becoming inaccessible to both the administration servers. Workaround: On each registration, restart the Administration Node. The Administration Node is available to the most recent Administration Server to which it has been registered. |
|||
6379125 |
wadm allows connecting to node, shows a cert and then throws a HTTP 400 error. Web Server node uses the same JMX connector as the administration server that is registered at the same URI as an administration server. A certificate is thrown as part of the SSL handshake and the execution has not yet reached the node. Web Server is unable to determine if the connection is from a client or an administration server. |
|||
4793938 |
User and password dialog presented instead of directory index. By default, Web Server 7.0 does not send a directory index unless the user has been authenticated. Attempting to access a directory prompts the user to type a user name and password. This user is prompted because the default Access Control List (ACL) in Web Server 7.0 grants the list access right only to authenticated users. Workaround: You can grant the list access right to unauthenticated users by using the Admin Console or by editing the default.acl file. For more information about how to grant the list access right, see Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 Administrator’s Guide. |
The following table lists the known issues in the localized version of Web Server 7.0.
Table 1–7 Localization Issues
Problem ID |
Description |
---|---|
6497092 |
Windows menus are not localized The Start-> Sun Microsystems ->Web Server 7.0->Start/Stop Admin Server menus are not localized on Windows. Workaround: None. |
6483354 |
File handle is not released by webservd process under certain conditions.
Expected Result: The Not found page should be displayed correctly in Internet Explorer instead of the page not found error. |
6442101 |
Online help Search does not work on non-English locales. Workaround: None. |
6431022 |
The files are missing in online help for the link Tips on Searching on all locales.
|
6419884 |
Missing all localization online helps for search. This issue exists on zh_CN browser. Clicking the help link on the search page displays Not Found error on the browser. Workaround: Refer to http:///search/help/zh_CN/basic-search.html instead of http:///search/help/zh/basic-search.html |
6412711 |
In the localized Administration GUI, part of the Configuration Deployed successfully message is garbled on the Internet Explorer. Workaround: None. |
6385933 |
After creating configuration, a multibyte name becomes garbage in Web Server 7
Workaround: None. |
6492144 |
On Windows, CLI installer does not handle Control+C while entering the password. The installer does not accept Control+C and hence the terminal becomes unusable. |
6494089 |
Administration Server node has un-localized string.
|
6385933 |
After creating the configuration, a multi-byte name becomes garbage.
|
6316881 |
Multi-byte characters in headers can not be retrieved by req.getHeader(). The characters are not parsed correctly, when request.getHeader() is called. |
5046634 |
There is no functionality equivalent to use-responseCT-for-headers in Web Server 7.0. |
6503931 |
schema.properties file is not localized. SchemaValidationExceptions caused by the Administration Server result in exception messages being read from the schema.properties file. This file is not localized. |
6507819 |
On Windows file handle is not released by webservd process under certain conditions.
Expected Result: The "Not found" page should be displayed correctly in Internet Explorer instead of the "page not found" error. |
6507819 |
Localized version of Web Server online help contents have some differences from English. The Japanese online help do not have online help content for the following screens in the Admin Console:
|
6508299 |
Garbage characters are displayed for search results on the left panel of online help of Web Server on non-English locales. Using Search tab on the online help to search for some content displays garbage characters in the search result page. |
6494089 |
Administration Server node has un-localized string.
|
6502036 |
Help window displays an 'Application Error' message in the left pane. On Linux, accessing Help from the localized version of Admin Console displays an 'Application Error' message. |
If you have problems with Sun Java System Web Server 7.0, contact Sun customer support using one of the following mechanisms:
Sun Software Support services online at
The telephone dispatch number associated with your maintenance contract
So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:
Description of the problem, including the situation where the problem occurs and its impact on your operation
Machine type, operating system version, and product version, including any patches and other software that might be affecting the problem
Detailed steps on the methods you have used to reproduce the problem
Any error logs or core dumps
Sun is interested in improving its documentation and welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send your comments to Sun using the "Send comments" link at: http://docs.sun.com/
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Useful Sun Java Systems information can be found at the following locations:
Documentation for Sun Java System Web Server 7.0
Sun Software Products and Service
Sun Developer Information
Sun Developer Support Services
Software Support Services
Sun Support and Training Services
Sun Consulting and Professional Services
http://www.sun.com/service/sunjavasystem/sjsservicessuite.html
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