Find which servlet a web request will hit - servlets

Inside a servlet Filter, is there a way to figure out which Servlet a particular request would eventually hit? I need to do Role based security checks based upon Servlets (not URL patterns) , in a filter (due to legacy reasons).
thanks

This information is not available by HttpServletRequest.
If you're already on Servlet 3.0 (Tomcat 7, Glassfish 3, JBoss AS 6, etc), then you can get information of all servlet registrations and mappings by ServletContext#getServletRegistrations():
for (Entry<String, ? extends ServletRegistration> entry = servletContext.getServletRegistrations().entrySet()) {
String servletClassName = entry.getKey();
Collection<String> urlPatterns = entry.getValue().getMappings();
// ...
}
You could do the URL matching yourself based on the servlet mappings and the information as obtained by among others HttpServletRequest#getServletPath()
If you're not already on Servlet 3.0, then you need to parse the web.xml and collect all servlets and their URL patterns yourself, or to have a copy of it elsewhere. For manually parsing web.xml, the JAXB may come handy.

The HttpServletRequest.getServletPath() returns the part of the request URI that resulted in the servlet being invoked.

Related

Annotation Based Handler Mapping in spring mvc

I want to understand how HandlerMapping work in Annotation based Spring MVC applications. As while working in XML based configuration we have one default and if we want to use other implementation then we have to define it in XML file as well as URL mapping strategies.
To understand HandlerMapping in Annotation based Controller application i came across to
DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping which used to be default before v3. 1 and now
RequestMappingHandlerMapping is currently used. So I want to understand how to define this HandlerMapping if we are not using XML based configuration and URL mapping strategies. Another thing I came across was HandlerAdapter. So these two things are confusing me.
Please explain step by step when Dispatcher Servlet intercept a request how it find which HandlerMapping to use and how URL mapping strategies work in Annotation based apps.
You can think that HandlerMapping determine a request/URL should be handled by which ways/frameworks (e.g use #Controller to handle ? Use JSP to handle ? etc)
HandlerAdapter drives the actual workflow of handling this request , containing the actual implementation of handling logic.
High Level Logic:
DispatcherServlet intercepts a request
Find out which HandlerMapping can handle this request. Refer to HandlerMapping#getHandler() for the matching logic. It will return a generic object (called a handler object) if the request can be handled.
Find out which HandlerAdapter can handle this handler object (By checking HandlerAdapter#supports()). If a HandlerAdapter can handle , it will handle it (by HandlerAdapter#handle).

Where to hook up authentication in Grizzly?

I'm using a Grizzly HttpServer which has two HttpHandler instances registered:
under /api/* there is an Jersey REST - style application offering the API of the product, and
under /* there is an StaticHttpHandler which serves static HTML / JavaScript content (which, among other things, talks to the API under /api/
For authentication I'm currently securing only the API using a Jersey ContainerRequestFilter implementing HTTP Basic Auth, which looks quite similar to what is presented in another SO question.
But as requirements changed, now I'd like to require authentication for all requests hitting the server. So I'd like to move the authentication one level up, from Jersey to Grizzly. Unfortunately, I'm completely lost figuring out where I can hook up a "request filter" (or whatever it is called) in Grizzly. Can someone point me to the relevant API to accomplish this?
The easiest solution would leverage the Grizzly embedded Servlet support.
This of course would mean you'd need to do a little work to migrate your current HttpHandler logic over to Servlets - but that really shouldn't be too difficult as the HttpHandler API is very similar.
I'll give some high level points on doing this.
HttpServer server = HttpServlet.createSimpleServer(<docroot>, <host>, <port>);
// use "" for <context path> if you want the context path to be /
WebappContext ctx = new WebappContext(<logical name>, <context path>);
// do some Jersey initialization here
// Register the Servlets that were converted from HttpHandlers
ServletRegistration s1 = ctx.addServlet(<servlet name>, <Servlet instance or class name>);
s1.addMapping(<url pattern for s1>);
// Repeat for other Servlets ...
// Now for the authentication Filter ...
FilterRegistration reg = ctx.addFilter(<filter name>, <filter instance or class name>);
// Apply this filter to all requests
reg.addMapping(null, "/*");
// do any other additional initialization work ...
// "Deploy" ctx to the server.
ctx.deploy(server);
// start the server and test ...
NOTE: The dynamic registration of Servlets and Filters is based off the Servlet 3.0 API, so if you want information on how to deal with Servlet listeners, init parameters, etc., I would recommend reviewing the Servlet 3.0 javadocs.
NOTE2: The Grizzly Servlet implementation is not 100% compatible with the Servlet specification. It doesn't support standard Servlet annotations, or deployment of traditional Servlet web application archive deployment.
Lastly, there are examples of using the embedded Servlet API here
The "hookup" part can be done using a HttpServerProbe (tested with Grizzly 2.3.5):
srv.getServerConfiguration().getMonitoringConfig().getWebServerConfig()
.addProbes(new HttpServerProbe.Adapter() {
#Override
public void onRequestReceiveEvent(HttpServerFilter filter,
Connection connection, Request request) {
...
}
#Override
public void onRequestCompleteEvent(HttpServerFilter filter,
Connection connection, Response response) {
}
});
For the "linking" to the ContainerRequestFilter you might want to have a look at my question:
UnsupportedOperationException getUserPrincipal

Spring MVC handle same request parameter in common place for different URIs

I've spent a few days researching this, but haven't found a suitable answer for my situation. I have a Spring 3.1 MVC application. Currently, some vendors log into the application via a web client in which case the user information is stored in the session. I want to expose some services to other vendors via RESTFul web services, but have the vendor pass their vendor id as a part of the URI or via PARAMS. Is there a way to handle the vendor id in a single place that then forwards to the respective controller for request processing? Should the vendor id be a part of the URI or should the vendor id be passed in the request body? I've looked into Interceptors, but how would I do this with multiple URIs or for every controller for the RESTFul webservice? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated
Having a custom header is the most clean option but parameters also work equally well.
In the interceptors preHandle method you could lookup the vendor by either a header or a parameter and attach it to the request by adding the object to it's attributes.
request.addAttribute("vendor", myVendorInstance);
From that point on the vendor can be retrieved from the request like:
Vendor vendor = (Vendor) request.getAttribute("vendor");
Interceptors can be mapped to any URL you like using a mapping e.g.
<mvc:interceptor>
<mvc:mapping path="/vendors/**" />
<bean class="my.package.VendorLookupInterceptor" />
</mvc:interceptor>
Another way of making the vendor object available to controllers is to inject it. For instance, say that controllers interested in the object should implement this interface.
public interface VendorAware {
public void setVendor(Vendor vendor);
}
Controllers implementing this interface could be handled by the interceptor and get the vendor injected.
if (handler instanceof HandlerMethod) {
Object bean = ((HandlerMethod) handler).getBean();
if (bean instanceof VendorAware) {
Vendor vendor = getVendor();
((VendorAware) bean).setVendor(vendor);
}
}
Obviously the problem with adding the vendor id to the URI is that it affects all your URL's, so cannot easily make the controller generic.
Another way is to have the vendor id passed as a header to the controllers. You could use the X-User header.
Then you can write some kind of handler to check for this header, possibilities:
spring interceptor
servlet filter
spring security
aspectj

Difference between / and /* in servlet mapping url pattern

The familiar code:
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>main</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>main</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
My understanding is that /* maps to http://host:port/context/*.
How about /? It sure doesn't map to http://host:port/context root only. In fact, it will accept http://host:port/context/hello, but reject http://host:port/context/hello.jsp.
Can anyone explain how is http://host:port/context/hello mapped?
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
The /* on a servlet overrides all other servlets, including all servlets provided by the servletcontainer such as the default servlet and the JSP servlet. Whatever request you fire, it will end up in that servlet. This is thus a bad URL pattern for servlets. Usually, you'd like to use /* on a Filter only. It is able to let the request continue to any of the servlets listening on a more specific URL pattern by calling FilterChain#doFilter().
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
The / doesn't override any other servlet. It only replaces the servletcontainer's built in default servlet for all requests which doesn't match any other registered servlet. This is normally only invoked on static resources (CSS/JS/image/etc) and directory listings. The servletcontainer's built in default servlet is also capable of dealing with HTTP cache requests, media (audio/video) streaming and file download resumes. Usually, you don't want to override the default servlet as you would otherwise have to take care of all its tasks, which is not exactly trivial (JSF utility library OmniFaces has an open source example). This is thus also a bad URL pattern for servlets. As to why JSP pages doesn't hit this servlet, it's because the servletcontainer's built in JSP servlet will be invoked, which is already by default mapped on the more specific URL pattern *.jsp.
<url-pattern></url-pattern>
Then there's also the empty string URL pattern . This will be invoked when the context root is requested. This is different from the <welcome-file> approach that it isn't invoked when any subfolder is requested. This is most likely the URL pattern you're actually looking for in case you want a "home page servlet". I only have to admit that I'd intuitively expect the empty string URL pattern and the slash URL pattern / be defined exactly the other way round, so I can understand that a lot of starters got confused on this. But it is what it is.
Front Controller
In case you actually intend to have a front controller servlet, then you'd best map it on a more specific URL pattern like *.html, *.do, /pages/*, /app/*, etc. You can hide away the front controller URL pattern and cover static resources on a common URL pattern like /resources/*, /static/*, etc with help of a servlet filter. See also How to prevent static resources from being handled by front controller servlet which is mapped on /*. Noted should be that Spring MVC has a built in static resource servlet, so that's why you could map its front controller on / if you configure a common URL pattern for static resources in Spring. See also How to handle static content in Spring MVC?
I'd like to supplement BalusC's answer with the mapping rules and an example.
Mapping rules from Servlet 2.5 specification:
Map exact URL
Map wildcard paths
Map extensions
Map to the default servlet
In our example, there're three servlets. / is the default servlet installed by us. Tomcat installs two servlets to serve jsp and jspx. So to map http://host:port/context/hello
No exact URL servlets installed, next.
No wildcard paths servlets installed, next.
Doesn't match any extensions, next.
Map to the default servlet, return.
To map http://host:port/context/hello.jsp
No exact URL servlets installed, next.
No wildcard paths servlets installed, next.
Found extension servlet, return.
Perhaps you need to know how urls are mapped too, since I suffered 404 for hours. There are two kinds of handlers handling requests. BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping and SimpleUrlHandlerMapping. When we defined a servlet-mapping, we are using SimpleUrlHandlerMapping. One thing we need to know is these two handlers share a common property called alwaysUseFullPath which defaults to false.
false here means Spring will not use the full path to mapp a url to a controller. What does it mean? It means when you define a servlet-mapping:
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>viewServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/perfix/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
the handler will actually use the * part to find the controller. For example, the following controller will face a 404 error when you request it using /perfix/api/feature/doSomething
#Controller()
#RequestMapping("/perfix/api/feature")
public class MyController {
#RequestMapping(value = "/doSomething", method = RequestMethod.GET)
#ResponseBody
public String doSomething(HttpServletRequest request) {
....
}
}
It is a perfect match, right? But why 404. As mentioned before, default value of alwaysUseFullPath is false, which means in your request, only /api/feature/doSomething is used to find a corresponding Controller, but there is no Controller cares about that path. You need to either change your url to /perfix/perfix/api/feature/doSomething or remove perfix from MyController base #RequestingMapping.
I think Candy's answer is mostly correct. There is one small part I think otherwise.
To map host:port/context/hello.jsp
No exact URL servlets installed, next.
Found wildcard paths servlets, return.
I believe that why "/*" does not match host:port/context/hello because it treats "/hello" as a path instead of a file (since it does not have an extension).
The essential difference between /* and / is that a servlet with mapping /* will be selected before any servlet with an extension mapping (like *.html), while a servlet with mapping / will be selected only after extension mappings are considered (and will be used for any request which doesn't match anything else---it is the "default servlet").
In particular, a /* mapping will always be selected before a / mapping. Having either prevents any requests from reaching the container's own default servlet.
Either will be selected only after servlet mappings which are exact matches (like /foo/bar) and those which are path mappings longer than /* (like /foo/*). Note that the empty string mapping is an exact match for the context root (http://host:port/context/).
See Chapter 12 of the Java Servlet Specification, available in version 3.1 at http://download.oracle.com/otndocs/jcp/servlet-3_1-fr-eval-spec/index.html.

Accessibility of a servlet class from within an external web.xml file

I have two web applications.But only one among them includes Java servlet class.I want to access that servlet class from within the web.xml file of other application.Is it possible?.If yes,How will be it possible?.
You can't do that in the web.xml. You can however create a new servlet which in turn redirects/forwards the request to the servlet of the other webapplication. Redirecting is easy, just let the URL point to the particular servlet.
response.sendRedirect("/otherwebapp/theservlet");
Forwarding requires a bit more work. This is by default not possible due to security restrictions. First you need to configure the servletcontainer to enable cross context access between the webapplications in question. It's unclear which one you're using, so here's just a Tomcat targeted example so that you understand in what direction you should look for your own servletcontainer: for the both webapps, you need to set the crossContext attribute of the <Context> element to true:
<Context crossContext="true">
This way you can obtain the other context by ServletContext#getContext() inside a servlet:
ServletContext othercontext = getServletContext().getContext("/otherwebapp");
Finally you can forward the request through it as follows:
othercontext.getRequestDispatcher("/theservlet").forward(request, response);

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