How to deploy a RAP application to a servlet container?

The current eclipse build tools and wizards do not directly support building this style of application so for the time being the build can be performed with a series of Ant scripts and resource templates. The org.eclipse.rap.demo.feature shows how to create a WAR that contains the org.eclipse.rap.demo project as RAP application.

Note: As with RCP applications there are a wide variety of possible configurations. What's given in org.eclipse.rap.demo.feature is just one possibility.

As prerequisites we assume that you are familiar with the bundles- and build information section of the Equinox in a Servlet Container document. We also assume that you have a checkout of the servlet bridge and demo feature bundles in your workspace.

Prepare the build script

• Open the script/webappBuilder.xml of the org.eclipse.rap.demo.feature with the Ant editor.
• Adjust the servletbridge.dir property (see docu in script file).

Create the build content

• Right-Click on the webAppBuilder.xml script in the IDE and "Run Ant". (Note: In order to make the pde.exportFeatures task available in the IDE select "Run in the same JRE as the workspace" on the JRE tab from "Run Ant...").
• Refresh the feature project - a build folder should appear. (Note: The pde.exportFeatures target will build the plug-ins asynchronously and may take a while till finished. After that the complete WAR content should be available in the build folder.

Adjust the config.ini

• Adjust the path to the plug-in directory of your build in the ConfigIniCreator (see the comment in the ConfigIniCreator class).
• Run the ConfigIniCreator as java application.
• Copy the console output to the config.ini file of your build.

After that, pack the WAR of the application build available in the build folder (in our case the content of build/rapdemo). Deploy the WAR to a servlet container to see whether the build was successful :-)

How to deploy my own application?

To deploy your own application like described above you will have to create your own feature. The feature should contain the same plug-in references as the demo feature (except the demo-plug-in of course!) plus the plug-ins that make up your application. It is important that your plug-ins reference the servlet API by using the Import-Package directive instead of the Require-Bundle directive. See the MANIFEST.MF of the demo project for an example.

Copy the script and templates folder to the feature and modifiy them according to your project structure. Following the steps above should lead to a full functional WAR of your application.

Note: If you encounter problems during the build, you may consider to use the PDE-Export (available from the feature editor) before exporting the whole WAR at once. This proved helpful for trouble-shooting as the export may show problem-relevant dialogs that are suppressed in the Ant export.

Note also: Besides the application server log files there also exists an Equinox framework log that can be found under the webapp's work directory, e.g. on Tomcat:

  <tomcat-installation>\work\Catalina\localhost\demo\eclipse\workspace\.metadata\.log
  

  <tomcat-installation>\work\Catalina\localhost\demo\eclipse\configuration
  

Further hints can be found in the RAP FAQ