How do servlets work? Instantiation, sessions, shared variables and multithreading

Question

Suppose, I have a webserver which holds numerous servlets. For information passing among those servlets I am setting session and instance variables.

Now, if 2 or more users send request to this server then what happens to the session variables?
Will they all be common for all the users or they will be different for each user?
If they are different, then how was the server able to differentiate between different users?

One more similar question, if there are n users accessing a particular servlet, then this servlet gets instantiated only the first time the first user accessed it or does it get instantiated for all the users separately?
In other words, what happens to the instance variables?

Answer 1

ServletContext

When the servlet container (like Apache Tomcat) starts up, it will deploy and load all its web applications. When a web application is loaded, the servlet container creates the ServletContext once and keeps it in the server's memory. The web app's web.xml and all of included web-fragment.xml files is parsed, and each <servlet>, <filter> and <listener> found (or each class annotated with @WebServlet, @WebFilter and @WebListener respectively) will be instantiated once and be kept in the server's memory as well, registred via the ServletContext. For each instantiated filter, its init() method is invoked with a new FilterConfig argument which in turn contains the involved ServletContext.

When a Servlet has a <servlet><load-on-startup> or @WebServlet(loadOnStartup) value greater than 0, then its init() method is also invoked during startup with a new ServletConfig argument which in turn contains the involved ServletContext. Those servlets are initialized in the same order specified by that value (1 is 1st, 2 is 2nd, etc). If the same value is specified for more than one servlet, then each of those servlets is loaded in the same order as they appear in the web.xml, web-fragment.xml, or @WebServlet classloading. In the event the "load-on-startup" value is absent, the init() method will be invoked whenever the HTTP request hits that servlet for the very first time.

When the servlet container is finished with all of the above described initialization steps, then the ServletContextListener#contextInitialized() will be invoked with a ServletContextEvent argument which in turn contains the involved ServletContext. This will allow the developer the opportunity to programmatically register yet another Servlet, Filter or Listener.

When the servlet container shuts down, it unloads all web applications, invokes the destroy() method of all its initialized servlets and filters, and all Servlet, Filter and Listener instances registered via the ServletContext are trashed. Finally the ServletContextListener#contextDestroyed() will be invoked and the ServletContext itself will be trashed.

HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse

The servlet container is attached to a web server that listens for HTTP requests on a certain port number (port 8080 is usually used during development and port 80 in production). When a client (e.g. user with a web browser, or programmatically using URLConnection) sends an HTTP request, the servlet container creates new HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse objects and passes them through any defined Filter in the chain and, eventually, the Servlet instance.

In the case of filters, the doFilter() method is invoked. When the servlet container's code calls chain.doFilter(request, response), the request and response continue on to the next filter, or hit the servlet if there are no remaining filters.

In the case of servlets, the service() method is invoked. By default, this method determines which one of the doXxx() methods to invoke based off of request.getMethod(). If the determined method is absent from the servlet, then an HTTP 405 error is returned in the response.

The request object provides access to all of the information about the HTTP request, such as its URL, headers, query string and body. The response object provides the ability to control and send the HTTP response the way you want by, for instance, allowing you to set the headers and the body (usually with generated HTML content from a JSP file). When the HTTP response is committed and finished, both the request and response objects are recycled and made available for reuse.

HttpSession

When a client visits the webapp for the first time and/or the HttpSession is obtained for the first time via request.getSession(), the servlet container creates a new HttpSession object, generates a long and unique ID (which you can get by session.getId()), and stores it in the server's memory. The servlet container also sets a Cookie in the Set-Cookie header of the HTTP response with JSESSIONID as its name and the unique session ID as its value.

As per the HTTP cookie specification (a contract any decent web browser and web server must adhere to), the client (the web browser) is required to send this cookie back in subsequent requests in the Cookie header for as long as the cookie is valid (i.e. the unique ID must refer to an unexpired session and the domain and path are correct). Using your browser's built-in HTTP traffic monitor, you can verify that the cookie is valid (press F12 in Chrome / Firefox 23+ / IE9+, and check the Net/Network tab). The servlet container will check the Cookie header of every incoming HTTP request for the presence of the cookie with the name JSESSIONID and use its value (the session ID) to get the associated HttpSession from server's memory.

The HttpSession stays alive until it has been idle (i.e. not used in a request) for more than the timeout value specified in <session-timeout>, a setting in web.xml. The timeout value defaults to 30 minutes. So, when the client doesn't visit the web app for longer than the time specified, the servlet container trashes the session. Every subsequent request, even with the cookie specified, will not have access to the same session anymore; the servlet container will create a new session.

On the client side, the session cookie stays alive for as long as the browser instance is running. So, if the client closes the browser instance (all tabs/windows), then the session is trashed on the client's side. In a new browser instance, the cookie associated with the session wouldn't exist, so it would no longer be sent. This causes an entirely new HttpSession to be created, with an entirely new session cookie being used.

In a nutshell

• The ServletContext lives for as long as the web app lives. It is shared among all requests in all sessions.
• The HttpSession lives for as long as the client is interacting with the web app with the same browser instance, and the session hasn't timed out at the server side. It is shared among all requests in the same session.
• The HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse live from the time the servlet receives an HTTP request from the client, until the complete response (the web page) has arrived. It is not shared elsewhere.
• All Servlet, Filter and Listener instances live as long as the web app lives. They are shared among all requests in all sessions.
• Any attribute that is defined in ServletContext, HttpServletRequest and HttpSession will live as long as the object in question lives. The object itself represents the "scope" in bean management frameworks such as JSF, CDI, Spring, etc. Those frameworks store their scoped beans as an attribute of its closest matching scope.

Thread Safety

That said, your major concern is possibly thread safety. You should now know that servlets and filters are shared among all requests. That's the nice thing about Java, it's multithreaded and different threads (read: HTTP requests) can make use of the same instance. It would otherwise be too expensive to recreate, init() and destroy() them for every single request.

You should also realize that you should never assign any request or session scoped data as an instance variable of a servlet or filter. It will be shared among all other requests in other sessions. That's not thread-safe! The below example illustrates this:

public class ExampleServlet extends HttpServlet {

    private Object thisIsNOTThreadSafe;

    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        Object thisIsThreadSafe;

        thisIsNOTThreadSafe = request.getParameter("foo"); // BAD!! Shared among all requests!
        thisIsThreadSafe = request.getParameter("foo"); // OK, this is thread safe.
    } 
}

See also:

• What is the difference between JSF, Servlet and JSP?
• Best option for Session management in Java
• Difference between / and /* in servlet mapping url pattern
• doGet and doPost in Servlets
• Servlet seems to handle multiple concurrent browser requests synchronously
• Why Servlets are not thread Safe?

Answer 2

Sessions

In short: the web server issues a unique identifier to each visitor on his first visit. The visitor must bring back that ID for him to be recognised next time around. This identifier also allows the server to properly segregate objects owned by one session against that of another.

Servlet Instantiation

If load-on-startup is false:

If load-on-startup is true:

Once he's on the service mode and on the groove, the same servlet will work on the requests from all other clients.

Why isn't it a good idea to have one instance per client? Think about this: Will you hire one pizza guy for every order that came? Do that and you'd be out of business in no time.

It comes with a small risk though. Remember: this single guy holds all the order information in his pocket: so if you're not cautious about thread safety on servlets, he may end up giving the wrong order to a certain client.

Answer 3

Session in Java servlets is the same as session in other languages such as PHP. It is unique to the user. The server can keep track of it in different ways such as cookies, url rewriting etc. This Java doc article explains it in the context of Java servlets and indicates that exactly how session is maintained is an implementation detail left to the designers of the server. The specification only stipulates that it must be maintained as unique to a user across multiple connections to the server. Check out this article from Oracle for more information about both of your questions.

Edit There is an excellent tutorial here on how to work with session inside of servlets. And here is a chapter from Sun about Java Servlets, what they are and how to use them. Between those two articles, you should be able to answer all of your questions.

Answer 4

When the servlet container (like Apache Tomcat) starts up, it will read from the web.xml file (only one per application) if anything goes wrong or shows up an error at container side console, otherwise, it will deploy and load all web applications by using web.xml (so named it as deployment descriptor).

During instantiation phase of the servlet, servlet instance is ready but it cannot serve the client request because it is missing with two pieces of information:
1: context information
2: initial configuration information

Servlet engine creates servletConfig interface object encapsulating the above missing information into it servlet engine calls init() of the servlet by supplying servletConfig object references as an argument. Once init() is completely executed servlet is ready to serve the client request.

Q) In the lifetime of servlet how many times instantiation and initialization happens ??

A)only once (for every client request a new thread is created) only one instance of the servlet serves any number of the client request ie, after serving one client request server does not die. It waits for other client requests ie what CGI (for every client request a new process is created) limitation is overcome with the servlet (internally servlet engine creates the thread).

Q)How session concept works?

A)whenever getSession() is called on HttpServletRequest object

Step 1: request object is evaluated for incoming session ID.

Step 2: if ID not available a brand new HttpSession object is created and its corresponding session ID is generated (ie of HashTable) session ID is stored into httpservlet response object and the reference of HttpSession object is returned to the servlet (doGet/doPost).

Step 3: if ID available brand new session object is not created session ID is picked up from the request object search is made in the collection of sessions by using session ID as the key.

Once the search is successful session ID is stored into HttpServletResponse and the existing session object references are returned to the doGet() or doPost() of UserDefineservlet.

Note:

1)when control leaves from servlet code to client don't forget that session object is being held by servlet container ie, the servlet engine

2)multithreading is left to servlet developers people for implementing ie., handle the multiple requests of client nothing to bother about multithread code

Inshort form:

A servlet is created when the application starts (it is deployed on the servlet container) or when it is first accessed (depending on the load-on-startup setting) when the servlet is instantiated, the init() method of the servlet is called then the servlet (its one and only instance) handles all requests (its service() method being called by multiple threads). That's why it is not advisable to have any synchronization in it, and you should avoid instance variables of the servlet when the application is undeployed (the servlet container stops), the destroy() method is called.