How to run jersey-server webservice server without using tomcat

Question

This is my first time dealing with web-services. Simply, I need to send a post request from jersey web service client (inside a webpage implemented in javascript) to a jersey service which is in one of my maven modules.

As I said I've created jersey-server within one of my maven modules and I would like to run it somehow (I do not know how to run a web service program.) before starting client side of my implementation. Through searching on the web, I saw lots of examples but all of them was using tomcat. So my first question is that do I need to use tomcat (or something like this ) in order to run a web service ? Secondly, below I shared my jersey-server module. How could I start to run it ?

package com.exampleProject.rest;

import javax.ws.rs.*;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
import javax.ws.rs.core.Response;
import java.util.List;


@Path("/test")
@Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
public class SiderRecommender {

    @POST
    @Path("/functiontest")
    public List<Recommendation> sampleFunction() {
        // return something here. I removed it for simplicity.
    }
}

Answer 1

You don't have to run a Jersey app in an installed web server. You can run it in an embedded server, meaning a server that runs in standalone mode with a normal main method.

If you are using Maven, and you are familiar with creating Maven archetypes, you can use the jersey-quickstart-grizzly2 archetype

• From Command line
• From Eclipse (except use jersey-quickstart-grizzly2)
• From Netbeans (See bottom of answer. Also use jersey-quickstart-grizzly2).

This is everything you get for free with the archetype project.

Main.java

package com.underdog.jersey.grizzly;

import org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.HttpServer;
import org.glassfish.jersey.grizzly2.httpserver.GrizzlyHttpServerFactory;
import org.glassfish.jersey.server.ResourceConfig;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URI;

/**
 * Main class.
 *
 */
public class Main {
    // Base URI the Grizzly HTTP server will listen on
    public static final String BASE_URI = "http://localhost:8080/myapp/";

    /**
     * Starts Grizzly HTTP server exposing JAX-RS resources defined in this application.
     * @return Grizzly HTTP server.
     */
    public static HttpServer startServer() {
        // create a resource config that scans for JAX-RS resources and providers
        // in com.underdog.jersey.grizzly package
        final ResourceConfig rc = new ResourceConfig().packages("com.underdog.jersey.grizzly");

        // create and start a new instance of grizzly http server
        // exposing the Jersey application at BASE_URI
        return GrizzlyHttpServerFactory.createHttpServer(URI.create(BASE_URI), rc);
    }

    /**
     * Main method.
     * @param args
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        final HttpServer server = startServer();
        System.out.println(String.format("Jersey app started with WADL available at "
                + "%sapplication.wadl\nHit enter to stop it...", BASE_URI));
        System.in.read();
        server.stop();
    }
}

MyResource.java

package com.underdog.jersey.grizzly;

import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

/**
 * Root resource (exposed at "myresource" path)
 */
@Path("myresource")
public class MyResource {

    /**
     * Method handling HTTP GET requests. The returned object will be sent
     * to the client as "text/plain" media type.
     *
     * @return String that will be returned as a text/plain response.
     */
    @GET
    @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
    public String getIt() {
        return "Got it!";
    }
}

MyResourceTest.java

package com.underdog.jersey.grizzly;

import javax.ws.rs.client.Client;
import javax.ws.rs.client.ClientBuilder;
import javax.ws.rs.client.WebTarget;

import org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.HttpServer;

import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;

public class MyResourceTest {

    private HttpServer server;
    private WebTarget target;

    @Before
    public void setUp() throws Exception {
        // start the server
        server = Main.startServer();
        // create the client
        Client c = ClientBuilder.newClient();

        // uncomment the following line if you want to enable
        // support for JSON in the client (you also have to uncomment
        // dependency on jersey-media-json module in pom.xml and Main.startServer())
        // --
        // c.configuration().enable(new org.glassfish.jersey.media.json.JsonJaxbFeature());

        target = c.target(Main.BASE_URI);
    }

    @After
    public void tearDown() throws Exception {
        server.stop();
    }

    /**
     * Test to see that the message "Got it!" is sent in the response.
     */
    @Test
    public void testGetIt() {
        String responseMsg = target.path("myresource").request().get(String.class);
        assertEquals("Got it!", responseMsg);
    }
}

pom.xml - I added the jersey-media-json-jackson and the maven-assembly-plugin myself, so that you can create a single runnable jar file.

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.underdog</groupId>
    <artifactId>jersey-grizzly</artifactId>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>jersey-grizzly</name>

    <dependencyManagement>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey</groupId>
                <artifactId>jersey-bom</artifactId>
                <version>${jersey.version}</version>
                <type>pom</type>
                <scope>import</scope>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </dependencyManagement>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey.containers</groupId>
            <artifactId>jersey-container-grizzly2-http</artifactId>
        </dependency>
         <dependency>
            <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey.media</groupId>
            <artifactId>jersey-media-json-jackson</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.9</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <finalName>${project.artifactId}</finalName>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.5.3</version>
                <configuration>
                    <descriptorRefs>
                        <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                    </descriptorRefs>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <mainClass>com.underdog.jersey.grizzly.Main</mainClass>
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <id>create-archive</id>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>single</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.5.1</version>
                <inherited>true</inherited>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.7</source>
                    <target>1.7</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.2.1</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>java</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
                <configuration>
                    <mainClass>com.underdog.jersey.grizzly.Main</mainClass>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <properties>
        <jersey.version>2.17</jersey.version>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>
</project>

With all the above, you can cd to the project from the command line and do

1. mvn clean package
2. java -jar target/jersey-grizzly-jar-with-dependencies.jar

and the application will start.

You can access it from http://localhost:8080/myapp/myresource

That's it. Note that the above is a normal jar project. So if you can't follow how to create the archetype, you can pretty much copy everything above into a jar project.

See Also:

• Getting Started with Jersey Using Maven for some more explanation.