tomcat-uid/webapps/docs/architecture/startup/serverStartup.txt

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Tomcat Startup Sequence

Sequence 1. Start from Command Line
Class: org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap
What it does:
    a) Set up classloaders
        commonLoader (common)-> System Loader
        sharedLoader (shared)-> commonLoader -> System Loader
        catalinaLoader(server) -> commonLoader -> System Loader
        (by default the commonLoader is used for the
         sharedLoader and the serverLoader)
    b) Load startup class (reflection)
        org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina
        setParentClassloader -> sharedLoader
        Thread.contextClassloader -> catalinaLoader
    c) Bootstrap.daemon.init() complete

Sequence 2. Process command line argument (start, stop)
Class: org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap (assume command->start)
What it does:
    a) Catalina.setAwait(true);
    b) Catalina.load()
        b1) initDirs() -> set properties like
                          catalina.home
                          catalina.base == catalina.home (most cases)
        b2) initNaming
            setProperty(javax.naming.Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
                    org.apache.naming.java.javaURLContextFactory ->default)
        b3) createStartDigester()
            Configures a digester for the main server.xml elements like
            org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer (can change of course :)
            org.apache.catalina.deploy.NamingResources
                Stores naming resources in the J2EE JNDI tree
            org.apache.catalina.LifecycleListener
                implements events for start/stop of major components
            org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService
                The single entry for a set of connectors,
                so that a container can listen to multiple connectors
                ie, single entry
            org.apache.catalina.Connector
                Connectors to listen for incoming requests only
            It also adds the following rulesets to the digester
                NamingRuleSet
                EngineRuleSet
                HostRuleSet
                ContextRuleSet
        b4) Load the server.xml and parse it using the digester
            Parsing the server.xml using the digester is an automatic
            XML-object mapping tool, that will create the objects defined in server.xml
            Startup of the actual container has not started yet.
        b5) Assigns System.out and System.err to the SystemLogHandler class
        b6) Calls initialize on all components, this makes each object register itself with the
            JMX agent.
            During the process call the Connectors also initialize the adapters.
            The adapters are the components that do the request pre-processing.
            Typical adapters are HTTP1.1 (default if no protocol is specified,
            org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol)
            AJP1.3 for mod_jk etc.

    c) Catalina.start()
        c1) Starts the NamingContext and binds all JNDI references into it
        c2) Starts the services under <Server> which are:
            StandardService -> starts Engine (ContainerBase -> Realm,Cluster etc)
        c3) StandardHost (started by the service)
                Configures a ErrorReportValvem to do proper HTML output for different HTTP
                errors codes
                Starts the Valves in the pipeline (at least the ErrorReportValve)
                Configures the StandardHostValve,
                    this valves ties the Webapp Class loader to the thread context
                    it also finds the session for the request
                    and invokes the context pipeline
                Starts the HostConfig component
                    This component deploys all the webapps
                        (webapps & conf/Catalina/localhost/*.xml)
                    HostConfig will create a Digester for your context, this digester
                    will then invoke ContextConfig.start()
                        The ContextConfig.start() will process the default web.xml (conf/web.xml)
                        and then process the applications web.xml (WEB-INF/web.xml)

        c4) During the lifetime of the container (StandardEngine) there is a background thread that
            keeps checking if the context has changed. If a context changes (timestamp of war file,
            context xml file, web.xml) then a reload is issued (stop/remove/deploy/start)

    d) Tomcat receives a request on an HTTP port
        d1) The request is received by a separate thread which is waiting in the ThreadPoolExecutor
             class. It is waiting for a request in a regular ServerSocket.accept() method.
             When a request is received, this thread wakes up.
        d2) The ThreadPoolExecutor assigns the a TaskThread to handle the request.
            It also supplies a JMX object name to the catalina container (not used I believe)
        d3) The processor to handle the request in this case is Coyote Http11Processor,
            and the process method is invoked.
            This same processor is also continuing to check the input stream of the socket
            until the keep alive point is reached or the connection is disconnected.
        d4) The HTTP request is parsed using an internal buffer class (Http11InputBuffer)
            The buffer class parses the request line, the headers, etc and store the result in a
            Coyote request (not an HTTP request) This request contains all the HTTP info, such
            as servername, port, scheme, etc.
        d5) The processor contains a reference to an Adapter, in this case it is the
            CoyoteAdapter. Once the request has been parsed, the Http11Processor
            invokes service() on the adapter. In the service method, the Request contains a
            CoyoteRequest and CoyoteResponse (null for the first time)
            The CoyoteRequest(Response) implements HttpRequest(Response) and HttpServletRequest(Response)
            The adapter parses and associates everything with the request, cookies, the context through a
            Mapper, etc
        d6) When the parsing is finished, the CoyoteAdapter invokes its container (StandardEngine)
            and invokes the invoke(request,response) method.
            This initiates the HTTP request into the Catalina container starting at the engine level
        d7) The StandardEngine.invoke() simply invokes the container pipeline.invoke()
        d8) By default the engine only has one valve the StandardEngineValve, this valve simply
            invokes the invoke() method on the Host pipeline (StandardHost.getPipeLine())
        d9) the StandardHost has two valves by default, the StandardHostValve and the ErrorReportValve
        d10) The standard host valve associates the correct class loader with the current thread
             It also retrieves the Manager and the session associated with the request (if there is one)
             If there is a session access() is called to keep the session alive
        d11) After that the StandardHostValve invokes the pipeline on the context associated
             with the request.
        d12) The first valve that gets invoked by the Context pipeline is the FormAuthenticator
             valve. Then the StandardContextValve gets invoke.
             The StandardContextValve invokes any context listeners associated with the context.
             Next it invokes the pipeline on the Wrapper component (StandardWrapperValve)
        d13) During the invocation of the StandardWrapperValve, the JSP wrapper (Jasper) gets invoked
             This results in the actual compilation of the JSP.
             And then invokes the actual servlet.
    e) Invocation of the servlet class