JSP, Servlets and Java Web Services

As a Unix administrator you can avoid supporting much of the applications that run on your servers and contain yourself with just the Unix aspects, but as I personally feel the Unix admin role itself is diminishing (no networking, less volume manager stuff, etc) you have to obtain additional skills, my thoughts are that you need to start to look after some of the applications that run on a Unix server i.e. Java EE Application Servers (Apache/Tomcat, JBoss AS 5, etc) and how they work in the bigger picture, its still kind of admin work and the script programming has been replaced with HTML, JSP and Java.

The following document describes how JSP, Servlets and Web Services work, this will be a basic introduction but hopefully it will expand beyond a basic guide as I become more involved and experienced. The below will also help you in taking the SCWCD for Java EE 1.5 exam.

Some of the code will requires a little bit of Java knowledge, so for a refresher or help take a look at my Java web page.

The Documents have been comprised of reading the following books and real world experience, if you are new to JSP, Servlets and Web Services, I highly recommend that you should purchase these books as they contain far more information than this web site contains and of course the Internet contains all the documentation you will ever need.

Please feel free to email me any constructive criticism you have with the site as any additional knowledge or mistakes that I have made would be most welcomed.

Introduction to the Web

	Basic HTML Guide
	What is HTTP (Post and GET)
	What is a URL
	Static web pages and CGI

Web Application Architecture

	What is a Container
	Naming and Mapping Servlets (Deployment Descriptor)
	Model-View-Controller (MVC) overview
	How JEE fits into all this

Mini MVC Tutorial

	The MVC application - The Coffee Advisor
	The HTML Form Page
	The Deployment Descriptor
	The Controller Servlet and Model Class
	The JSP View

Servlets

	Servlets Life Cycle
	HTTP Methods
	The Request Object
	The Response Object

The Web App

	Init Parameters and ServletConfig introduction
	ServletContextListener
	Complete ServletContextListener Example
	Other Listeners
	Attributes
	SingleThreadModel

Session Management

	Session Introduction
	Cookies
	URL rewriting
	Getting rid of Session Objects
	Cookies other Uses
	Milestones for a HttpSession

Using JSP

	JSP expressions, variables and declarations
	JSP-generated Servlet
	JSP Comments
	API for the Generated Servlet
	Initializing your JSP
	Expression Language (EL)
	JSP actions
	Quick Recap

Scriptless JSP

	When attributes are Beans
	Standard Actions - useBean, getProperty, setProperty
	Expression Language (EL)
	EL Functions
	JSP Include

Using JSTL

	JSTL Introduction
	Looping
	If
	Choose
	set
	Remove
	Import
	Url
	Catch
	Other Libraries
	Customer Tags

Custom Tag Development

	Tag Files
	Simple Tags
	Classic Tags
	MVC tutorial Improvements using Tags (dynamic attribute interface)
	BodyTag
	Tags that work together
	Simple and Classic Key Differences

Web App Deployment

	Deployment Introduction
	WAR Files
	Welcome and Error pages
	Mime Mapping

Web App Security

	Authentication
	Authorization
	Data Confidentiality and Integrity

Filter and Wrappers

	Filters
	Request Filters
	Response Filter - wrappers

Patterns and Struts

	Hardware and Software forces behind Patterns
	JNDI and RMI
	Struts

Books

JSP, Servlet and Web Services Books

HeadFirst Servlets and JSP - Bryan Basham, Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates

When I first got this book I was surprised on how many pictures and diagrams were in the book, I was a bit skeptical at first but as I progressed through the book I thought this is an excellent way to learn, this book highlights the saying "a pictures paints a thousands words", I highly recommend these and any of the other Head First Books of which i have many, especially if you are a beginner in the subject.