sbt-war

sbt-war is an sbt plugin for packaging and running .war files.

sbt-war is formerly known as xsbt-web-plugin. For documentation and source code of prior versions, browse this repository from the desired git tag. The most recent prior version is 4.2.5.

Requirements

• sbt 1.x and up
• Scala 2.12.x and up

Getting help

• Submit a question, bug report, or feature request as a new GitHub issue
• Look for earldouglas in the #sbt channel on the Scala Discord server

Project structure

A project that uses sbt-war looks something like this:

$ tree my-web-project/
my-web-project/
├── build.sbt
├── project
│   ├── build.properties
│   └── plugins.sbt
└── src
    ├── main
    │   ├── scala
    │   │   └── mypackage
    │   │       └── MyServlet.scala
    │   └── webapp
    │       ├── images
    │       │   └── logo.png
    │       ├── index.html
    │       └── styles
    │           └── style.css
    └── test
        └── scala
            ├── http.scala
            └── mypackage
                └── MyServletSuite.scala

A packaged .war file looks something like this:

$ sbt "show package"
[info] /path/to/my-web-project/target/scala-3.1.0/my-web-project_3-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT.war

$ jar -tf target/scala-3.1.0/my-web-project_3-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT.war | LC_COLLATE=C sort
META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
WEB-INF/
WEB-INF/classes/
WEB-INF/classes/mypackage/
WEB-INF/classes/mypackage/Servlet.class
WEB-INF/classes/mypackage/Servlet.tasty
WEB-INF/lib/
WEB-INF/lib/scala-library-2.13.6.jar
WEB-INF/lib/scala3-library_3-3.1.0.jar
images/
images/logo.png
index.html
styles/
styles/style.css

Classes under src/main/scala are compiled and included in the .war file under WEB-INF/classes.

Dependencies are copied as .jar files into the WEB-INF/lib/ directory.

Static assets (such as .html files, stylesheets, images, etc.) are copied from src/main/webapp to to the root of the .war file.

Getting started from a template

$ sbt new earldouglas/sbt-war.g8

name [My Web Project]: hello sbt-war

Template applied in ./hello-sbt-war

$ cd hello-sbt-war/
$ sbt
> warStart

$ curl localhost:8080/hello
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>

> warStop

Getting started from scratch

Create a new empty project:

$ mkdir myproject
$ cd myproject

Set up the project structure:

$ mkdir project
$ mkdir -p src/main/scala/mypackage

Configure sbt:

project/build.properties:

sbt.version=1.10.2

project/plugins.sbt:

addSbtPlugin("com.earldouglas" % "sbt-war" % "5.0.0-M6")

build.sbt:

scalaVersion := "3.5.1"
enablePlugins(SbtWar)

Add a servlet:

src/main/scala/mypackage/MyServlet.scala:

package mypackage

import jakarta.servlet.annotation.WebServlet
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServlet
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse

@WebServlet(urlPatterns = Array("/hello"))
class MyServlet extends HttpServlet:
  override def doGet(
      req: HttpServletRequest,
      res: HttpServletResponse
  ): Unit =
    res.setContentType("text/html")
    res.setCharacterEncoding("UTF-8")
    res.getWriter.write("""<h1>Hello, world!</h1>""")

Run it from sbt with warStart:

$ sbt
> warStart

$ curl localhost:8080/hello
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>

Stop it with warStop:

> warStop

Create a .war file with package:

> package

Settings

Key	Type	Default	Notes
warResources	Map[String,File]	src/main/webapp	Static files (HTML, CSS, JS, images, etc.) to serve directly
warClasses	Map[String,File]	project classes	.class files to copy into the WEB-INF/classes directory
warLib	Map[String,File]	project libs	.jar files to copy into the WEB-INF/lib directory
warPort	Int	8080	The local container port to use when running with warStart
warForkOptions	ForkOptions	BufferedOutput	Options for the forked JVM used when running with warStart

Commands

Key	Notes
warStart	Starts a local container, serving content directly from project sources
warStartPackage	Starts a local container, serving content from the packaged .war file
warJoin	Blocks until the container shuts down
warStop	Shuts down the container

warResources

Resources are the various static files, deployment descriptors, etc. that go into a .war file.

The warResources setting is a mapping from destination to source of these files. The destination is a path relative to the contents of the .war file. The source is a path on the local filesystem.

By default, everything in src/main/webapp is included.

For example, given the following .war file:

myproject.war
├── index.html
├── styles/
│   └── theme.css
├── WEB-INF/
│   └── web.xml
└── META-INF/
    └── MANIFEST.MF

The warResources mapping would look like this:

"index.html" -> File(".../src/main/webapp/index.html")
"styles/theme.css" -> File(".../src/main/webapp/styles/theme.css")
"WEB-INF/web.xml" -> File(".../src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml")

To use a different directory, e.g. src/main/WebContent:

warResources :=
  (Compile / sourceDirectory)
    .map(_ / "WebContent")
    .map(WebappComponents.getResources)

Manifest attributes of the .war file can be configured via packageOptions:

sbt.Keys.`package` / packageOptions +=
  Package.ManifestAttributes(
    java.util.jar.Attributes.Name.SEALED -> "true"
  )

warClasses

By default, project classes are copied into the WEB-INF/classes directory of the .war file. To package them in a .jar file in the WEB-INF/lib directory instead, set exportJars:

exportJars := true

See "Configure packaging" in the sbt documentation for additional information.

warLib

By default, all runtime dependencies are copied into the WEB-INF/lib directory.

To use a dependency at compile time but exclude it from the .war file, set its scope to Provided:

libraryDependencies += "foo" % "bar" % "1.0.0" % Provided

warPort

By default, the container runs on port 8080. To use a different port, set warPort:

warPort := 9090

warForkOptions

To set environment variables, system properties, and more for the forked container JVM, set a ForkOptions instance via warForkOptions.

For example: to be able to attach a debugger, set -Xdebug and -Xrunjdwp:

build.sbt:

warForkOptions :=
  ForkOptions()
    .withRunJVMOptions(
      Seq(
        "-Xdebug",
        "-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=8000"
      )
    )

warStart and warStartPackage

To run the webapp directly from project sources, use warStart:

> warStart

To run the webapp from the packaged .war file, use warStartPackage:

> warStartPackage

warJoin

To block sbt while the container is running, use warJoin:

$ sbt warStart warJoin

This is useful for running sbt in production (e.g. in a Docker container), if you're into that kind of thing.

warStop

To stop the running container, use warStop:

> warStop