Magnolia 5.6 reached end of life on June 25, 2020. This branch is no longer supported, see End-of-life policy.
A Java Web Application (webapp) is a collection of servlets, other Java classes, static resources such as HTML pages, other resources, and meta information that describes the webapp bundled together. You can run a webapp on a servlet container. A Java webapp has a typical structure. It can be packaged as a WAR file. A webapp usually contains already packed portions called libraries or modules as JAR files.
Webapps provided by Magnolia
Magnolia provides the following stand-alone, pre-configured Apache Tomcat server that does not include a webapp:
| Artifact | Download | Usage / purpose |
|---|---|---|
| A preconfigured Tomcat server ready to be used together with any Magnolia webapp. |
Magnolia provides the following webapps and bundles.
| Artifact | Usage | Module summary1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud edition | |||||||
magnolia-cloud-webapp |  | | The standard Magnolia cloud offer bundles a selection of enterprise-level modules, including connectors enabling you to integrate third-party systems, tools and data sources. | See Supported modules in the cloud. | |||
| | | Enterprise level webapp specifically built for testing Magnolia Cloud development work locally. | See Supported modules in the cloud . | |||
magnolia-cloud-headless-webapp | | | Bundles a lighter selection of enterprise-level modules enabling you to create content and use it in headless deployment scenarios. | See Supported modules in the cloud - Headless cloud bundle modules . | |||
| Community edition | |||||||
| This is the most basic Magnolia webapp. Use this as a base for custom tailored webapp. | Core modules from main and ui, Cache (core and ehcache), Pages, Resources, Publishing, Security and Scheduler. | |||||
| Complete Magnolia community edition webapp; no demo project. | Same as magnolia-empty-webapp plus:Cache tools, Cache Browser, Categorization, Commenting, Contacts, DAM, Form , Google sitemap, Groovy, Mail, Messages, MTE , REST and Site. | |||||
| | Same as magnolia-community-webapp plus the travel demo | Travel demo community edition 2 | ||||
magnolia-community-demo-bundle | |  | Tomcat-bundle including magnolia-bundled-webapp and travel demo | Travel demo community edition 2 | |||
Enterprise Standard edition | |||||||
| | Same as magnolia-community-webapp plus Enterprise Standard modules; no demo | Backup, Content Dependencies, Content Translation Support, Diff, Google Analytics, Marketing Tags, Personalization, Publishing Transactional, Soft Locking and Workflow. | ||||
| | | Same as magnolia‑enterprise‑standard‑webapp plus the travel demo | Travel demo Enterprise Standard edition 3 | |||
| Enterprise Pro edition | |||||||
| | | magnolia-enterprise-standard-webapp plus Enterprise Pro module(s); no demo | Backup, Content Dependencies, Content Editor, Content tagging, Content Translation Support, Diff, Google Analytics, Marketing Tags, Personalization, Publishing Transactional, Soft Locking, Workflow and Multisite. | |||
magnolia-enterprise-pro-demo-webapp | | | | magnolia-enterprise-pro-webapp plus the travel demo | Travel demo enterprise pro edition 4 | ||
magnolia-enterprise-pro-demo-bundle | | | | | Tomcat bundle with magnolia-enterprise-webapp including travel demo | Travel demo Enterprise Pro edition 4 | |
magnolia-enterprise-installer | | | | | Installer for magnolia-enterprise-pro-demo-bundle | ||
| | 5 | | Webapp based on magnolia-enterprise-webapp including travel demo; tuned for Weblogic without workflow 5 | Travel demo Enterprise Pro edition 4 | ||
| | 5 | | Webapp based on magnolia-enterprise-webapp including travel demo; tuned for Websphere without workflow 5 | Travel demo Enterprise Pro edition 4 | ||
(1) The module summary does not list all modules but provides a good summary. To get the complete list of the modules, look at the corresponding pom file of the bundle.
(2) Travel demo Community edition contains the following modules: magnolia-travel-demo, magnolia-travel-tours.
(3) Travel demo Enterprise Standard edition contains the following modules: magnolia-travel-demo, magnolia-travel-tours, magnolia-travel-demo-personalization, magnolia-travel-demo-marketing-tags.
(4) Travel demo Enterprise Pro edition contains the following modules: magnolia-travel-demo, magnolia-travel-tours, magnolia-travel-demo-personalization, magnolia-travel-demo-marketing-tags, magnolia-travel-demo-multisite.
(5) Both magnolia-enterprise-weblogic-webapp and magnolia-enterprise-websphere-webapp contain all Enterprise Standard and Pro modules but not those for workflow.
Webapp directory structure
The directory structure is the container that holds the components of a webapp. The first step in creating a Magnolia webapp is creating this structure. The following table describes what each directory should contain.
Path | Contents |
|---|---|
| Files with cached content. |
| Files extracted from |
| Magnolia log files. |
| Meta information files, e.g. from Maven. |
| Repository. |
| Templates extracted from |
| Temporary work directory. |
| All resources related to the application that are not in the document root. WEB-INF directory is not part of the public document. No files contained in this directory can be served directly to a client. |
| Bootstrap files. Empty by default. |
| Bootstrapped on author and public instances. |
| Bootstrapped on author instance only. |
| Bootstrapped on public instance only. |
| Class path for manually deployed classes. |
| Configuration files for repository and properties. |
| Configuration files. |
| Properties such as: repository location, persistence manager to be used, should samples be bootstrapped, should installation be done in unattended mode etc. |
| Defines repository configuration. |
| Log4j logging configuration. |
| Properties used on author instance only. |
| Properties used on public instance only. |
| Persistence manager configuration files. |
| Configuration for authentication and authorization. |
| JAR files. |
| Deployment descriptor. Describes configuration information for the entire web application. |
Adding the Magnolia main filter to the webapp
The Magnolia main filter is registered in the web.xml file. The file only defines one filter:
<filter>
<display-name>Magnolia global filters</display-name>
<filter-name>magnoliaFilterChain</filter-name>
<filter-class>info.magnolia.cms.filters.MgnlMainFilter
</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>magnoliaFilterChain</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
<dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>INCLUDE</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>ERROR</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>
The Magnolia main filter will delegate the request to the Magnolia filter chain. The filter is also mapped to forward requests, which means that the Magnolia filter chain will be re-executed on internal forwards.
Adding the Magnolia context listener
In web.xml we also register one listener:
<listener>
<listener-class>
info.magnolia.cms.servlets.MagnoliaServletContextListener
</listener-class>
</listener>
The listener initializes the system, starts the repository and modules, while the filter handles all requests.
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