Unable to use APR native sendfile support in Servlet

[jonathandfields]

I am attempting to write a servlet that uses APR native sendfile support. I have tried it both with 6.1.0.Alpha and 6.1.0.Final. This is on RHEL 5 x86_64.

With 6.1.0.Alpha, the required native share libraries are bundled in  modules/system/layers/base/org/jboss/as/web/main/lib. I set native="true" in standalone/configuration/standalone.xml in the web:1.4 section. I set logging to debug and verified the following:

21:11:55,604 DEBUG [org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener] (MSC service thread 1-15) Loaded: apr-1
21:11:55,605 DEBUG [org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener] (MSC service thread 1-15) Loaded: z
21:11:55,609 DEBUG [org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener] (MSC service thread 1-15) Loaded: crypto
21:11:55,609 DEBUG [org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener] (MSC service thread 1-15) Loaded: ssl
21:11:55,610 DEBUG [org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener] (MSC service thread 1-15) Loaded: tcnative-1
21:11:55,623 DEBUG [org.apache.catalina.core] (MSC service thread 1-15) JBWEB001068: Loaded native library 1.1.22 with APR capabilities: IPv6 [true], sendfile [true], random [true]

My servlet simply does this:

     protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
          log.info("sendfile.support = " + request.getAttribute("org.apache.tomcat.sendfile.support"));
     }

When the servlet is invoked, org.apache.tomcat.sendfile.support is null. According to the JBoss Web documentation, it should be true. In my application, when it is true, I send the content using the sendfile optimization.

I have experienced the same behavior with 6.1.0.Final, the only differencing being that the native libraries need to be downloaded from the Red Hat website and installed separately.

I have attached server.log.

I have successfully done this with earlier versions of JBoss AS, both community and EAP.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this is a critical piece of functionality that I must migrate forward.

Thanks!

[jfclere]

org.apache.tomcat.sendfile.support is a tomcat attribut not AS/EAP one.

[jfclere]

you need to use hasSendfile() from the RequestFacade.

[jonathandfields]

Thank you for the quick response. I was able to get it to work with the following code which is based upon some code I found from Torquebox. Is this the correct (and supported) approach:

protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
    RequestFacade requestFacade = (RequestFacade) request;
    ResponseFacade responseFacade = (ResponseFacade) response;
    File file = new File("...");
    long length = file.length();
    if (requestFacade.hasSendfile()) {
        responseFacade.setContentLength((int) length);
     response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_OK);
     responseFacade.sendFile(file.getPath(), file.getAbsolutePath(), 0, length);
    } else {
        //...
    }
}

I cannot seem to find a location for the Javadocs for this API, other than the source code itself. I cannot find it in the public EAP API (since it is not a public API) nor in the JBoss Web docs nor in the Tomcat docs. Am I missing something obvious? Indeed, the JBoss Web Docs indicate that the org.apache.tomcat.sendfile.support and related attributes are still the way to use the sendfile support, which was the basis for my earlier (failed) attempt.  It would be very helpful if the AS and EAP docs provided some clear documentation how to use this feature.

Thanks!

[ctomc]

Jonathan Fields wrote:

JBoss Web Docs indicate that the org.apache.tomcat.sendfile.support and related attributes are still the way to use the sendfile support, which was the basis for my earlier (failed) attempt.  It would be very helpful if the AS and EAP docs provided some clear documentation how to use this feature.

Thanks!

You are looking at wrong jboss web docs, AS7 / EAP6 use jbossweb 7.x so look at its docs JBoss Web - Advanced IO and JBoss Web

But to be fair, also newer docs haw this part wrong

[jonathandfields]

Thanks for pointing that out. That was copy and paste error (Google search result used for the link instead of navigating to the proper docs).  I searched the docs pretty thoroughly and all that I found appeared to be derivatives of the original Tomcat "Advanced IO and Tomcat" docs which specify the request attributes. But Jean-Frederic's response and looking at the source has made it all clear now... Thanks!

[jfclere]

The Facade is the correct approach.  I will adjust the docs....

[jonathandfields]

Also, since this is a change to the org.apache.catalina.connector.RequestFacade and ResponseFacade APIs, it would seem appropriate that somewhere the Javadocs for this API was made available other than just source code. The JBoss Web - Documentation Index docs appear to just refer you to the Tomcat docs, which don't reflect the JBoss changes to the API. Thanks!

[jonathandfields]

Great. Again thanks for the very fast response!