The wait is over: JBoss Web Server 5 with Tomcat 9 is here!

We are excited to announce the General Availability release of Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.0 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Other platforms are will be released shortly. This release includes a technology preview of transactions processing through Narayana. JBoss Web Server 5 is available in the ZIP or RPM format from the JBoss Web Server 5.0 Maven repository and Container Catalog.

JBoss Web Server combines market-leading open source technologies with enterprise capabilities to provide a single solution for large-scale websites and lightweight web applications. It combines the world's most deployed web server (Apache) with the top servlet engine (Tomcat) and the best support in middleware (from Red Hat).

Main Components

• Apache Tomcat 9

  • a servlet container in accordance with the Java Servlet Specification. JBoss Web Server contains Apache Tomcat 9

• The Apache Tomcat Native Library

  • a Tomcat library, which improves Tomcat scalability, performance, and integration with native server technologies

• The tomcat-vault

  • an extension for the JBoss Web Server used for securely storing passwords and other sensitive information used by a JBoss Web Server

• The mod_cluster library

  • a library that allows communication between Apache Tomcat and the Apache HTTP Server’s mod_proxy_cluster module. This allows the Apache HTTP Server to be used as a load balancer for JBoss Web Server

New features and enhancements

JBoss Web Server 5 is based on the shiny new Tomcat 9.0.7.  Feature highlights:

- HTTP/2 support
- Servlet 4.0 specification
- OpenSSL for TLS with JSSE connectors (NIO and NIO2)
- NIO connector, which is the default for HTTP/1.1 when tomcat-native is installed
- TLS virtual hosting (SNI) support

It also has these enhancements:

- Support is provided for embedded distributions (fat JAR deployments).
- Support for asynchronous NIO2 is provided.
- Transaction processing is provided through Narayana and DBCP2 (Tech Preview).
- System daemon integration scripts are provided for Red Hat Enterprise Linux users who install from .zip archives.
- The tomcat-vault installation process has been improved.
- The vault.properties file for tomcat-vault can be stored outside JWS_HOME.
- There is a change in manager and host-manager web app behavior.
- There is a change to mod_cluster 1.4: a connector needs to be specified.
- Multiple properties files can be configured.
- Logging for JBoss Web Server with log4j is deprecated.
- A embedded Tomcat server is included in the JBoss Web Server 5.0 Maven repository.

Introducing Narayana (Technical Preview)

Narayana on JBoss Web Server is currently in a technical preview status and has no official accompanying documentation at this time.

The Narayana transactions tookit provides support for applications developed using the following standards-based transaction protocols:

• JTA
• JTS
• Web-Service Transactions
• REST Transactions
• STM
• XATMI/TX

Narayana on JBoss Web Server is being developed for integration with Red Hat Process Automation Manager. Narayana on JBoss Web Server also provides a connection with PostgreSQL servers using a Tomcat JDBC Connection Pool.

For more information please review the JBoss Web Server Documentation Site