Chapter 4. Installing WAF for Development

This section contains instructions on how to compile WAF from the WAF development RPMs or ZIP distributions. The WAF development environment has everything you need to write Java webapp code, test it, view the results, and deploy your finished code to a production environment. This section will give you enough information to go through this entire process, provided you have:

1. Experience writing Java and using the WAF APIs; this is not a guide to writing WAF code;

2. Experience developing in a UNIX environment. While it is possible to develop WAF code in this environment using a Java IDE, this guide does not cover that situation.

The entire development environment works together to configure your server, handle version control, and provide a set of tools and aliases to help you speed development. These features include:

1. Automatic setup of multiple development environments for different developers on the same project, or even different developers working on multiple projects.

2. Automatic creation of server startup and shutdown scripts for each developer on each project, and automatic assignment of distinct port numbers for each developer on each project.

3. Easy upgradability of existing code base. Upgrading the WAF release your project is based on is as simple as obtaining a new WAF RPM/ZIP, installing it with a single update command, generating new configuration files, and deploying. The same goes for servlet container code, build code, and so on.