Web Application

This page describes how BaseX can be used to both provide simple APIs and build complex web applications.

Updated: BaseX is now based on version 11 of the Jetty Web Server.

Startup

• Run one of the basexhttp or basexhttp.bat Start Scripts.
• If you have installed BaseX on Windows, click on the BaseX HTTP Server (Start) icon.

To shut down the server gracefully, run basexhttpstop or basexhttpstop.bat, attach the stop argument to the command call, or click on the BaseX HTTP Server (Stop) icon.

Both an instance of Jetty and the BaseX Database Server will be started. By default, Jetty listens to the port 8080, and the database server is accessible on port 1984. After startup, you can access a plain HTML welcome page via http://localhost:8080.

Unless you have already chosen an admin password (e.g., via the Windows installer or a previous installation), you can do so by invoking the PASSWORD command on your terminal:

basexhttp -c PASSWORD
BaseX [HTTP Server]
...
[main] INFO org.eclipse.jetty.util.log - org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.Slf4jLog
...
HTTP STOP Server was started (port: 8081).
HTTP Server was started (port: 8080).
Password: _

The Jetty logging level can be adjusted by adding the following properties to the start script:

-Dorg.eclipse.jetty.util.log.class=org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.StdErrLog -D{classref}.LEVEL=DEBUG

Various Command-Line Options are available to simplify batch processing. The Start Script can be adjusted for individual purposes (e.g. if the default memory limit is too restrictive).

BaseX can also be deployed as web servlet in a servlet container or with Maven:

Servlet Container

In order to deploy BaseX HTTP Services in a servlet container, you can download the WAR distribution of BaseX from the download site, or compile it by calling mvn compile war:war in the basex-api directory. The WAR file can then be deployed following the instructions of the corresponding servlet container (Jetty, Tomcat, etc.).

You can configure the port, context path, etc. by following the instructions of the corresponding servlet container. This is needed if you want to replace the default URL path (e.g. http://localhost:8080/rest) with a custom one (e.g. http://localhost:8080/api/rest).

If you use Jetty (which is the default HTTP server of BaseX), the server configuration is defined in the jetty.xml file, which is stored in the WEB-INF directory next to the web.xml. For detailed configuration, refer to the Jetty Documentation.

To run on Apache Tomcat, start the Tomcat server and add any *.war distribution to deploy via the Tomcat web interface. By default, the interface is accessible via http://localhost:8080/manager/html/.

Maven

Check out the BaseX sources via Eclipse or Git. Execute mvn install in the main project directory and then mvn install jetty:run in the basex-api subdirectory. This will start a Jetty instance in which the servlets will be deployed.

The same options as in the case of deployment apply in a servlet container. In this case, however, there is no WAR archive. Instead, Jetty looks up all files in the directory basex-api/src/main/webapp. Jetty and servlet options can be configured in the jetty.xml and web.xml files as described above in the Servlet Container Configuration. The Jetty stop port can be changed in the Maven Jetty Plugin sesion in the pom.xml file.

Services

The following services are available and enabled by default:

Name	Standard Path	Description
RESTXQ	/	Write enriched APIs and full web applications with XQuery.
WebSockets	ws/	Bidirectional client/server communication.
REST	rest/	Straightforward access to XML databases and its resources.
WebDAV	webdav/	Database access via the file system.
Default	static/	Access to static server resources (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, images, …).

The DBA is a web-based database administration interface written in RESTXQ. It allows you to create and administrate databases, evaluate queries in realtime, view log files, manage users, etc. It is embedded in the full distributions of BaseX, and it can be accessed after startup via http://localhost:8080/dba/.

Configuration

Unless BaseX is deployed as servlet, the location of the web application directory can be adjusted via the WEBPATH option, and compression of HTTP responses can be enabled via the GZIP option.

Further database options can be defined as context parameters in the web.xml file. The most important options for the web application context are:

Option	Default	Description
USER	admin	If a user is specified, no credentials must be passed on by the client.
HTTPLOCAL	false	Operation mode. By default, a database server instance will be started, as soon as the first HTTP service is called. The database server can be disabled by setting this flag to true.
RESTXQPATH	.	Relative or absolute directory referencing the RESTXQ modules. By default, the option points to the standard web application directory.
RESTPATH	.	Relative or absolute directory referencing queries and command-scripts that can be invoked via the run operation of REST. By default, the option points to the standard web application directory.
AUTHMETHOD	Basic	The default authentication method proposed by the server. The available methods are Basic and Digest.

All options are prefixed with org.basex.. Local file paths in options may be absolute or relative. If a relative path is specified, its root will be the servlet’s (webapp) path:

<context-param>
  <param-name>org.basex.dbpath</param-name>
  <!-- will be rewritten to ..../webapp/WEB-INF/data -->
  <param-value>WEB-INF/data</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
  <param-name>org.basex.repopath</param-name>
  <!-- will be kept as is -->
  <param-value>f:/basex/repository</param-value>
</context-param>

Context parameters can be requested from XQuery via proc:property-names and proc:property. How to set these options is specific to the servlet container. For example, in Jetty it can be done by overriding the web.xml file. Another option is to directly edit the WEB-INF/web.xml file in the WAR archive (WAR files are simple ZIP files). Refer to the sample web.xml of the basex-api package.

To enable or disable a specific service, the corresponding servlet entry in the web.xml file needs to be removed/commented.

Authentication

No credentials need to be supplied if a default user is assigned to a service in the web.xml file. In the following example, the user rest-user is specified for the REST service:

<servlet>
  <servlet-name>REST</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>org.basex.http.rest.RESTServlet</servlet-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>org.basex.user</param-name>
    <param-value>rest-user</param-value>
  </init-param>
</servlet>

If the HTTP server is started with no pre-defined user, the credentials must be passed on by the client via Basic Authentication or Digest Authentication, depending on the chosen authentication method in the configuration.

With cURL, internet browsers, and other tools, you can specify basic authentication credentials within the request string as plain text, using the format USER:PASSWORD@URL:

http://admin:...@localhost:8080/

Users are specified in a users.xml file, which is stored in the database directory (see User Management for more information).

Changelog

Version 11.0

• Updated: BaseX is now based on version 11 of the Jetty Web Server.

Version 10.0

• Updated: The default admin password has been removed, and the default ports have been changed from 8984/8985 to 8080/8081.

Version 9.0

• Updated: jetty.xml configuration file (required for Jetty 9 and later).

Version 8.6

• Updated: Authentication re-added to RESTXQ.
• Updated: No password must be specified in the web.xml file anymore.
• Updated: Server-side user and authentication method is now enforced (cannot be overwritten by client).

Version 8.0

• Added: digest authentication
• Updated: user management
• Updated: default user/password disabled in web.xml

Version 7.7

• Added: service-specific permissions

Version 7.5

• Added: jetty.xml: configuration for Jetty Server
• Updated: server replaced with httplocal mode

Version 7.3

• Updated: client mode replaced with server mode

Version 7.2

• Updated: Web Application concept revised