The Apache Tomcat Servlet/JSP Container

Apache Tomcat 6.0

Version 6.0.53, Apr 2 2017
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Apache Tomcat Configuration Reference

The AJP Connector

Table of Contents
Introduction

The AJP Connector element represents a Connector component that communicates with a web connector via the AJP protocol. This is used for cases where you wish to invisibly integrate Tomcat 6 into an existing (or new) Apache installation, and you want Apache to handle the static content contained in the web application, and/or utilize Apache's SSL processing.

This connector supports load balancing when used in conjunction with the jvmRoute attribute of the Engine.

The native connectors supported with this Tomcat release are:

  • JK 1.2.x with any of the supported servers
  • mod_proxy on Apache httpd 2.x (included by default in Apache HTTP Server 2.2), with AJP enabled: see the httpd docs for details.

Other native connectors supporting AJP may work, but are no longer supported.

Attributes
Common Attributes

All implementations of Connector support the following attributes:

AttributeDescription
allowTrace

A boolean value which can be used to enable or disable the TRACE HTTP method. If not specified, this attribute is set to false.

emptySessionPath

If set to true, all paths for session cookies will be set to /. This can be useful for portlet specification implementations. If not specified, this attribute is set to false.

enableLookups

Set to true if you want calls to request.getRemoteHost() to perform DNS lookups in order to return the actual host name of the remote client. Set to false to skip the DNS lookup and return the IP address in String form instead (thereby improving performance). By default, DNS lookups are disabled.

maxHeaderCount

The maximum number of headers in a request that are allowed by the container. A request that contains more headers than the specified limit will be rejected. A value of less than 0 means no limit. If not specified, a default of 100 is used.

maxParameterCount

The maximum number of parameters (GET plus POST) which will be automatically parsed by the container. A value of less than 0 means no limit. If not specified, a default of 10000 is used. Note that FailedRequestFilter filter can be used to reject requests that hit the limit.

maxPostSize

The maximum size in bytes of the POST which will be handled by the container FORM URL parameter parsing. The feature can be disabled by setting this attribute to a value less than or equal to 0. If not specified, this attribute is set to 2097152 (2 megabytes).

maxSavePostSize

The maximum size in bytes of the POST which will be saved/buffered by the container during FORM or CLIENT-CERT authentication. For both types of authentication, the POST will be saved/buffered before the user is authenticated. For CLIENT-CERT authentication, the POST is buffered for the duration of the SSL handshake and the buffer emptied when the request is processed. For FORM authentication the POST is saved whilst the user is re-directed to the login form and is retained until the user successfully authenticates or the session associated with the authentication request expires. The limit can be disabled by setting this attribute to -1. Setting the attribute to zero will disable the saving of POST data during authentication. If not specified, this attribute is set to 4096 (4 kilobytes).

parseBodyMethods

A comma-separated list of HTTP methods for which request bodies will be parsed for request parameters identically to POST. This is useful in RESTful applications that want to support POST-style semantics for PUT requests. Note that any setting other than POST causes Tomcat to behave in a way that does against the intent of the servlet specification. The HTTP method TRACE is specifically forbidden here in accordance with the HTTP specification. The default is POST

port

The TCP port number on which this Connector will create a server socket and await incoming connections. Your operating system will allow only one server application to listen to a particular port number on a particular IP address. If the special value of 0 (zero) is used, then Tomcat will select a free port at random to use for this connector. This is typically only useful in embedded and testing applications.

protocol

Sets the protocol to handle incoming traffic. The default value is AJP/1.3 and configures org.apache.jk.server.JkCoyoteHandler the original blocking Java connector by default.
If the PATH (Windows) or LD_LIBRARY_PATH (on most unix systems) environment variables contain the Tomcat native library, the native/APR connector will automatically be configured instead.
To use an explicit protocol rather than rely on the auto-switching mechanism described above, the following values may be used:
org.apache.jk.server.JkCoyoteHandler - original blocking Java connector
org.apache.coyote.ajp.AjpProtocol - new blocking Java connector that supports an executor
org.apache.coyote.ajp.AjpAprProtocol - the APR/native connector.
Custom implementations may also be used.

proxyName

If this Connector is being used in a proxy configuration, configure this attribute to specify the server name to be returned for calls to request.getServerName(). See Proxy Support for more information.

proxyPort

If this Connector is being used in a proxy configuration, configure this attribute to specify the server port to be returned for calls to request.getServerPort(). See Proxy Support for more information.

redirectPort

If this Connector is supporting non-SSL requests, and a request is received for which a matching <security-constraint> requires SSL transport, Catalina will automatically redirect the request to the port number specified here.

request.registerRequests

This attribute controls request registration for JMX monitoring of the Connector. It is enabled by default, but may be turned it off to save a bit of memory.

scheme

Set this attribute to the name of the protocol you wish to have returned by calls to request.getScheme(). For example, you would set this attribute to "https" for an SSL Connector. The default value is "http". See SSL Support for more information.

secure

Set this attribute to true if you wish to have calls to request.isSecure() to return true for requests received by this Connector (you would want this on an SSL Connector). The default value is false.

URIEncoding

This specifies the character encoding used to decode the URI bytes, after %xx decoding the URL. If not specified, ISO-8859-1 will be used.

useBodyEncodingForURI

This specifies if the encoding specified in contentType should be used for URI query parameters, instead of using the URIEncoding. This setting is present for compatibility with Tomcat 4.1.x, where the encoding specified in the contentType, or explicitly set using Request.setCharacterEncoding method was also used for the parameters from the URL. The default value is false.

useIPVHosts

Set this attribute to true to cause Tomcat to use the ServerName passed by the native web server to determine the Host to send the request to. The default value is false.

xpoweredBy

Set this attribute to true to cause Tomcat to advertise support for the Servlet specification using the header recommended in the specification. The default value is false.

Standard Implementations

To use AJP, you must specify the protocol attribute (see above).

These implementations support the AJP 1.3 protocol.

They support the following additional attributes (in addition to the common attributes listed above):

AttributeDescription
address

For servers with more than one IP address, this attribute specifies which address will be used for listening on the specified port. By default, this port will be used on all IP addresses associated with the server. A value of 127.0.0.1 indicates that the Connector will only listen on the loopback interface.

backlog

The maximum queue length for incoming connection requests when all possible request processing threads are in use. Any requests received when the queue is full will be refused. The default value is 100.

bufferSize

The size of the output buffer to use. If less than or equal to zero, then output buffering is disabled. The default value is -1 (i.e. buffering disabled)

clientCertProvider

When client certificate information is presented in a form other than instances of java.security.cert.X509Certificate it needs to be converted before it can be used and this property controls which JSSE provider is used to perform the conversion. For example it is used with the AJP connectors, the HTTP APR connector and with the org.apache.catalina.valves.SSLValve.If not specified, the default provider will be used.

connectionTimeout

The number of milliseconds this Connector will wait, after accepting a connection, for the request URI line to be presented. The default value is infinite (i.e. no timeout).

deferAccept

Sets the TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT flag on the listening socket for this connector. The default value is true where TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT is supported by the operating system, otherwise it is false.

executor

A reference to the name in an Executor element. If this attribute is enabled, and the named executor exists, the connector will use the executor, and all the other thread attributes will be ignored. This attribute is not supported by the original blocking Java connector.

keepAliveTimeout

The number of milliseconds this Connector will wait for another AJP request before closing the connection. The default value is to use the value that has been set for the connectionTimeout attribute.

maxCookieCount

The maximum number of cookies that are permitted for a request. A value of less than zero means no limit. If not specified, a default value of 200 will be used.

maxThreads

The maximum number of request processing threads to be created by this Connector, which therefore determines the maximum number of simultaneous requests that can be handled. If not specified, this attribute is set to 200. If an executor is associated with this connector, this attribute is ignored as the connector will execute tasks using the executor rather than an internal thread pool.

packetSize

This attribute sets the maximum AJP packet size in Bytes. The maximum value is 65536. It should be the same as the max_packet_size directive configured for mod_jk. Normally it is not necessary to change the maximum packet size. Problems with the default value have been reported when sending certificates or certificate chains. The default value is 8192.

port

The TCP port number on which this Connector will create a server socket and await incoming connections. Your operating system will allow only one server application to listen to a particular port number on a particular IP address.

request.secret

Only requests from workers with this secret keyword will be accepted.

request.shutdownEnabled

If true and a secret has been configured, a correctly formatted AJP request (that includes the secret) will shutdown the Tomcat instance associated with this connector. This is set to false by default.

request.useSecret

If set to true, then a random value for request.secret will be generated. It is for use with request.shutdownEnabled. This is set to false by default.

tcpNoDelay

If set to true, the TCP_NO_DELAY option will be set on the server socket, which improves performance under most circumstances. This is set to true by default.

tomcatAuthentication

If set to true, the authentication will be done in Tomcat. Otherwise, the authenticated principal will be propagated from the native webserver and used for authorization in Tomcat. Note that this principal will have no roles associated with it. The default value is true.

Nested Components

None at this time.


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