maven2/xdocs/1_1/userguide.html - axis-axis2-java-core - Git at Google

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 <head>
   <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="" />
   <title>Apache Axis2 User's Guide- Introducing Axis2</title>
   <link href="../css/axis-docs.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
   media="all" />
 </head>

 <body xml:lang="en" lang="en">
 <h1>Apache Axis2 User's Guide</h1>

 <p>This guide provides a starting place for users new to Apache Axis2. It
 also provides information for more experienced users, such as how to use
 Axis2 to create and deploy Web services as well as how to use WSDL to
 generate both clients and services.</p>
 For more experienced users of Apache Axis2, we would recommend you start with
 the <a href="adv-userguide.html">Advance User's Guide.</a> <a
 name="intro"></a>

 <h1>- Introducing Axis2</h1>

 <p>This section introduces Axis2 and its structure, including an explanation
 of various directories/files included in the latest Axis2 <a
 href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download.cgi">download</a>.</p>

 <h2>Content</h2>
 <ul>
   <li><a href="userguide.html#intro"><strong>Introducing
     Axis2</strong></a><br />

     <ul>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#whatis"><strong>What is
       Axis2</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#underhood"><strong>What's under the
         hood?</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#handlessoap"><strong>How Axis2 handles SOAP
         messages</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#distributions"><strong>Axis2
         distributions</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#sbd"><strong>The Axis2 Standard Binary
         Distribution</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#hierarchy"><strong>Axis2.war Directory
         hierarchy</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#docs"><strong>Axis2 Documents
         Distribution</strong></a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide.html#clients"><strong>Axis2 and
         clients</strong></a></li>
     </ul>
   </li>
   <li><a href="userguide-installingtesting.html#installingtesting">Installing
     and testing client code</a></li>
   <li><a href="userguide-introtoservices.html#introservices">Introduction to
     Services</a><br />

     <ul>
       <li><a href="userguide-introtoservices.html#messageexchange">Message
         Exchange Patterns</a></li>
     </ul>
   </li>
   <li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#createclients">Creating
     Clients</a><br />

     <ul>
       <li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#choosingclient">Choosing a
         Client Generation Method</a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#generating">Generating
         Clients</a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#adb">Axis Data Binding
         (ADB)</a></li>
     </ul>
   </li>
   <li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#buildservices">Building
     Services</a><br />

     <ul>
       <li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#getcomfortable">Getting
         Comfortable with Available Options</a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#createscratch">Creating a
         service from scratch</a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#deploypojo">Deploying
         Plain Old Java Objects</a></li>
       <li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#deployrun">Deploying and
         running an Axis2 service created from WSDL</a></li>
     </ul>
   </li>
   <li><a href="userguide-samples.html">Samples</a></li>
   <li><a href="userguide-forfurtherstudy.html">For Further Study</a></li>
 </ul>
 <a name="whatis"></a>

 <h2>What is Axis2?</h2>

 <p>The Apache Axis2 project is a Java-based implementation of both the client
 and server sides of the Web services equation. Designed to take advantage of
 the lessons learned from Apache Axis 1.0, Apache Axis2 provides a complete
 object model and a modular architecture that makes its straight forward to
 add functionality and support for new Web services-related specifications and
 recommendations.</p>

 <p>Axis2 enables you to easily perform the following tasks:</p>
 <ul>
   <li>Send SOAP messages</li>
   <li>Receive and process SOAP messages</li>
   <li>Create a Web service out of a plain Java class</li>
   <li>Create implementation classes for both server and client using WSDL</li>
   <li>Easily retrieve the WSDL for a service</li>
   <li>Send and receive SOAP messages with attachments</li>
   <li>Create or utilize a REST-based Web service</li>
   <li>Create or utilize services that take advantage of the <a
     href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/16790/wss-v1.1-spec-os-SOAPMessageSecurity.pdf">WS-Security</a>,
     <a
     href="http://xml.coverpages.org/ws-reliablemessaging20030313.pdf">WS-ReliableMessaging</a>,
     <a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/addr/">WS-Addressing</a>, <a
     href="http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2004/03/ws-coordination.html">WS-Coordination</a>,
     and <a
     href="ftp://www6.software.ibm.com/software/developer/library/WS-AtomicTransaction.pdf">WS-Atomic
     Transaction</a> recommendations</li>
   <li>Use Axis2's modular structure to easily add support for new
     recommendations as they emerge</li>
 </ul>

 <p>Many more features exist as well, but this user guide concentrates on
 showing you how to accomplish the first five tasks on this list.</p>
 <a name="underhood"></a>

 <h2>What's Under the Hood?</h2>

 <p>To understand Axis2 and what it does, you must have a good idea of the
 life cycle of a Web services message. Typically, it looks something like
 this:</p>

 <p><img alt="Lifecycle of a Web services message" src="images/fig01.jpg"
 /><br clear="all" />
 </p>

 <p>The sending application creates the original SOAP message, an XML message
 that consists of headers and a body. (For more information on SOAP, see "<a
 href="userguide-introtoservices.html/">Introduction to Services</a>".) If the
 system requires the use of WS* recommendations such as WS-Addressing or
 WS-Security, the message may undergo additional processing before it leaves
 the sender. Once the message itself is ready, it is sent via a particular
 transport such as HTTP, JMS, and so on.</p>

 <p>The message works its way over to the receiver, which takes in the message
 via the transport listener. (In other words, if the application doesn't have
 an HTTP listener running, it's not going to receive any HTTP messages.)
 Again, if the message is part of a system that requires the use of
 WS-Security or other recommendations, it may need additional processing for
 the purpose of checking credentials or decrypting sensitive information.
 Finally, a dispatcher determines the specific application (or other
 component, such as a Java method) for which the message was intended, and
 sends it to that component. That component is part of an overall application
 designed to work with the data being sent back and forth.</p>
 <a name="handlessoap"></a>

 <h2>How Axis2 Handles SOAP Messages</h2>

 <p>Axis2 can handle processing for both the sender and the receiver in a
 transaction. From the Axis2 perspective, the structure looks like this:</p>

 <p><img alt="Axis2 handles SOAP messages" src="images/fig02.jpg" /><br
 clear="all" />
 </p>

 <p>On each end, you have an application designed to deal with the (sent or
 received) messages. In the middle, you have Axis2. Or rather, you CAN have
 Axis2. The value of Web services is that the sender and receiver (each of
 which can be either the server or the client) don't even have to be on the
 same platform, much less running the same application. But assuming that
 Axis2 is running on both sides, the process looks like this:</p>
 <ul>
   <li>The sender creates the SOAP message.</li>
   <li>Axis "handlers" perform any necessary actions on that message such as
     encryption of WS-Security related messages.</li>
   <li>The Transport sender sends the message.</li>
   <li>On the receiving end, the transport listener detects the message.</li>
   <li>The transport listener passes the message on to any handlers on the
     receiving side.</li>
   <li>Once the message has been processed in the "pre-dispatch" phase, it is
     handed off to the dispatchers, which pass it on to the appropriate
     application.</li>
 </ul>

 <p>In Axis2, these actions are broken down into "phases", with several
 pre-defined phases such as the "pre-dispatch", "dispatch," and "message
 processing" being built into Axis2. Each phase is a collection of "handlers".
 Axis2 enables you to control what handlers go into which phases, and the
 order in which handlers are executed within phases. You can also add your own
 phases and handlers.</p>

 <p>Handlers come from "modules" that can be plugged into a running Axis2
 system. These modules, such as Rampart, which provides an implementation of
 WS-Security, and Sandesha, which provides an implementation of
 WS-ReliableMessaging, are the main extensibility mechanism in Axis2.</p>
 <a name="distributions"></a>

 <h2>Axis2 Distributions</h2>

 <p>Axis2 is released in several <a
 href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi">distributions</a>.
 Which one you need depends on what you'll be doing with it.</p>
 <a name="sbd"></a>

 <h3>The Axis2 Standard Binary Distribution</h3>

 <p>If you're developing services and applications, you'll need the Axis2 <a
 href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi#std-bin">Standard
 Binary Distribution</a>. The distribution includes all of the necessary *.jar
 files, as well as a variety of scripts that ease development. It has the
 following structure:</p>

 <p><b>Code Listing 1: Axis2 Standard Binary Distribution</b></p>
 <pre>bin
       axis2.bat
       axis2.sh
       axis2server.bat
       axis2server.sh
       java2wsdl.bat
       java2wsdl.sh
       wsdl2java.bat
       wsdl2java.sh
       setenv.sh
 lib
       activation-1.1.jar
       ...
       XmlSchema.jar
 repository
 	modules
          modules.list
 	 addressing-1.1.mar
  	 ..
 	services
          services.list
 	 version.aar
          ..
 samples
       ...
 webapp
       ...
 conf
     axis2.xml

 LICENSE.txt
 README.txt
 NOTICE.txt
 INSTALL.txt
 release-notes.html</pre>

 <p>The bin directory includes a number of useful scripts, including axis2.bat
 (or axis2.sh), which enables you to easily execute a Java command without
 having to manually add all of the Axis2 jar files to the classpath,
 java2wsdl.bat (and .sh) and wsdl2java.bat (and .sh), which enables you to
 easily generate Java code from a WSDL file and vice versa, and
 axis2server.bat (and sh), a simple Web server that enables you to build
 Axis2's capability to send and receive messages into your own application.</p>

 <p>As expected, the lib directory includes all of the necessary jar files.
 Services and modules are added to the repository directory. Axis2 comes with
 a standard module implementing WS-Addressing, and you can add any other
 necessary modules such as Rampart to the repository/modules directory.</p>

 <p>conf directory includes the axis2.xml which is the global deployment
 descriptor.</p>

 <p>Finally, the samples directory includes all of the sample code distributed
 with Axis2. You can find a list of the samples and their descriptions <a
 href="userguide-samples.html">here</a>.</p>
 <a name="hierarchy"></a>

 <h2>axis2.war Distribution Directory Hierarchy</h2>

 <p>axis2.war is available in <a
 href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi#war">WAR (Web
 Archive) Distribution</a>. The server side of Axis2 ships as a J2EE
 application, and has the following structure shown in Code Listing 2.</p>

 <p><b>Code Listing 2: Server Side of Axis2</b></p>
 <pre>axis2-web
 META-INF
 WEB-INF
     classes
     conf
         axis2.xml
     lib
         activation.jar
         ...
         xmlSchema.jar
     modules
         modules.list
         addressing.mar
         ...
         soapmonitor.mar
     services
         services.list
         aservice.aar
         ...
         version.aar
     web.xml</pre>

 <p>Starting at the top, axis2-web is a collection of JSPs that make up the <a
 href="webadminguide.html">Axis2 administration application</a>, through which
 you can perform any needed actions such as adding services and engaging and
 dis-engaging modules. The WEB-INF directory represents the actual Axis2
 application, including all of the *.jar files, any included modules, and even
 the deployed services themselves.</p>

 <p>The classes directory holds any classes or properties files that are
 needed by Axis2 itself, such as log4j.properties. Any actual services to be
 handled by the system reside in the services directory in the form of an axis
 archive, or *.aar file. This file contains any classes related to the
 service, as well as the services.xml file, which controls any additional
 requirements, such as the definition of message senders and message
 receivers.</p>

 <p>But the main file in all this it is axis2.xml, which controls how the
 application deals with received messages. It defines message receivers and
 transport receivers, as well as defining transport senders and determining
 which modules are active. It also defines the order of phases, and the
 handlers to be executed within each phase.</p>

 <p>You can control all of this information through the use of the Web
 application, but if you restart the Axis2 application, these changes are lost
 and the server goes back to the definitions in the axis2.xml file.</p>

 <p>Axis2 also provides a third distribution, the <a
 href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi#src">source
 distribution</a>, which enables you to generate this war file yourself.</p>
 <a id="docs"></a>

 <h2>Axis2 Documentation Distribution Directory Hierarchy</h2>

 <p>The Documents distribution includes all Axis2 documentation including the
 xdcos and javadocs. It has the following structure:</p>

 <p><b>Code Listing 3: Axis2 Documents Distribution</b></p>
 <pre>docs
       javadocs
       xdocs

 LICENSE.txt
 README.txt
 release-notes.html</pre>

 <p>The javadocs directory includes all of the standard <a
 href="../../javadocs/index.html">API documentation</a> for the Axis2 API,
 with more conversational documentation (like this document) in the xdocs
 directory.</p>
 <a name="clients"></a>

 <h2>Axis2 and Clients</h2>

 <p>Now that explains how Axis2 behaves as part of a Web application, but what
 about a standalone client that is not part of a J2EE application? In that
 case, a sender can use the Axis2 default properties, in other words, no
 special handlers, and so on. But you also have the option to tell the client
 to load its own copy of the axis2.xml file and behave accordingly.</p>

 <p><strong>See Next Section</strong> - <a
 href="userguide-installingtesting.html#installingtesting">Installing and
 Testing Client Code</a></p>
 </body>
 </html>
	<?xml version="1.0" encoding=""?>
	<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
	<head>
	<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="" />
	<title>Apache Axis2 User's Guide- Introducing Axis2</title>
	<link href="../css/axis-docs.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
	media="all" />
	</head>

	<body xml:lang="en" lang="en">
	<h1>Apache Axis2 User's Guide</h1>

	<p>This guide provides a starting place for users new to Apache Axis2. It
	also provides information for more experienced users, such as how to use
	Axis2 to create and deploy Web services as well as how to use WSDL to
	generate both clients and services.</p>
	For more experienced users of Apache Axis2, we would recommend you start with
	the <a href="adv-userguide.html">Advance User's Guide.</a> <a
	name="intro"></a>

	<h1>- Introducing Axis2</h1>

	<p>This section introduces Axis2 and its structure, including an explanation
	of various directories/files included in the latest Axis2 <a
	href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download.cgi">download</a>.</p>

	<h2>Content</h2>
	<ul>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#intro"><strong>Introducing
	Axis2</strong></a><br />

	<ul>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#whatis"><strong>What is
	Axis2</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#underhood"><strong>What's under the
	hood?</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#handlessoap"><strong>How Axis2 handles SOAP
	messages</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#distributions"><strong>Axis2
	distributions</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#sbd"><strong>The Axis2 Standard Binary
	Distribution</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#hierarchy"><strong>Axis2.war Directory
	hierarchy</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#docs"><strong>Axis2 Documents
	Distribution</strong></a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide.html#clients"><strong>Axis2 and
	clients</strong></a></li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><a href="userguide-installingtesting.html#installingtesting">Installing
	and testing client code</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-introtoservices.html#introservices">Introduction to
	Services</a><br />

	<ul>
	<li><a href="userguide-introtoservices.html#messageexchange">Message
	Exchange Patterns</a></li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#createclients">Creating
	Clients</a><br />

	<ul>
	<li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#choosingclient">Choosing a
	Client Generation Method</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#generating">Generating
	Clients</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-creatingclients.html#adb">Axis Data Binding
	(ADB)</a></li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#buildservices">Building
	Services</a><br />

	<ul>
	<li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#getcomfortable">Getting
	Comfortable with Available Options</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#createscratch">Creating a
	service from scratch</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#deploypojo">Deploying
	Plain Old Java Objects</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-buildingservices.html#deployrun">Deploying and
	running an Axis2 service created from WSDL</a></li>
	</ul>
	</li>
	<li><a href="userguide-samples.html">Samples</a></li>
	<li><a href="userguide-forfurtherstudy.html">For Further Study</a></li>
	</ul>
	<a name="whatis"></a>

	<h2>What is Axis2?</h2>

	<p>The Apache Axis2 project is a Java-based implementation of both the client
	and server sides of the Web services equation. Designed to take advantage of
	the lessons learned from Apache Axis 1.0, Apache Axis2 provides a complete
	object model and a modular architecture that makes its straight forward to
	add functionality and support for new Web services-related specifications and
	recommendations.</p>

	<p>Axis2 enables you to easily perform the following tasks:</p>
	<ul>
	<li>Send SOAP messages</li>
	<li>Receive and process SOAP messages</li>
	<li>Create a Web service out of a plain Java class</li>
	<li>Create implementation classes for both server and client using WSDL</li>
	<li>Easily retrieve the WSDL for a service</li>
	<li>Send and receive SOAP messages with attachments</li>
	<li>Create or utilize a REST-based Web service</li>
	<li>Create or utilize services that take advantage of the <a
	href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/16790/wss-v1.1-spec-os-SOAPMessageSecurity.pdf">WS-Security</a>,
	<a
	href="http://xml.coverpages.org/ws-reliablemessaging20030313.pdf">WS-ReliableMessaging</a>,
	<a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/addr/">WS-Addressing</a>, <a
	href="http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2004/03/ws-coordination.html">WS-Coordination</a>,
	and <a
	href="ftp://www6.software.ibm.com/software/developer/library/WS-AtomicTransaction.pdf">WS-Atomic
	Transaction</a> recommendations</li>
	<li>Use Axis2's modular structure to easily add support for new
	recommendations as they emerge</li>
	</ul>

	<p>Many more features exist as well, but this user guide concentrates on
	showing you how to accomplish the first five tasks on this list.</p>
	<a name="underhood"></a>

	<h2>What's Under the Hood?</h2>

	<p>To understand Axis2 and what it does, you must have a good idea of the
	life cycle of a Web services message. Typically, it looks something like
	this:</p>

	<p><img alt="Lifecycle of a Web services message" src="images/fig01.jpg"
	/><br clear="all" />
	</p>

	<p>The sending application creates the original SOAP message, an XML message
	that consists of headers and a body. (For more information on SOAP, see "<a
	href="userguide-introtoservices.html/">Introduction to Services</a>".) If the
	system requires the use of WS* recommendations such as WS-Addressing or
	WS-Security, the message may undergo additional processing before it leaves
	the sender. Once the message itself is ready, it is sent via a particular
	transport such as HTTP, JMS, and so on.</p>

	<p>The message works its way over to the receiver, which takes in the message
	via the transport listener. (In other words, if the application doesn't have
	an HTTP listener running, it's not going to receive any HTTP messages.)
	Again, if the message is part of a system that requires the use of
	WS-Security or other recommendations, it may need additional processing for
	the purpose of checking credentials or decrypting sensitive information.
	Finally, a dispatcher determines the specific application (or other
	component, such as a Java method) for which the message was intended, and
	sends it to that component. That component is part of an overall application
	designed to work with the data being sent back and forth.</p>
	<a name="handlessoap"></a>

	<h2>How Axis2 Handles SOAP Messages</h2>

	<p>Axis2 can handle processing for both the sender and the receiver in a
	transaction. From the Axis2 perspective, the structure looks like this:</p>

	<p><img alt="Axis2 handles SOAP messages" src="images/fig02.jpg" /><br
	clear="all" />
	</p>

	<p>On each end, you have an application designed to deal with the (sent or
	received) messages. In the middle, you have Axis2. Or rather, you CAN have
	Axis2. The value of Web services is that the sender and receiver (each of
	which can be either the server or the client) don't even have to be on the
	same platform, much less running the same application. But assuming that
	Axis2 is running on both sides, the process looks like this:</p>
	<ul>
	<li>The sender creates the SOAP message.</li>
	<li>Axis "handlers" perform any necessary actions on that message such as
	encryption of WS-Security related messages.</li>
	<li>The Transport sender sends the message.</li>
	<li>On the receiving end, the transport listener detects the message.</li>
	<li>The transport listener passes the message on to any handlers on the
	receiving side.</li>
	<li>Once the message has been processed in the "pre-dispatch" phase, it is
	handed off to the dispatchers, which pass it on to the appropriate
	application.</li>
	</ul>

	<p>In Axis2, these actions are broken down into "phases", with several
	pre-defined phases such as the "pre-dispatch", "dispatch," and "message
	processing" being built into Axis2. Each phase is a collection of "handlers".
	Axis2 enables you to control what handlers go into which phases, and the
	order in which handlers are executed within phases. You can also add your own
	phases and handlers.</p>

	<p>Handlers come from "modules" that can be plugged into a running Axis2
	system. These modules, such as Rampart, which provides an implementation of
	WS-Security, and Sandesha, which provides an implementation of
	WS-ReliableMessaging, are the main extensibility mechanism in Axis2.</p>
	<a name="distributions"></a>

	<h2>Axis2 Distributions</h2>

	<p>Axis2 is released in several <a
	href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi">distributions</a>.
	Which one you need depends on what you'll be doing with it.</p>
	<a name="sbd"></a>

	<h3>The Axis2 Standard Binary Distribution</h3>

	<p>If you're developing services and applications, you'll need the Axis2 <a
	href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi#std-bin">Standard
	Binary Distribution</a>. The distribution includes all of the necessary *.jar
	files, as well as a variety of scripts that ease development. It has the
	following structure:</p>

	<p><b>Code Listing 1: Axis2 Standard Binary Distribution</b></p>
	<pre>bin
	axis2.bat
	axis2.sh
	axis2server.bat
	axis2server.sh
	java2wsdl.bat
	java2wsdl.sh
	wsdl2java.bat
	wsdl2java.sh
	setenv.sh
	lib
	activation-1.1.jar
	...
	XmlSchema.jar
	repository
	modules
	modules.list
	addressing-1.1.mar
	..
	services
	services.list
	version.aar
	..
	samples
	...
	webapp
	...
	conf
	axis2.xml

	LICENSE.txt
	README.txt
	NOTICE.txt
	INSTALL.txt
	release-notes.html</pre>

	<p>The bin directory includes a number of useful scripts, including axis2.bat
	(or axis2.sh), which enables you to easily execute a Java command without
	having to manually add all of the Axis2 jar files to the classpath,
	java2wsdl.bat (and .sh) and wsdl2java.bat (and .sh), which enables you to
	easily generate Java code from a WSDL file and vice versa, and
	axis2server.bat (and sh), a simple Web server that enables you to build
	Axis2's capability to send and receive messages into your own application.</p>

	<p>As expected, the lib directory includes all of the necessary jar files.
	Services and modules are added to the repository directory. Axis2 comes with
	a standard module implementing WS-Addressing, and you can add any other
	necessary modules such as Rampart to the repository/modules directory.</p>

	<p>conf directory includes the axis2.xml which is the global deployment
	descriptor.</p>

	<p>Finally, the samples directory includes all of the sample code distributed
	with Axis2. You can find a list of the samples and their descriptions <a
	href="userguide-samples.html">here</a>.</p>
	<a name="hierarchy"></a>

	<h2>axis2.war Distribution Directory Hierarchy</h2>

	<p>axis2.war is available in <a
	href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi#war">WAR (Web
	Archive) Distribution</a>. The server side of Axis2 ships as a J2EE
	application, and has the following structure shown in Code Listing 2.</p>

	<p><b>Code Listing 2: Server Side of Axis2</b></p>
	<pre>axis2-web
	META-INF
	WEB-INF
	classes
	conf
	axis2.xml
	lib
	activation.jar
	...
	xmlSchema.jar
	modules
	modules.list
	addressing.mar
	...
	soapmonitor.mar
	services
	services.list
	aservice.aar
	...
	version.aar
	web.xml</pre>

	<p>Starting at the top, axis2-web is a collection of JSPs that make up the <a
	href="webadminguide.html">Axis2 administration application</a>, through which
	you can perform any needed actions such as adding services and engaging and
	dis-engaging modules. The WEB-INF directory represents the actual Axis2
	application, including all of the *.jar files, any included modules, and even
	the deployed services themselves.</p>

	<p>The classes directory holds any classes or properties files that are
	needed by Axis2 itself, such as log4j.properties. Any actual services to be
	handled by the system reside in the services directory in the form of an axis
	archive, or *.aar file. This file contains any classes related to the
	service, as well as the services.xml file, which controls any additional
	requirements, such as the definition of message senders and message
	receivers.</p>

	<p>But the main file in all this it is axis2.xml, which controls how the
	application deals with received messages. It defines message receivers and
	transport receivers, as well as defining transport senders and determining
	which modules are active. It also defines the order of phases, and the
	handlers to be executed within each phase.</p>

	<p>You can control all of this information through the use of the Web
	application, but if you restart the Axis2 application, these changes are lost
	and the server goes back to the definitions in the axis2.xml file.</p>

	<p>Axis2 also provides a third distribution, the <a
	href="http://ws.apache.org/axis2/download/1_1/download.cgi#src">source
	distribution</a>, which enables you to generate this war file yourself.</p>
	<a id="docs"></a>

	<h2>Axis2 Documentation Distribution Directory Hierarchy</h2>

	<p>The Documents distribution includes all Axis2 documentation including the
	xdcos and javadocs. It has the following structure:</p>

	<p><b>Code Listing 3: Axis2 Documents Distribution</b></p>
	<pre>docs
	javadocs
	xdocs

	LICENSE.txt
	README.txt
	release-notes.html</pre>

	<p>The javadocs directory includes all of the standard <a
	href="../../javadocs/index.html">API documentation</a> for the Axis2 API,
	with more conversational documentation (like this document) in the xdocs
	directory.</p>
	<a name="clients"></a>

	<h2>Axis2 and Clients</h2>

	<p>Now that explains how Axis2 behaves as part of a Web application, but what
	about a standalone client that is not part of a J2EE application? In that
	case, a sender can use the Axis2 default properties, in other words, no
	special handlers, and so on. But you also have the option to tell the client
	to load its own copy of the axis2.xml file and behave accordingly.</p>

	<p><strong>See Next Section</strong> - <a
	href="userguide-installingtesting.html#installingtesting">Installing and
	Testing Client Code</a></p>
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