Spring Boot and PrettyFaces: PrettyFaces Not Loading

Question

Summary: When I turn on my Spring Boot application. (Running on the embedded Tomcat 8 server) I never receive the:

INFO  [org.ocpsoft.rewrite.servlet.RewriteFilter] RewriteFilter starting up...
...
INFO  [org.ocpsoft.rewrite.servlet.RewriteFilter] Loaded [] org.ocpsoft.rewrite.config.ConfigurationProvider [org.ocpsoft.rewrite.prettyfaces.PrettyFacesRewriteConfigurationProvider<1>]
INFO  [org.ocpsoft.rewrite.servlet.RewriteFilter] RewriteFilter initialized.

Log notifications. For some reason PrettyFaces isn't starting up, and I don't know why.

Technologies: Spring Boot 1.2.0.RELEASE, Java 8, Maven for dependency management. Embedded Tomcat 8.0.15 Server.

Focusing on Java Configuration as much as possible. Previously I tried to use Rewrite, but it gave me an equal amount of gruff. Feel like I'm missing something obvious.

Here's a link to my current code base. (It's pretty small, just working on the foundation for a new project, nothing major implemented yet.)

https://github.com/MeisterGit/FoundationServer

Maven Dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.ocpsoft</groupId>
    <artifactId>prettyfaces-jsf2</artifactId>
    <version>3.3.3</version>
</dependency>`

Other Maven Dependency Tried:

<!-- PrettyFaces -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.ocpsoft.rewrite</groupId>
    <artifactId>rewrite-servlet</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.12.Final</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.ocpsoft.rewrite</groupId>
    <artifactId>rewrite-config-prettyfaces</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.12.Final</version>
</dependency>

Both version yield the same result. No startup messages.

I'm trying to keep XML to an absolute minimum. I have faces-config set up with:

<faces-config xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"             
        xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee
        http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_2.xsd"
        version="2.2">

    <!-- Allow Spring Beans to be accessible to JSF. -->
    <application>
        <el-resolver>org.springframework.web.jsf.el.SpringBeanFacesELResolver</el-resolver>
    </application>
</faces-config>`

and my controller is topped by:

@Controller
@URLMapping(id = UserController.INDEX,
        pattern = "/",
        viewId = "/content/index.xhtml") // Home page.`

Here's my web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee
    http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
    id="foundation-server"
    version="3.1">

<!-- PrettyFaces: Specify which package to scan for @UrlMapping annotations --> 
<context-param>
   <param-name>com.ocpsoft.pretty.BASE_PACKAGES</param-name>
   <param-value>foundation</param-value>
</context-param>

<!--  No Pretty Filter required, servlet 3.0+ automatically registers the filter. -->
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
    <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

Any help on what I'm doing wrong? The server turns on, I can hit http://localhost:8080/content/index.xhtml just fine, and the JSF template loads. The Spring Bean backs it up. . . But no URL mapping is functioning. If I hit http://localhost:8080/ I just get an error.

You should try to manually register the required filter in your web.xml. Looks like the automatic registration isn't working for some reason. Not sure if this is related to Spring Boot? — chkal, Dec 16 '14 at 05:21
See Andy's answer below. Apparently when using Spring Boot with an embedded container, `web.xml` and `web-fragment.xml` are ignored. — Seth Ellison, Dec 16 '14 at 14:59
How did u manage to solve this issue have been struggling with it. Spring boot cannot detect @URLMapping in my managed bean — Morgan Denis, Jun 14 '20 at 08:22

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 16 '14 at 09:27

When you're using Spring Boot with an embedded container web.xml and web-fragment.xml are ignored. You need to register the PrettyFaces filter in your application's Java configuration:

@Bean
public FilterRegistrationBean prettyFilter() {
    FilterRegistrationBean prettyFilter = new FilterRegistrationBean(new PrettyFilter());
    prettyFilter.setDispatcherTypes(DispatcherType.FORWARD, DispatcherType.REQUEST,
            DispatcherType.ASYNC, DispatcherType.ERROR);
    prettyFilter.addUrlPatterns("/*");
    return prettyFilter;
}

Spring Boot could be improved to auto-configure this filter for you if PrettyFaces is on the classpath. If you'd like to see such an enhancement, please open an issue.

Hey! Thanks a lot. I didn't know that those files were ignored. Adding your suggested bean to my configuration worked like a charm. Now I just need to fix the spring security filter configuration -- since it was defined in the `web.xml` file too. — Seth Ellison, Dec 16 '14 at 14:16

Spring Boot and PrettyFaces: PrettyFaces Not Loading

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