How to abort Startup procedure on init-Exceptions

Question

I have a WebApplication on Websphere 8.5.5.8, one (more or less empty) EAR Project which contains my WAR Project.

In my main Servlet, which is loaded on startup, i do some checks, if everything is alright. If its not, I'm throwing a javax.servlet.ServletException.

My expectation is, that Websphere would recognize that there is a Problem and abort the startup of my application so its not usable at all.

What actually happens is, Websphere just logs that Exception away with only Waring level, the Exception is even in another File, not in the Log itself:

[06.04.16 07:42:27:229 CEST] 0000004c FfdcProvider  W com.ibm.ws.ffdc.impl.FfdcProvider logIncident FFDC1003I: FFDC-Vorfall an C:\IBM\WAS8.5\profiles\AppSrv01\logs\ffdc\server1_bb44715_16.04.06_07.42.27.2056702894000999712166.txt com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletInstance.init 259 erstellt.

Then my Application is started anyways so its available to use with a Browser. People of course then start using it and recognize later, that that there is a Problem. After digging in Log files, it comes out that the startup failed.

Question: What can i do to make Websphere abort the Startup Process? Is there maybe a Special kind of Exception i could throw? I tried

• javax.servlet.ServletException
• javax.servlet.UnavailableException
• java.lang.Error

I found this in the IBM Forums, which indicates, that my expected behavior would violate the JEE Spec, which wouldn't make much sense for me.

I tried a javax.servlet.ServletContextListener as mentioned here, one Plus is, that i'll get a error Message in the log, but the Application still starts.

As mentioned here I tried the Startup Beans. The solution posted there is not working for me, those proprietary startup beans are not allowed in a WAR, and they're are also Deprecated. I only have a EAR Project, since Websphere/RAD is forcing me to use one in my local environment. On Test/Production Systems, only the WAR is used.

If i use the startup beans defined by EJB 3.1:

import javax.annotation.PostConstruct;
import javax.ejb.Singleton;
import javax.ejb.Startup;
@Singleton
@Startup
public class MyStartupBean {
    public boolean start() {
        System.out.println("MyStartupBean.start()");
        return false;
    }
    public void stop(){
        System.out.println("MyStartupBean.stop()");
    }
    @PostConstruct
    public void postConstruct() {
        System.out.println("MyStartupBean.postConstruct()");
    }
}

The start() method doesn't get called, i only see the postConstruct() message in my log. Throwing an Exception in postConstruct() wont abort the startup process.

Answer 1

So far, i only came up with an Workaround (inspired by the comment of Jason Faust in https://stackoverflow.com/a/1337927/5072526):

Have a static flag, and if the initialization has completed correctly, set it to true. Use a Filter to check that flag and output an Error if its false, so at least the Application dosen't seem usable when the Startup failed:

public class HealthCheckFilter implements Filter{
    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        if(AppBridge.isStartupFinished()) {
            chain.doFilter(request, response);
        }else {
            HttpServletResponse httpResponse = (HttpServletResponse) response;
            httpResponse.setCharacterEncoding(AppConstants.ENCODING);
            httpResponse.setContentType("text/plain");
            httpResponse.setStatus(500);
            PrintWriter out = httpResponse.getWriter();
            out.write("Startup failed");
        }
    }
    /* Methods init(FilterConfig filterConfig) and destroy() ommitted*/
}