Libraries:

• Nimbus JOSE+JWT (com.nimbusds:nimbus-jose-jwt):
  • Implements JWT, JWS, JWE, JWK, JWA. Is used by Spring Security.
  • JAR size is bigger than others (300KB). Uses “yet another” JSON serializer (net.minidev:json-smart).
• RestEasy JOSE-JWT (org.jboss.resteasy:jose-jwt):
  • Re-uses RestEasy libraries / infrastructure. Compact size of 62KB.
  • Depends on legacy Jackson v1.x provider (org.jboss.resteasy:resteasy-jackson-provider but not org.jboss.resteasy:resteasy-jackson2-provider). Dependency org.bouncycastle:bcprov-jdk15on is not optional.
• jose.4.j (org.bitbucket.b_c:jose4j):
  • Implements JWT, JWS, JWE, JWK.
  • Includes (perhaps patched) sources of com.googlecode.json-simple:json-simple however provides adapters for other Java-to-JSON mapping frameworks. Size is 252KB.
• Java JWT (io.jsonwebtoken:jjwt):
  • Is maintained by team of contributors. Uses com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind. Reasonable size of 110KB.
  • Implements JWT and JWS only.
• Java JWT (com.auth0:java-jwt):
  • Uses com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind. Small size of 49KB.
  • Implements JWT and JWS only.
• Prime JWT (com.inversoft:prime-jwt):
  • Uses com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind. Uses Java8 date types. Smallest size of 36KB.
  • Implements JWT and JWS only. Low test coverage, few issues are identified (#1, #2).

• JSON Web Tokens home site
  • JWT (JSON Web Token) library for Java
• JSON Web Token in action with JAX-RS
• Securing JAX-RS Endpoints with JWT
• Registered header names for JOSE, Registered header names for JWT claims

• Аутентификация при помощи JWT и Spring Security – uses Java JWT and implementation actually is equivalent to any persisted randomly generated authentication token.
• Аутентификация с использованием Spring Security и JWT-токенов – uses Java JWT

In this article we shortly describe how to setup Web Service using JAX-WS technology and maven. We will create a client project, a service project and a shared common project (which contains JAX-WS generated classes). The projects' directory structure will be:

• my-common/
  • src/
  • wsdl/
  • jaxws/
  • pom.xml
• my-service
  • src/
  • webapp/
  • pom.xml
• my-client
  • src/
  • webapp/
  • pom.xml

Actually, when I've started the project, I have realised that using wsgen → WSDL → wsimport scheme is a bit complicated and excessive: you will be generated the same set of JAXB beans both for server and client, which you might want to share between Web Service and Java Web Client. So what we can do:

• Create a Java class (the implementation of my future Web Service) with all methods, input/output arguments classes and exceptions defined. The implementation should be marked with @WebService annotation.
• Run wsgen for it:

  [INFO] Scanning for projects...
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] Building My DB Service
  [INFO]    task-segment: [clean, install]
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] [resources:resources]
  ...
  [INFO] [compiler:compile]
  [INFO] Compiling 4 source files to my-db-service\target\classes
  [INFO] [jaxws:wsgen {execution: default}]
  Note:   ap round: 1
  [ProcessedMethods Class: org.mycompany.service.db.service.MyDBServiceImpl]
  [should process method: addConcept hasWebMethods: true ]
  [endpointReferencesInterface: false]
  [declaring class has WebSevice: true]
  [returning: true]
  [WrapperGen - method: addConcept(java.lang.String,java.lang.String,org.mycompany.service.db.service.ConceptType)]
  [method.getDeclaringType(): org.mycompany.service.db.service.MyDBServiceImpl]
  [requestWrapper: org.mycompany.service.db.service.jaxws.AddConcept]
  [ProcessedMethods Class: java.lang.Object]
  org\mycompany\service\db\service\jaxws\AddConcept.java
  org\mycompany\service\db\service\jaxws\AddConceptResponse.java
  org\mycompany\service\db\service\jaxws\MyDBServiceExceptionBean.java
  Note:   ap round: 2
  [INFO] [war:war]
  ...

• Modify the resulting WSDL/XSD as necessary.

package org.mycompany.service.db.service;
 
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Date;
 
import javax.jws.WebService;
 
import org.mycompany.service.Concept;
import org.mycompany.service.ConceptType;
import org.mycompany.service.db.jaxws.MyDBService;
import org.mycompany.service.db.jaxws.MyDBServiceException;
 
@WebService(name = "MyDBService", endpointInterface = "org.mycompany.service.db.jaxws.MyDBService", targetNamespace = "http://service.mycompany.org/")
public class MyDBServiceImpl implements MyDBService {
 
    /**
     * This method simply creates a new {@link Concept} instance based on passed arguments.
     */
    @Override
    public Concept addConcept(String id, String creator, ConceptType type) throws MyDBServiceException {
        return new Concept(id, new Date(), new Concept.Types(Arrays.asList(type)), creator);
    }
}

Now we are ready to do the reverse thing: generate beans and Web Service interface, complete the implementation and write a sample client for the service. In order to automate wsimport process we will use JAX-WS Maven Plugin.

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>jaxws-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>generate-sources</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>wsimport</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <sourceDestDir>${project.build.sourceDirectory}</sourceDestDir>
                <keep>true</keep>
                <!-- verbose>true</verbose -->
                <wsdlDirectory>wsdl</wsdlDirectory>
                <wsdlFiles>
                    <wsdlFile>MyDBService.wsdl</wsdlFile>
                </wsdlFiles>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

After execution we see:

> mvn install

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building My DB Common
[INFO]    task-segment: [install]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [jaxws:wsimport {execution: default}]
[INFO] Processing: wsdl\MyDBService.wsdl
...
parsing WSDL...

generating code...

org\mycompany\service\AddConcept.java
org\mycompany\service\AddConceptResponse.java
org\mycompany\service\Concept.java
org\mycompany\service\ConceptType.java
org\mycompany\service\MyDBImplService.java
org\mycompany\service\MyDBService.java
org\mycompany\service\MyDBServiceException.java
org\mycompany\service\MyDBServiceException_Exception.java
org\mycompany\service\ObjectFactory.java
org\mycompany\service\package-info.java
...

OK, what we get as the result:

• Both JAXB and JAX-WS entities are generated in the same package, which is, by default, constructed from a target namespace of our service (targetNamespace="http://service.mycompany.org/"). This is sometimes not handy, as we want to separate them. Also this causes a minor name collision for the class MyDBServiceException, which is from one side JAXB bean for serialization of this exception (and is not a real Exception) and JAX-WS entity ugly called MyDBServiceException_Exception which is used in throws statements of service interface methods (and is a real Exception). We can separate packages for JAXB and JAX-WS in order to resolve this collision implicitly. For this we will add the following to jaxws/jaxws-binding.xml:

  jaxws/jaxws-binding.xml

  <jaxws:bindings version="2.0"
      xmlns:jaxws="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jaxws"
      xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/"
      wsdlLocation="../wsdl/MyDBService.wsdl" >
   
      <jaxws:package name="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxws" />
  </jaxws:bindings>

  jaxws/jaxb-binding.xml

  <jaxb:bindings version="1.0"
      xmlns:jaxb="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jaxb"
      xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
      schemaLocation="../wsdl/MyDBService.xsd"
      node="/xsd:schema">
   
      <jaxb:schemaBindings>
          <jaxb:package name="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb" />
      </jaxb:schemaBindings>
  </jaxb:bindings>

• The XSD type xsd:dateTime is represented with class javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar, which you might wish to change to java.util.Date²⁾. To make a trick we need to create a helper class with static methods that actually makes a conversion³⁾:

  XSDateTimeCustomBinder.java

  package org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb;
   
  import java.util.Calendar;
  import java.util.Date;
  import java.util.GregorianCalendar;
   
  import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;
   
  public class XSDateTimeCustomBinder {
   
      public static Date parseDateTime(String dateTime) {
          return DatatypeConverter.parseDate(dateTime).getTime();
      }
   
      public static String printDateTime(Date date) {
          final Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
   
          cal.setTime(date);
   
          return DatatypeConverter.printDateTime(cal);
      }
  }

  and use this class in JAXB javaType customization in jaxws/jaxb-binding.xml:

  <jaxb:bindings version="1.0" ...>
      <jaxb:globalBindings>
          <jaxb:javaType
              name="java.util.Date"
              xmlType="xsd:dateTime"
              parseMethod="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb.XSDateTimeCustomBinder.parseDateTime"
              printMethod="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb.XSDateTimeCustomBinder.printDateTime" />
      </jaxb:globalBindings>
  </jaxb:bindings>

The complete file looks like this⁴⁾:

<jaxb:bindings version="1.0"
    xmlns:jaxb="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jaxb"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    schemaLocation="../wsdl/MyDBService.xsd"
    node="/xsd:schema">
 
    <jaxb:globalBindings>
        <jaxb:javaType
            name="java.util.Date"
            xmlType="xsd:dateTime"
            parseMethod="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb.XSDateTimeCustomBinder.parseDateTime"
            printMethod="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb.XSDateTimeCustomBinder.printDateTime" />
    </jaxb:globalBindings>
    <jaxb:schemaBindings>
        <jaxb:package name="org.mycompany.service.db.jaxb" />
    </jaxb:schemaBindings>
</jaxb:bindings>

Also we need to mention it in pom.xml:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>jaxws-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.12</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>generate-sources</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>wsimport</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                ...
                <bindingDirectory>jaxws</bindingDirectory>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Further customizations involve JAXB2 plugins. These plugins hook into generation process and benefit from possibility to manipulate JAXB model to generate more programmer-friendly code⁵⁾. Unfortunately, due to issue#45 it is not possible to inject JAXB plugins into JAX-WS using jaxws-maven-plugin. Also due to some conflicts with build-in Java6 JAXB API, JAXB plugins do not work (see here). As a workaround I have reallocated most popular plugins to com.sun.tools.xjc.addon package.

Now you can include it into your pom.xml:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>jaxws-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.12.3</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            ...
            <configuration>
                <xjcArgs>
                    <xjcArg>-Xxew</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-instantiate early</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-delete</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-Xcommons-lang</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-Xcommons-lang:ToStringStyle=SHORT_PREFIX_STYLE</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-Xdefault-value</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-Xfluent-api</xjcArg>
                    <xjcArg>-Xvalue-constructor</xjcArg>
                </xjcArgs>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

After re-running code generation we get better possibilities to code:

/*
 * This class is not compilable after -Xxew is applied.
 */
/*
public static Concept createDummyConcept_Normal() {
    final Concept concept = new Concept();
    final Concept.Types types = new Concept.Types();
 
    concept.setCreator("robot");
    concept.setCreationDateTime(new Date());
    concept.setTypes(types);
 
    types.getType().add(ConceptType.CREATURE);
    types.getType().add(ConceptType.HUMAN);
    types.getType().add(ConceptType.WOMAN);
 
    return concept;
}
 */
 
public static Concept createDummyConcept_ListAccess() {
    final Concept concept = new Concept();
 
    concept.setCreator("computer");
    concept.setCreationDateTime(new Date());
 
    // -Xxew demo:
    concept.getTypes().add(ConceptType.CREATURE);
    concept.getTypes().add(ConceptType.HUMAN);
    concept.getTypes().add(ConceptType.WOMAN);
 
    return concept;
}
 
public static Concept createDummyConcept_Construtor() {
    // -Xvalue-constructor demo:
    return new Concept("99", new Date(), "neighbour", Arrays.asList(ConceptType.CREATURE, ConceptType.HUMAN,
            ConceptType.WOMAN));
}
 
public static Concept createDummyConcept_FluentAPI() {
    // -Xfluent-api demo:
    return new Concept().withId("01").withCreationDateTime(new Date()).withCreator("author").withTypes(
            ConceptType.CREATURE, ConceptType.CHILD);
}

Further improvement comes from the fact that staring from v2.1.4 of JAX-WS RI it is not necessary to run wsgen to generate wrapper classes for input/output arguments of webservice methods⁷⁾. So all we need is to generate JAXB beans for our datatypes XSD. We will also suppress generation of file headers with timestamp information, as it makes life with source version control easier. That can be done with the help of the following pom.xml:

<project ...>
    ...
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
            <version>2.4</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
 
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2.maven2</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-jaxb2-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>0.7.2</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>generate</goal>
                        </goals>
                        <configuration>
                            <!--verbose>true</verbose-->
                            <generateDirectory>${project.build.sourceDirectory}</generateDirectory>
                            <schemaDirectory>xsd</schemaDirectory>
                            <bindingDirectory>jaxb</bindingDirectory>
                            <removeOldOutput>false</removeOldOutput>
                            <forceRegenerate>false</forceRegenerate>
 
                            <extension>true</extension>
                            <args>
                                <arg>-no-header</arg> <!-- suppress generation of a file header with timestamp -->
                                <arg>-Xxew</arg>
                                <arg>-instantiate early</arg>
                                <arg>-delete</arg>
                                <arg>-Xcommons-lang</arg>
                                <arg>-Xcommons-lang:ToStringStyle=SHORT_PREFIX_STYLE</arg>
                                <arg>-Xdefault-value</arg>
                                <arg>-Xfluent-api</arg>
                                <arg>-Xvalue-constructor</arg>
                            </args>
                            <plugins>
                                <plugin>
                                    <groupId>dk.conspicio.jaxb.plugins</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>jaxb-xew-plugin</artifactId>
                                    <version>1.3</version>
                                </plugin>
                                <plugin>
                                    <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2_commons.tools.xjc.plugin</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>jaxb-commons-lang-plugin</artifactId>
                                    <version>1.0</version>
                                </plugin>
                                <plugin>
                                    <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2_commons.tools.xjc.plugin</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>jaxb-default-value-plugin</artifactId>
                                    <version>1.0</version>
                                </plugin>
                                <plugin>
                                    <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2_commons.tools.xjc.plugin</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>jaxb-fluent-api-plugin</artifactId>
                                    <version>2.1.8</version>
                                </plugin>
                                <plugin>
                                    <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2_commons.tools.xjc.plugin</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>jaxb-value-constructor-plugin</artifactId>
                                    <version>1.0</version>
                                </plugin>
                                <plugin>
                                    <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
                                    <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
                                    <version>2.4</version>
                                </plugin>
                            </plugins>
                        </configuration>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
 
    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net</id>
            <url>http://download.java.net/maven/2/</url>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>
 
</project>

Notes:

• Due to issue#697 commons-lang should be mentioned in <plugins> as well as in <dependencies> section.
• All JAXB plugins are not available in Maven public replository, so you have to install them manually using fake groupId and artifactId.
• jaxb-xew-plugin⁸⁾ should be triggered first, as it changes the class model. Otherwise you'll get compilation problems in methods generated before it removes the unnecessary classes.

First, let's create deployment descriptors. For client, web.xml is empty (using default JSP servlet) and for server we need a special servlet, that will handle requests for services and route them to corresponding service endpoint. So the files to be placed to webapp/WEB-INF folder are:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4"
    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
 
    <listener>
        <listener-class>com.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.servlet.WSServletContextListener</listener-class>
    </listener>
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>WSServlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.servlet.WSServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>WSServlet</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/my-service</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
    <session-config>
        <session-timeout>60</session-timeout>
    </session-config>
</web-app>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<endpoints xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/jax-ws/ri/runtime" version="2.0">
    <endpoint
        name="MyDBService"
        implementation="org.mycompany.service.db.service.MyDBServiceImpl"
        url-pattern="/my-service"
    />
</endpoints>

And now we have to include jaxws-rt into our package, that actually holds the servlet and also tune maven-war-plugin to get WEB-INF resources from webapp folder:

<project>
    <groupId>org.mycompany.db-service</groupId>
    <artifactId>my-db-service</artifactId>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    ...
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>${project.groupId}</groupId>
            <artifactId>my-db-common</artifactId>
            <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
        </dependency>
 
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.sun.xml.ws</groupId>
            <artifactId>jaxws-rt</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.4</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
 
    <build>
        <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
 
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <warSourceDirectory>webapp</warSourceDirectory>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            ...
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Refer How to deploy to remote Tomcat concerning how to deploy our Web Service and client to remote Tomcat / JBoss.

This approach is relatively simple to implement:

• You have to mark your bean as @WebService as described above.
• You add jaxws-spring dependency instead of jaxws-ri⁹⁾:

  pom.xml

  <dependency>
      <groupId>org.jvnet.jax-ws-commons.spring</groupId>
      <artifactId>jaxws-spring</artifactId>
      <version>1.8</version>
      <scope>runtime</scope>
  </dependency>

• You pass the location of your Spring Web context via servlet context attribute contextConfigLocation and use WSSpringServlet to handle requests.
• Servlet URL and binding URL should be the same

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4"
    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
 
    <!-- Context loader creates a Spring web contexts and puts it into servlet context. -->
    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>
 
    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/application.context.xml</param-value>
    </context-param>
 
    <!-- This servlet lookups the Spring web context in servlet context and process the bindings. -->
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>jaxws-servlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>com.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.servlet.WSSpringServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
 
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>jaxws-servlet</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/test-ws</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<beans
    xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:ws="http://jax-ws.dev.java.net/spring/core"
    xmlns:wss="http://jax-ws.dev.java.net/spring/servlet"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
        http://jax-ws.dev.java.net/spring/core https://jax-ws.dev.java.net/spring/core.xsd
        http://jax-ws.dev.java.net/spring/servlet https://jax-ws.dev.java.net/spring/servlet.xsd">
 
    <wss:binding url="/test-ws">
        <wss:service>
            <ws:service bean="#testWS"></ws:service>
        </wss:service>
    </wss:binding>
 
    <bean id="testWS" class="org.mycompany.service.db.service.MyDBServiceImpl">
        ...
    </bean>
</beans>

If you wish to use WSSpringServlet in more complicated configurations (e.g. when the service is wrapped into AOP proxy to support transactions) first head this note.

• The complete projects can be downloaded from here (31.57 KiB, 82 downloads) and here (25.96 KiB, 95 downloads)
• Building JAX-WS web service
• Using JAX-WS with Maven
• JBossWS -- Quick Start
• Apache Axis2 JAX-WS Guide
• JAX-WS / wsimport problems by Cavia Porcellus enumerates all current problems with the technology and offers the alternaive solution: perform bean generation with maven-antrun-plugin.
• JAX-WS Hello World Example with Java6
• JBoss WS FAQ
  • How does JBossWS compare to other SOAP stacks – the comparison matrix of Axis, Celtix, Glue, JBoss, XFire and GlassFish.
  • JAX-WS Tools for JBoss – creating and consuming JBoss WebServices.
• Set of technical articles on Apache CXF (How to add custom HTTP headers to a web service request? How to add custom SOAP message headers to a web service request? Apache CXF-based Java Web Services: How to log/print the payload XML of incoming SOAP request using LoggingInInterceptor?)