Section 3.1. Getting a Servlet Environment

3.1. Getting a Servlet Environment

You need a servlet container to run servlets. A servlet container uses a Java virtual machine to run servlet code as requested by a web server. The servlet container is also responsible for managing other aspects of the servlet lifecycle : user sessions, classloading, servlet contexts, servlet configuration information, servlet persistence, and temporary storage.

Because Tomcat is the reference implementation for the Servlet API, all the examples in this chapter have been tested with it. Tomcat 4.x supports the 2.3 API, and Tomcat 5.x supports the 2.4 API. Since Tomcat falls under the Apache umbrella, distribution is free, and you can download a copy (including, if you like, full source code) from http://jakarta.apache.org.Binary installations are available for Windows and several Unix flavors.