How to unpackage and repackage a WAR file

Question

I have a WAR file. I would like to open it, edit an XML file, remove some jars and then re-package it.

I used WINRAR to open the WAR file and I removed some Jars and

Answer 1

This worked for me:

mv xyz.war ./tmp
cd tmp
jar -xvf xyz.war
rm -rf WEB-INF/lib/zookeeper-3.4.10.jar
rm -rf xyz.war
jar -cvf xyz.war *
mv xyz.war ../
cd ..

Answer 2

Adapting from the above answers, this works for Tomcat, but can be adapted for JBoss as well or any container:

sudo -u tomcat /opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
cd /opt/tomcat/webapps
sudo mkdir tmp; cd tmp
sudo jar -xvf ../myapp.war
#make edits...
sudo vi WEB-INF/classes/templates/fragments/header.html
sudo vi WEB-INF/classes/application.properties
#end of making edits
sudo jar -cvf myapp0.0.1.war *
sudo cp myapp0.0.1.war ..
cd ..
sudo chown tomcat:tomcat myapp0.0.1.war
sudo rm -rf tmp
sudo -u tomcat /opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh

Answer 3

I am sure there is ANT tags to do it but have used this 7zip hack in .bat script. I use http://www.7-zip.org/ command line tool. All the times I use this for changing jdbc url within j2ee context.xml file.

mkdir .\temp-install
c:\apps\commands\7za.exe x -y mywebapp.war META-INF/context.xml -otemp-install\mywebapp
..here I have small tool to replace text in xml file..
c:\apps\commands\7za.exe u -y -tzip mywebapp.war ./temp-install/mywebapp/*
rmdir /Q /S .\temp-install

You could extract entire .war file (its zip after all), delete files, replace files, add files, modify files and repackage to .war archive file. But changing one file in a large .war archive this might be best extracting specific file and then update original archive.

Answer 4

copy your war file to /tmp now extract the contents:

cp warfile.war /tmp
cd /tmp
unzip warfile.war
cd WEB-INF
nano web.xml (or vim or any editor you want to use)
cd ..
zip -r -u warfile.war WEB-INF

now you have in /tmp/warfile.war your file updated.

Answer 5

you can update your war from the command line using java commands as mentioned here:

jar -uvf test.war yourclassesdir 

Other useful commands:

Command to unzip/explode the war file

jar -xvf test.war

Command to create the war file

jar -cvf test.war yourclassesdir 

Eg:

jar -cvf test.war *
jar -cvf test.war WEB-INF META-INF

Answer 6

Maybe, you have modified the structure of the war or deploying it on a different server version. Checkout these links Error deploying war into JBoss AS 7 (domain mode): "Failed to process phase STRUCTURE of deployment" and https://community.jboss.org/thread/199387?start=0&tstart=0&_sscc=t