Jetty 9.0.6 - java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect

Question

I support a web application using Jetty 9.0.6 and JRE 1.7.0_45, and all the war files in the Jetty\webapps folder deploy successfully. The only problem I have is with the webapps\root folder where I'm receiving a connection refused message in the log files during Jetty startup.

2014-06-19 13:43:16.766:WARN:oejw.WebAppContext:main: Failed startup of context o.e.j.w.WebAppContext@919610{/,file:/C:/Program%20Files/MyApplication/Jetty/webapps/root/,null}{C:\Program Files\MyApplication\Jetty\webapps\root}
java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect
    at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.connect0(Native Method)
    at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(DualStackPlainSocketImpl.java:79)
    at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:339)
    at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:200)
    at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:182)
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:172)
    at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
    at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:579)
    at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:528)
    at sun.net.NetworkClient.doConnect(NetworkClient.java:180)
    at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:432)
    at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.openServer(HttpClient.java:527)
    at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.<init>(HttpClient.java:211)
    at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:308)
    at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.New(HttpClient.java:326)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getNewHttpClient(HttpURLConnection.java:996)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect(HttpURLConnection.java:932)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.connect(HttpURLConnection.java:850)
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1300)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLEntityManager.setupCurrentEntity(XMLEntityManager.java:637)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLEntityManager.startEntity(XMLEntityManager.java:1290)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLEntityManager.startDTDEntity(XMLEntityManager.java:1257)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDTDScannerImpl.setInputSource(XMLDTDScannerImpl.java:262)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$DTDDriver.dispatch(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:1162)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$DTDDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:1050)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$PrologDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:964)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.java:117)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:649)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:333)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.xml.XmlParser.parse(XmlParser.java:246)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.Descriptor.parse(Descriptor.java:65)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebDescriptor.parse(WebDescriptor.java:148)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.MetaData.setWebXml(MetaData.java:171)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebXmlConfiguration.preConfigure(WebXmlConfiguration.java:61)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.preConfigure(WebAppContext.java:453)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:489)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:69)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.ContainerLifeCycle.start(ContainerLifeCycle.java:118)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.ContainerLifeCycle.addBean(ContainerLifeCycle.java:282)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.ContainerLifeCycle.addBean(ContainerLifeCycle.java:214)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.ContainerLifeCycle.updateBeans(ContainerLifeCycle.java:764)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerCollection.setHandlers(HandlerCollection.java:89)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandlerCollection.setHandlers(ContextHandlerCollection.java:145)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerCollection.addHandler(HandlerCollection.java:155)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.bindings.StandardDeployer.processBinding(StandardDeployer.java:41)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.AppLifeCycle.runBindings(AppLifeCycle.java:186)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.DeploymentManager.requestAppGoal(DeploymentManager.java:495)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.DeploymentManager.addApp(DeploymentManager.java:146)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.providers.ScanningAppProvider.fileAdded(ScanningAppProvider.java:175)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.providers.ScanningAppProvider$1.fileAdded(ScanningAppProvider.java:64)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.Scanner.reportAddition(Scanner.java:605)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.Scanner.reportDifferences(Scanner.java:528)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.Scanner.scan(Scanner.java:391)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.Scanner.doStart(Scanner.java:313)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:69)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.providers.ScanningAppProvider.doStart(ScanningAppProvider.java:145)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:69)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.DeploymentManager.startAppProvider(DeploymentManager.java:557)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.deploy.DeploymentManager.doStart(DeploymentManager.java:232)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:69)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.ContainerLifeCycle.start(ContainerLifeCycle.java:118)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.start(Server.java:342)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.ContainerLifeCycle.doStart(ContainerLifeCycle.java:100)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.AbstractHandler.doStart(AbstractHandler.java:60)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.doStart(Server.java:290)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:69)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.xml.XmlConfiguration$1.run(XmlConfiguration.java:1250)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.xml.XmlConfiguration.main(XmlConfiguration.java:1174)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.start.Main.invokeMain(Main.java:509)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.start.Main.start(Main.java:651)
    at org.eclipse.jetty.start.Main.main(Main.java:99)

The root folder contains a very basic structure.

root/
root/index.html
root/WEB-INF/
root/WEB-INF/web.xml

Basically, the root folders purpose is to redirect a query to root (/) to another path.

This folder deploys successfully 99% of the time on unaffected servers. When it does occur on a specific server, it does so consistently. A successful log entry looks like this.

2014-06-26 18:05:36.408:INFO:oejsh.ContextHandler:main: Started o.e.j.w.WebAppContext@1347593{/,file:/C:/Program%20Files/MyApplication/Jetty/webapps/root/,AVAILABLE}{C:\Program Files\MyApplication\Jetty\webapps\root}

Jetty is running on Windows Servers. I've seen this issue occur on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but it doesn't happen on all servers running those OS versions. I've checked the folder permissions of the root folder and compared them to a server that isn't having this problem and there is no difference. I've also copied the root folder from a server without the issue to a server with the issue and the problem persists.

Can anyone suggest what may be causing this to occur or where to look to troubleshoot this further?

Please keep in mind that changing the version of Jetty isn't an option for me nor is updating the JRE.

Answer 1

This could happen when jetty parse web.xml and tries to download DTD. Try removing DTD from xml, it probably look like this:

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd" >.

As alternative check the URL and java proxy settings.