Starting and ending Apache webserver from maven - .htaccess

Question

I have an old web project that I'm currently mavenizing. This has been written for Apache httpd, that means a lot of rules are sitting in lots of .htaccess files (redirects, rewrites) and the pages use server side includes. I tried to use jetty with the HTAccessHandler, but this doesn't care for the rewrites/redirects. I think I now need to get to use httpd to get that properly processed, but is there a way to start apache webserver embedded from maven? Or do you know a java webserver implementation that can handle all the .htaccess properties?
Cheers,
Kai

Answer 1

To answer myself, I am now using the antrun plugin to start the Apache httpd binary and to call the system specific kill command with the pid file Apache is creating. I'm providing a httpd.conf file with my project where I filter maven properties including the target port, the log location and the pidfile name and location. system specific values are set by maven profiles activated by the os family. The home folder of apache httpd is to be set in the users settings.xml file. This looks like:
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.7</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>Starting Apache</id>
<phase>pre-integration-test</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<target name="Starting Apache">
<mkdir dir="${project.build.directory}/logs" />
<echo>Starting Apache httpd:</echo>
<exec executable="${apache.home}/${apache.executable}" spawn="true">
<arg value="-f" />
<arg value="${project.build.directory}/httpd.conf" />
</exec>
</target>
</configuration>
</execution>
<execution>
<id>Stopping Apache</id>
<phase>post-integration-test</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<target name="Stopping Apache">
<echo>Stopping Apache httpd:</echo>
<loadfile property="PID" srcFile="${project.build.directory}/httpd.pid">
<filterchain>
<striplinebreaks />
</filterchain>
</loadfile>
<exec executable="${kill.executable}" failonerror="true">
<arg value="${kill.argument1}" />
<arg value="${kill.argument2}" />
<arg value="${kill.argument3}" />
<arg value="${PID}" />
</exec>
</target>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

Answer 2

I had a look at various newsgroups as we have the same feature request in our community
We will starting to develop a httpd-plugin in the next days. However I tried to find something at google but there seems to be no plugin that covers this topic. Developing a plugin to start and stop an apache should be fairly simple. Since Maven java it is clear to me why nearly everyone prefers tomcat or jetty.
Targeted for version 2.0 of php-maven
The Plugin will be similar to the jetty and tomcat plugin (identical goals, similar setup). The first versions will be depending on a separate installation of apache and will only setup either a virtual host or set the document root. For simple configurations and on development machines this will be ok.
Watch http://www.php-maven.org/rss.xml or https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/maven-for-php for news.
However please submit your wishes at http://trac.php-maven.org/ticket/47 (registration required) or at our google group.