Java ^TM API for XML Web Services
(JAX-WS)
WS-Addressing in JAX-WS 2.1

Specification Version: 2.1
Implementation Version: 2.1.7

1. WS-Addressing in JAX-WS 2.1

1.1. Why WS-Addressing ?

1.2. WSDL Description

1.3. When is WS-Addressing engaged?

1.4. wsaw:Anonymous

2. On the server side

2.1. Starting from Java

2.1.1. Addressing annotations

2.1.2. Implicit Action

2.1.3. Explicit Action

2.2. Starting from WSDL

3. On the client side

3.1. Implicit behavior

3.2. Explicit enabling

3.3. Explicit disabling

1. WS-Addressing in JAX-WS 2.1

Web Services Addressing provides transport-neutral mechanisms to address Web services and messages. JAX-WS 2.1 specification requires support for W3C Core, SOAP Binding and WSDL Binding. In addition to that, JAX-WS RI also supports Member Submission version of WS-Addressing. This allows an application built using standard JAX-WS 2.1 APIs to enable/disable W3C WS-Addressing on the client and service endpoint. The member submission version is supported in an implementation specific way. The subsequent sections describe how the two WS-Addressing versions can be enabled/disabled on client and server side .

1.1. Why WS-Addressing ?

This document explains what is WS-Addressing and why it is required.

1.2. WSDL Description

W3C WS-Addressing WSDL Binding defines a new standard extensibility element, wsaw:UsingAddressing, that can be used to indicate that an endpoint conforms to the WS-Addressing specification. JAX-WS RI generates this extension element in the WSDL if W3C WS-Addressing is enabled on the server-side. On the client side, the RI recognizes this extension element and enforce the rules defined by the W3C specification. This extensibility element may be augmented with wsdl:required attribute to indicate whether WS-Addressing is required (true) or not (false).

There is no standard mechanism to describe Member Submission version support in the WSDL.

1.3. When is WS-Addressing engaged?

W3C WS-Addressing SOAP Binding defines that if a receiver processes a message containing a wsa:Action header, then SOAP Binding is engaged, and the rules of the specification are enforced. In JAX-WS RI, if WS-Addressing is explicitly disabled then the RI does not follow the rules of engagement. However if WS-Addressing is either implicitly or explicitly enabled then JAX-WS RI engages WS-Addressing based upon the presence of wsa:Action header. JAX-WS RI follows same rule for Member Submission version as well.

In effect, if an endpoint advertises WS-Addressing in the WSDL with wsdl:required="false" and a client does not send any WS-Addressing header then no WS-Addressing fault is returned back to the client. However if the client send wsa:Action header then the endpoint will enforce all the rules of the specification. For example, if the wsa:MessageID header is missing for a request/response MEP then a fault with appropriate code and sub-code is thrown back to the client.

1.4. wsaw:Anonymous

W3C WS-Addressing WSDL Binding defines wsaw:Anonymous element which when used in conjunction with wsaw:UsingAddressing define assertions regarding a requirement or a constraint in the use of anonymous URI in EPRs sent to the endpoint. The WSDL Binding defines three distinct values: optional, required and prohibited to express the assertion. The default value of wsaw:Anonymous (equivalent to not present) is optional. An operation with required wsaw:Anonymous value is shown below:

<wsaw:UsingAddressing wsdl:required="true"/>
<soap:binding transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http" style="document"/>
  <operation name="addNumbers">
    <soap:operation soapAction=""/>
    ...
    <wsaw:Anonymous>required</wsaw:Anonymous>
  </operation> 
<soap:binding>

In this case, a message received at the endpoint, for this operation, with a non-anonymous ReplyTo or FaultTo EPR will result in a fault message returned back to the client with wsa:OnlyAnonymousAddressSupported fault code.

There is no such equivalent feature in Member Submission WS-Addressing.

2. On the server side

This section describes how W3C and Member Submission WS-Addressing can be enabled/disabled on the server-side.

2.1. Starting from Java

This section describes how WS-Addressing can be enabled/disabled if you develop an endpoint starting from a Java SEI.

By default, WS-Addressing is disabled on an endpoint starting from Java. If that is the expected behavior, then nothing else needs to be done. In that case any WS-Addressing headers received at the endpoint are ignored.

2.1.1. Addressing annotations

If WS-Addressing support needs to be enabled on an endpoint, then along with javax.jws.WebService annotation, javax.xml.ws.soap.Addressing annotation need to be specified for enabling W3C WS-Addressing. If Member Submission WS-Addressing needs to be enabled then com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressing annotation needs to be specified on the service endpoint. For example, the service endpoint in fromjava-wsaddressing sample looks like:

@javax.xml.ws.soap.Addressing
@javax.jws.WebService
public class AddNumbersImpl {
...
}

To enable, Member Submission WS-Addressing, the SEI definition needs to be changed to:

@com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressing
@javax.jws.WebService
public class AddNumbersImpl {
...
}

Once WS-Addressing support is enabled on a service endpoint, then:

For W3C only, the standard wsaw:UsingAddressing extensibility element is generated in the corresponding wsdl:binding section. For Member Submission, there is no standard mechanism.
All WS-Addressing headers are understood, i.e. if any WS-Addressing header is received with a mustUnderstand="1", then a mustUnderstand fault is not thrown back.
All WS-Addressing headers received at the endpoint are checked for correct syntax, for example an error is returned back if wsa:ReplyTo header does not match the infoset defined in the corresponding specification.
If any WS-Addressing header received at the endpoint is not of correct cardinality, then an error is returned back to the client.
If wsa:Action header value does not match with that expected for that operation, then an error is returned back to the client.
Any response message sent back to the client contains the required WS-Addressing headers.

Annotation parameters

Both javax.xml.ws.soap.Addressing and com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressing annotations take two optional Boolean parameters, enabled (default true) and required (default false). If required is specified true, then WS-Addressing rules are enforced. Otherwise the inbound message is inspected to find out if WS-A is engaged and then the rules are enforced.

In addition, for W3C only, wsdl:required="true" is generated on the extensibility element.

For example, to enforce Member Submission WS-Addressing rules on the server side, the above code sample will change to:

@com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressing(enabled=true, required=true)
@javax.jws.WebService
public class AddNumbersImpl {
...
}

2.1.2. Implicit Action

In most common cases, an implicit Action association, as defined by W3C WS-Addressing WSDL Binding and Member Submission, will be sufficient. For such cases, only using the correct annotation to enable Addressing is required. The client looking at such a WSDL will send the implicit wsa:Action header. If only Addressing is enabled by using the appropriate annotation at the SEI,

2.1.3. Explicit Action

This section describes how an explicit Action Message Addressing Property can be associated with an operation in the SEI.

W3C WS-Addressing WSDL Binding and Member Submission WS-Addressing define mechanisms to associate Action Message Addressing Property with an operation. JAX-WS 2.1 defines javax.xml.ws.Action and javax.xml.ws.FaultAction annotations to explicitly associate an Action with input, output, and fault messages of the mapped WSDL operation. For example, one of the methods in the fromjava-wsaddressing sample looks like:

@Action(
  input = "http://example.com/input3",
  output = "http://example.com/output3",
  fault = {
    @FaultAction(className = AddNumbersException.class, value = "http://example.com/fault3")
  })
public int addNumbers3(int number1, int number2) throws AddNumbersException {
...
}

The generated WSDL fragment looks like:

<operation name="addNumbers3">
  <input wsaw:Action="http://example.com/input3" message="tns:addNumbers3"/>
  <output wsaw:Action="http://example.com/output3" message="tns:addNumbers3Response"/>
  <fault message="tns:AddNumbersException" name="AddNumbersException" wsaw:Action="http://example.com/fault3"/>
</operation>

where wsaw is bound to W3C WSDL Binding namespace or Member Submission namespace depending upon the annotation used to enable Addressing.

2.2. Starting from WSDL

This section describes how WS-Addressing can be enabled/disabled if you develop an endpoint starting from a WSDL.

For W3C only, if the WSDL contains the standard extensibility element wsaw:UsingAddressing then that is sufficient. The only way to enable Member Submission WS-Addressing is to use the com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmission annotation described above.

3. On the client side

This section describes how W3C and Member Submission WS-Addressing can be enabled/disabled on the server-side. JAX-WS 2.1 follows the standard extensibility elements to enable WS-Addressing support on the client side. In addition, it also allows the client to instruct JAX-WS RI to disable WS-Addressing processing. The assumption is that in this case the client has it's own WS-Addressing processing module. For example, a Dispatch-based client in MESSAGE mode may be used to perform non-anonymous ReplyTo/FaultTo processing.

3.1. Implicit behavior

As defined in Section 1.1, W3C defines a standard extensibility element, wsaw:UsingAddressing, to indicate that the endpoint conforms to W3C specification. If the WSDL contains this extensibility element, then JAX-WS RI:

Maps any wsaw:Action in the input, output and fault elements of wsdl:operation to javax.xml.ws.Action and javax.xml.ws.FaultAction annotation in the generated SEI.
Generates Action, To, MessageID and anonymous ReplyTo headers on the outbound request.
Any WS-Addressing headers received on the client are understood.

There is no standard extensibility element for Member Submission WS-Addressing and so there is no implicit behavior defined. It can only be explicitly enabled as described in the next section.

3.2. Explicit enabling

If a WSDL does not contain WS-Addressing standard extensibility element, then either W3C WS-Addressing or Member Submission WS-Addressing can be explicitly enabled using createDispatch and getPort methods on javax.xml.ws.Service. The following new APIs are added in JAX-WS 2.1:

<T> Dispatch<T> createDispatch(javax.xml.namespace.QName portName, java.lang.Class<T> type, Service.Mode mode, WebServiceFeature... features)
Dispatch<java.lang.Object> createDispatch(javax.xml.namespace.QName portName, javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext context, Service.Mode mode, WebServiceFeature... features)
<T> T getPort(java.lang.Class<T> serviceEndpointInterface, WebServiceFeature... features)
<T> T getPort(javax.xml.namespace.QName portName, java.lang.Class<T> serviceEndpointInterface, WebServiceFeature... features)

Each method is a variation of an already existing method in JAX-WS 2.0. The only addition is an extra var-arg javax.xml.ws.WebServiceFeature parameter. A WebServiceFeature is a new class introduced in JAX-WS 2.1 specification used to represent a feature that can be enabled or disabled for a Web service.

The JAX-WS 2.1 specification defines javax.xml.ws.soap.AddressingFeature to enable W3C WS-Addressing on the client side. In addition, the JAX-WS RI also defines com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressingFeature to enable Member Submission WS-Addressing on the client side.

For example in fromjava-wsaddressing example, in order to enable W3C WS-Addressing on a proxy, wsimport is used to generate the AddNumbersImplService class. Then a port can be obtained using the getAddNumbersImplPort method and passing an instance of javax.xml.ws.AddressingFeature. The code looks like:

new AddNumbersImplService().getAddNumbersImplPort(new javax.xml.ws.AddressingFeature());

Similarly, a Dispatch instance with Member Submission WS-Addressing can be created as:

new AddNumbersImplService().createDispatch( new QName("http://server.fromjava_wsaddressing/", "AddNumbersImplPort"), SOAPMessage.class, Service.Mode.MESSAGE, new com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressingFeature());

Feature Parameters

Both javax.xml.ws.soap.AddressingFeature and com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressingFeature take two optional Boolean parameters, enabled (default true) and required (default false). If enabled, all WS-Addressing headers are generated for an outbound message. If required is specified true, then WS-Addressing rules are enforced for inbound message. Otherwise the inbound message is inspected to find out if WS-A is engaged and then the rules are enforced.

For example, to enforce Member Submission WS-Addressing rules on the client side, the above code sample will change to:

new AddNumbersImplService().getAddNumbersImplPort(new com.sun.xml.ws.developer.MemberSubmissionAddressingFeature(true, true));

3.3. Explicit disabling

A client may like to instruct JAX-WS RI to disable WS-Addressing processing. The assumption is that in this case the client has it's own WS-Addressing processing module. For example, a Dispatch-based client in MESSAGE mode may be used to perform non-anonymous ReplyTo/FaultTo processing.

WS-Addressing processing can be explicitly disabled using one of new methods added to JAX-WS 2.1 specification as defined in Section 3.2. For example, W3C WS-Addressing processing can be disabled using the following code:

new AddNumbersImplService().getAddNumbersImplPort(new javax.xml.ws.AddressingFeature(false));

Java TM API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) WS-Addressing in JAX-WS 2.1

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