Environment Setup

A CXF project needs a JDK, Maven, and a small set of runtime dependencies. The standalone examples in this course use CXF's embedded Jetty transport, so no application server is required for the first chapters.

Install the toolchain

java -version
mvn -version

Use Java 17 or newer with CXF 4.x. Maven 3.8 or newer is sufficient. Confirm that JAVA_HOME points to the same JDK that Maven uses; a mismatch produces confusing compile errors.

Create a Maven project

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.example \
  -DartifactId=cxf-demo -Dversion=1.0.0 \
  -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart \
  -DinteractiveMode=false

Add CXF dependencies

<properties>
    <maven.compiler.release>17</maven.compiler.release>
    <cxf.version>4.0.5</cxf.version>
</properties>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
        <artifactId>cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws</artifactId>
        <version>${cxf.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
        <artifactId>cxf-rt-transports-http-jetty</artifactId>
        <version>${cxf.version}</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws brings the JAX-WS runtime and the jakarta.jws annotations. The Jetty transport lets a main method publish an endpoint without a servlet container. Later chapters add cxf-rt-frontend-jaxrs and cxf-rt-transports-jms when those styles are introduced.

Project layout

cxf-demo/
├── pom.xml
└── src/
    └── main/
        ├── java/com/example/...
        └── resources/

Keep service interfaces, implementations, and launchers in separate packages once the project grows. A small package layout such as com.example.service, com.example.server, and com.example.client keeps the generated WSDL and client code easy to reason about.

Run a class from Maven

Add the exec plugin so the examples can start with one command:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.2.0</version>
</plugin>

mvn -q compile exec:java -Dexec.mainClass=com.example.server.HelloServer

Verify the setup

Create a trivial class that prints a line and run it. If Maven compiles and the class starts, the toolchain is ready. The next chapter publishes an actual endpoint and opens it in a browser.

Common setup problems

• Wrong Java version shows up as an unsupported class file version during compilation.
• Missing Jetty transport produces a "no conduit" error when publishing over HTTP.
• Port already in use means another process holds 8080; change the address or stop the process.
• Mixed javax and jakarta imports compile but fail at runtime; pick one API generation for the whole project.

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