URL Mapping for Services

When a tenant hosts a service to be used by external parties, it should ideally have a short URL. Shorter URLs are easier to be memorized and typed, which eliminates the need to log-in to access the service. Also, tenant information and other descriptive attributes are hidden in shorter URLs, and they are more convenient in hard-copy productions.

As a result, context mapping capability for services (Axis2, Jar, Spring, Data Services etc.) and applications is facilitated by the  following feature in the WSO2 feature repository:

Name : WSO2 Carbon - URL Mapper Feature
Identifier : org.wso2.carbon.url.mapper.feature.group

In Application Server, a service's endpoint is accessible through http://localhost:port/services/service_context/  and service endpoint of tenant is accessible through http://localhost:port/services/t/tenant_domain/service_context/ . Instead of going through this long URL process, the URL Mapping feature provides a way to access your hosted service endpoint with a shorter URL like http://serviceid.localhost:port/ in standalone products. For example, if the actual URL of a service endpoint is https://localhost:9443/services/admin/RESTSample/, after URL mapping is given as 'servicetest', you get a shorter endpoint URL as https://servicetest.localhost:9443/.

The URL mapping functionality is bundled by default in the WSO2 Application Server. If it is not included in the WSO2 product you are using, you can install it using the instructions provided in section  Server Provisioning through Feature Management. Once installed, the necessary menus will appear in the product's management console.

Follow the instructions below to shorten the URL of a service.

1. Log on to the product's m anagement console and select "Services -> List" under the "Main" menu.

2. The "Deployed Services" page appears which lists out all the currently active services. Select a service and click on it to view its dashboard. For example,

3. If the "URL Mapper" feature is installed in the product, you can find the "URL Mappings" link in the service's dashboard.

 Click the "URL Mappings" link.

4. The "URL Mappings" window opens. Click the "Add New Mapping" link.

 5. Enter a URL mapping name. For example,

6. The added URL mapping appears in the "URL Mapping" window.

Here the suffix "localhost" comes from CARBON_HOME/repository/conf/etc/url-mapping-config.xml. You can configure your own suffix and 'URL mappings limit' per service in the mentioned configuration file. By default, the suffix is "localhost" and 'URL mappings limit' is one.

7. The service's wsdl files, tryit tool and rest calls can be accessed with the shortened endpoint URLs as follows:

• http://examplemap.localhost:port?wsdl - to access the wsdl of your service  
•   http://examplemap.localhost:port?tryit - to access the tryit tool of your service  
•   http://examplemap.localhost:port /getQuote - to access rest call of your service

To access your own domain, a cname is required. If a cname is not available at the moment, you can use /etc/hosts file in ubuntu or Windows\Syst em32\drivers\et c\hosts file in windows to put your domain entries pointing to the local ip. For example,

127.0.0.1       exampleapp.localhost

 This is applicable only for testing purposes.