Set context path in a Spring Boot application

This post will discuss how to set a context path in a Spring Boot application.

By default, Spring Boot serves content on the root context path (/). We can set the context path of the Spring Boot application in a properties file called application, which is available in two formats – .properties and .yml.

1. Property file

In Spring Boot, we can set the context path in application.properties, as shown in the following example:

1	server.contextPath=/context-path

Note that with the release of Spring Boot 2.0.0, the context path property has been changed to the following:

1	server.servlet.contextPath=/context-path

2. YAML file

We can also store external properties in a YAML file, application.yml, which is a superset of JSON. The preceding example corresponds to the following YAML file:

1 2	server: contextPath: /context-path

For Spring Boot 2.0.0 and above:

server:

servlet:

contextPath: /context-path

Note that both application.properties and application.yml can be placed in four pre-determined locations:

root of the classpath (src\main\resources)
current directory
package /config in classpath
/config subdirectory of the current directory

We can also use Java System Property, OS environment variables, and command-line arguments to set the Spring Boot application context path.

1. Java System property

We can set server.servlet.context-path as System property inside the main method, as shown below:

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication

public class Application {

public static void main(String[] args)

{

System.setProperty("server.servlet.context-path", "/springbootapp");

SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);

}

2. Define OS environment variable

We can also use SERVER_SERVLET_CONTEXT_PATH as an OS environment variable in Unix/windows. This works since Spring Boot uses some relaxed rules for binding Environment properties to @ConfigurationProperties beans.

1. Windows

1	> SET SERVER_SERVLET_CONTEXT_PATH=/springbootapp

2. UNIX

1	$ export SERVER_SERVLET_CONTEXT_PATH=/springbootapp

We can also configure the context path programmatically:

1. Before Spring Boot 2, we can use the EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizer interface.

import org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizer;

import org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.ConfigurableEmbeddedServletContainer;

@Component

public class CustomContainer implements EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizer {

@Override

public void customize(ConfigurableEmbeddedServletContainer container) {

container.setContextPath("/springbootapp");

}

2. With Spring Boot 2, the EmbeddedServletContainerCustomizer interface is replaced by WebServerFactoryCustomizer,

import org.springframework.boot.web.server.WebServerFactoryCustomizer;

import org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.server.ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory;

public class ServletConfig implements

WebServerFactoryCustomizer<ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory> {

public void customize(ConfigurableServletWebServerFactory factory) {

factory.setContextPath("/springbootapp");

}

That’s all about setting the context path in a Spring Boot application.

Set context path in a Spring Boot application

1. Property file

2. YAML file

1. Java System property

2. Define OS environment variable

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