title: Executable war file that starts jetty without maven
body: <p>I'm trying to make an "executable" war file (<code>java -jar myWarFile.war</code>) that will start up a Jetty webserver that hosts the webapp contained in the WAR file I executed.</p>
  
  <p>I found <a href="http://eclipsesource.com/blogs/2009/10/02/executable-wars-with-jetty/" rel="noreferrer">a page</a> that described how to make what I'm looking for:</p>
  
  <p>However, following that advice along with how I think I'm supposed to make an executable jar (war) isn't working.</p>
  
  <p>I have an Ant task creating a WAR file with a manifest that looks like:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
  <pre><code>Manifest-Version: 1.0
  Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.7.1
  Created-By: 1.5.0_18-b02 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
  Main-Class: Start
  </code></pre>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The contents of the WAR file look like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt; Start.class
  &gt; jsp
  &gt;   build.jsp 
  &gt; META-INF  
  &gt;   MANIFEST.MF
  &gt; WEB-INF
  &gt;   lib
  &gt;     jetty-6.1.22.jar
  &gt;     jetty-util.6.1.22.jar
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I try to execute the WAR file, the error is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/mortbay/jetty/Handler
  Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.mortbay.jetty.Handler
          at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
          at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
          at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
          at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307)
          at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301)
          at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248)
  Could not find the main class: Start. Program will exit.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>There appears to be two errors here: one where it seems the JAR files can't be found, and one where the <code>Start</code> class can't be found.</p>
  
  <p>To fix the first one, I put the Jetty JAR files in the base of the WAR file and tried again -- same error.  I also tried adding the <code>WEB-INF/lib/&lt;specific-JAR-files&gt;</code> to the <code>Class-Path</code> attribute of the manifest.  That did not work either.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have any insight as to what I'm doing right/wrong and how I can get this executable WAR file up and running?</p>