I follow the Struts 2 tutorial and setup a simple Struts 2 application.
Create Struts 2 Web Application Using Maven To Manage Artifacts and To Build The Application
 

I used the struts2-core version 2.2.1 and also added a maven-jetty-plugin for running the web application. But when i run mvn jetty:run, the following error is found.
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Javassist library is missing in classpath! Please add missed dependency!

It is found that in struts2-core version 2.2.1, the Javassist dependency was excluded in OGNL. So i have to add this dependency in the pom.xml by myself.
 

So here comes to the project details.
1. Create a new Maven project with the following pom.xml
pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<groupId>com.wordpress.ykyuen</groupId>
	<artifactId>struts2-trial</artifactId>
	<packaging>war</packaging>
	<version>1.0</version>
	
	<build>
		<plugins>
			<plugin>
				<groupId>org.mortbay.jetty</groupId>
				<artifactId>maven-jetty-plugin</artifactId>
				<version>6.1.24</version>
				<configuration>
					<connectors>
						<connector implementation="org.mortbay.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector">
							<port>8090</port>
							<maxIdleTime>60000</maxIdleTime>
						</connector>
					</connectors>
					<requestLog implementation="org.mortbay.jetty.NCSARequestLog">
						<filename>target/yyyy_mm_dd.request.log</filename>
						<retainDays>90</retainDays>
						<append>true</append>
						<extended>false</extended>
						<logTimeZone>GMT</logTimeZone>
					</requestLog>
				</configuration>
			</plugin>
		</plugins>
	</build>
	
	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
			<artifactId>struts2-core</artifactId>
			<version>2.2.1</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>log4j</groupId>
			<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
			<version>1.2.16</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>javassist</groupId>
			<artifactId>javassist</artifactId>
			<version>3.11.0.GA</version>
		</dependency>
	</dependencies>
</project>

 

2. Put the following files in src/main/resources

• log4j.dtd (Can be found inside log4j.jar – org/apache/log4j/xml/)
• log4j.xml
• struts.xml

log4j.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE log4j:configuration PUBLIC "-//log4j/log4j Configuration//EN" "log4j.dtd">

<log4j:configuration xmlns:log4j="http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/">
    
    <appender name="STDOUT" class="org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender">
       <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout"> 
          <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d %-5p %c.%M:%L - %m%n"/> 
       </layout> 
    </appender>
 
    <!-- specify the logging level for loggers from other libraries -->
    <logger name="com.opensymphony">
    	<level value="DEBUG" />
    </logger>

    <logger name="org.apache.struts2">
    	 <level value="DEBUG" />
    </logger>
  
   <!-- for all other loggers log only debug and above log messages -->
     <root>
        <priority value="INFO"/> 
        <appender-ref ref="STDOUT" /> 
     </root> 
    
</log4j:configuration>

 

struts.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
	"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN"
	"http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">
<struts>

	<constant name="struts.devMode" value="true" />

	<package name="basicstruts2" extends="struts-default">
		<action name="index">
			<result>/index.jsp</result>
		</action>
	</package>

</struts>

 

3. Create the following files
src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app id="WebApp_9" version="2.4" 
	xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" 
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
	
<display-name>Struts 2 Trial</display-name>
	<welcome-file-list>
		<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
	</welcome-file-list>

	<filter>
		<filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
		<filter-class>org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ng.filter.StrutsPrepareAndExecuteFilter</filter-class>
	</filter>

	<filter-mapping>
		<filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
		<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
	</filter-mapping>

</web-app>

 

src/main/webapp/index.jsp

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
	<head>
		<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
		<title>Basic Struts 2 Application - Welcome</title>
	</head>
	<body>
		<h1>Welcome To Struts 2!</h1>
	</body>
</html>

 

4. The project hierarchy will look like this (You can ignore the META-INF)

 

5. Run mvn jetty:run and go to the URL http://localhost:8090/struts2-trial/index.action in the browser

 

Done =)