The web application deployment descriptor conveys configuration information between application developers, deployers, and assemblers. Web containers also use the descriptor to configure and load web applications when the container is started.
All servlet containers that are compliant with the 2.3 Servlet specification are required to support the following types of deployment information:
Security configuration information is not required unless the servlet container is part of a J2EE implementation. The following elements are not required unless the servlet container is using JSP pages or is part of a J2EE application server: