What You Need for This Book

First you must have version 5 or higher of the Java Development Kit (JDK). This can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp.

You also need a version of Ant equal to or higher than 1.6.5. Ant is a tool for building Java programs, similar in concept to the Unix Make tool, except that it is platform independent. Ant is part of Apache’s Jakarta project. If you are unfamiliar with Ant you should look at the Ant web site (http://ant.apache.org/). If you do not have Ant there is no need to download it as the GlassFish application server includes a copy of Ant.

Finally you need a version of GlassFish equal to or higher than V2b41d. This can be downloaded from https://glassfish.dev.java.net//.

Instructions on setting up environment variables and installing GlassFish are given in the "Getting Started" section in Chapter 1.