## Where are Jetty's temporary directories?

Jetty itself has no temporary directories, but each web application can be assigned a temporary directory. If the web application is a WAR file, it may be unpacked to the webapp directory within the web applications temporary directory.

When assigning a temporary directory to a webapplication the following locations are considered:

- The javax.servlet.context.tempdir attribute of the web application is check to see if a directory name or a File has already been set.
- If a WEB-INF/work directory exists, it is used directly.
- If a ${jetty.home}/work directory exists, then a temp directory is created within that directory.
- If no other location has been found, a temporary directory is created within the ${java.io.tempdir} directory.

If a temporary directory is created, it is given a name based on the first HttpListener within the HttpServer as follows: "jetty_" + listener.getHost() + "_" + listener.getPort() + "_" + virtualHost + "_" + contextPath

Directories created within the java.io.tempdir are marked as deleteOnExit and are not reused between invocations of the web application context.

Once a tempory directory has been allocated, a File instance for it is set as the javax.servlet.context.tempdir attribute of the web application.

JettyFaq