Publishing WSDL files

To publish a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file you need an enterprise application, also known as an enterprise archive (EAR) file, that contains a Web services-enabled module and has been deployed into WebSphere Application Server. See Deploying
Web services based on Web Services for Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE).

The purpose of publishing the WSDL file is to provide clients with a description of the Web service, including the URL identifying the location of the service.

After installing a Web services application, and optionally modifying the endpoint information, you might need WSDL files containing the updated endpoint information. You can obtain the updated WSDL files by publishing them to the file system. If you are a client developer or a system administrator, you can use WSDL files to enable clients to connect to a Web service.

Before you publish a WSDL file, you can configure Web services to specify endpoint information in the form of URL fragments to enable full URL specification of WSDL ports. Refer to the tasks describing configuring endpoint URL information.

The WSDL files for each Web services-enabled module are published to the file system location you specify. You can provide these WSDL files to clients that want to invoke your Web services.

You can specify endpoint information for HTTP ports, Java Message Service (JMS) ports or directly access enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) that are acting as Web services. To publish a WSDL file:

1. Configure the URL endpoint information. Do one of the following depending on what kind of bindings you are using:

   • Configure the URL endpoint information for HTTP bindings.

   • Configure the URL endpoint information for JMS bindings.

   • Configure the URL endpoint information to directly access enterprise beans.

2. Externalize or publish the WSDL file out of the application. You can complete this task in one of three ways:

   • Publish a WSDL file with the administrative console

   • Publish a WSDL file through a URL.

   • Publish a WSDL file with the wsadmin command tool.

What to do next

Related tasks
Developing a WSDL file
Deploying Web services