Starting from Java EE 6, an application can configure JNDI resources in global, application, module, and component namespaces. Usually this is done with @Resource annotations and deployment descriptors. It is also possible to bind global JNDI resources programmatically in a Java EE application, as shown in the following servlet.

package test;

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import javax.naming.*;
import javax.annotation.*;

@WebServlet(urlPatterns = "/*")
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet {

  private static final String name = "java:global/env/foo";
  private static final String value = "FOO";

  protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
          throws ServletException, IOException {
  PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();

  try {
      InitialContext ic = new InitialContext();
      try {
          Object obj = ic.lookup(name);
          out.println("found " + name + " : " + obj);
      } catch (NamingException ne) {
          ic.rebind(name, value);
          out.println("not found: " + name + ", rebind: " + value);
      }
  } catch (NamingException e) {
      out.println(e);
  }
  }

  @PreDestroy
  private void preDestroy() {
      try {
          InitialContext ic = new InitialContext();
          ic.unbind(name);
          System.out.println("unbound " + name);
      } catch (NamingException e) {
          System.out.println("failed to unbind " + name);
      }
  }

  protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
          throws ServletException, IOException {
      doPost(request, response);
  }
}

Compile TestServlet.java, package it in test.war:WEB-INF/classes/test/TestServlet.class, cp it to $GLASSFISH_HOME/domains/domain1/autodeploy/, and run it at http://localhost:8080/test/

Result from the first run:

not found: java:global/env/foo, rebind: FOO

Result from the subsequent run:

found java:global/env/foo : FOO

You can also verify the global JNDI resource with GlassFish asadmin command:

$ asadmin list-jndi-entries --context java:global/env
foo: java.lang.String

This resource is available server-wide to all deployed apps. It will be removed after test.war is undeployed thanks to TestServlet.preDestroy. To retain it beyond the life of test.war, do not unbind it in TestServlet.preDestroy.