Hi,

Request parameters are all the parameters that are passed to the server from the browser, part of a request. For example, all the values of input fields of a form are request parameters

Init parameters are set in the web application descriptor (WEB-INF/web.xml) and are normally used for passing standard information to the context or, to a specific servlet. To set init parameters to the context, you do, inside the web application descriptor, something like this:

  ...
  
    NAME OF THE PARAMETER
    VALUE OF THE PARAMETER
  
  ...

And to have init parameters for a specific servlet, still using the web.xml file, you can do something like this:

  ...
  
    ...
    
      NAME OF THE PARAMETER
      VALUE OF THE PARAMETER
    
  
  ...

Consider that in Servlet 2.3, you can also define init parameters for a filter, using the same syntax for the servlets, but inside the tag of the web application descriptor.