Update CI scripts so that command failures do not cause an immediate
exit. Prior to this commit, some of our looping logic would never run
because the entire script would exit.

Closes gh-17258

Closes gh-17257

Closes gh-17256

Closes gh-17255

Closes gh-17249

Closes gh-17246

Closes gh-17248

Closes gh-17244

Closes gh-17247

Closes gh-17245

On error cases, the "outcome" tag would be missing from recorded metrics
for the `WebClient`.

This commit fixes this issue and improves the reference documentation by
mentioning the tag values used for error cases, when the client response
is not received (I/O errors, client error, etc).

Fixes gh-17219

Closes gh-17237

Closes gh-16854

Closes gh-17236

Closes gh-17235

Closes gh-17232

Update Gradle archive tasks to ensure that `META-INF/` and
`META-INF/MANIFEST.MF` remain as the first entries of the archive.

Prior to this commit, rewritten archives would violate the implicit
specification of `JarInputStream` that these entries should be first.

Fixes gh-16698

Closes gh-17227
Closes gh-17228

* pr/16535:
  Polish "Fix connection timeout configuration for Netty"
  Fix connection timeout configuration for Netty
  Chain predicates in PropertyMapper when methods

Closes gh-16535

See gh-16535

Update `NettyWebServerFactoryCustomizer` to deal with the fact that
Netty treats `0` and negative connection timeout values differently to
Tomcat, Undertow and Jetty.

See gh-16535

Update `PropertyMapper` to correctly combine predicates when repeated
calls are made to `when` and `whenNot`. Prior to this commit, subsequent
invocations would replace the previous predicate.

Fixes gh-17225

Closes gh-17224

Closes gh-17222

Closes gh-17223

Fixes gh-17062