This Article, in Which We Examine Issues Specific To Tomcat

This article, in which we examine issues specific to Tomcat, is the second in our series on the Jakarta-
Tomcat server. In this article we will discuss

• the requirements for installing and configuring Tomcat,
• the process of installing and configuring Tomcat, and
• deploying Tomcat web applications.
Requirements for Installing and Configuring Tomcat

Before performing the tasks outlined by this article you will need to download the items listed in the
Table 1.
Table 1. Requirements
Name Location
Tomcat 4.0 beta 1 http://jakarta.apache.org/
JDK 1.3 Standard Edition
For this article we will be using the latest versions of the tools listed above.
Installing and Configuring Tomcat

In this article we will be installing Tomcat as a stand-alone server. This means that Tomcat will service
all requests, including static content, JSPs, and servlets.
To configure Tomcat as a stand-alone server you will need to download the Tomcat 4.0 beta 1 and the
JDK 1.3 Standard Edition from the locations listed above. You should choose the appropriate
downloads based on your OS. We will be covering the steps involved in installing to both NT/2000 and
Linux.
Installing to Windows NT/2000
The first installation we will be performing is to Windows NT/2000. The first thing you need to do is
install the JDK, following its installation instructions. For this article I am installing the JDK to drive
D:, therefore my JAVA_HOME directory is D:\jdk1.3.
Now you need to extract the Tomcat server. Again, I am installing to drive D:, which will make my
TOMCAT_HOME directory D:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0-b1.
After you have extracted Tomcat, the next step is putting your JDK into Tomcat's CLASSPATH and
setting the TOMCAT_HOME environment variable. To do this under NT/2000, you must
1. Open the NT/2000 Control Panel.
2. Start the NT/2000 System Application and select the Advanced tab.
3. Select the Environment Variables button.
4. Select the New button on the System Variables section of the Environment Variables dialog.
Add a JAVA_HOME variable and set its value to the location of your JDK installation. Figure 4
shows the settings associated with my installation.
Figure 4. JAVA_HOME Environment Settings
5. Repeat Step 4 using TOMCAT_HOME for the variable name and the location of your Tomcat
installation as the value. For my installation I am setting the value to D:\jakarta-tomcat-
4.0-b1.
That's all there is to it. You should skip the following section "Installing to Linux" and move on to
"Testing You Tomcat Installation."
Testing Your Tomcat Installation

To test the Tomcat installation, first start the Tomcat server. Table 4 contains the startup and shutdown
commands for each OS.
Table 4. Tomcat Startup/Shutdown Commands
OS Startup Shutdown
Windows TOMCAT_HOME\bin\startup.ba TOMCAT_HOME\bin\shutdown.ba
NT/2000 t t
Linux TOMCAT_HOME/bin/startup.sh TOMCAT_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
Once Tomcat has started, point your browser at http://localhost:8080/
If you would like to have all requests serviced on the default HTTP
port of 80, instead of port 8080, you will need to make the following
change to the TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml file and restart Tomcat.
Change

<Connector
className="org.apache.catalina.connector.http.HttpConnector"
port="8080" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
acceptCount="10" debug="0"/>
to

<Connector
className="org.apache.catalina.connector.http.HttpConnector"
port="80" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
acceptCount="10" debug="0"/>
Now point your browser at
http://localhost/
and you'll see results similar to those in Figure 5.

The next step is to verify the installation of your JDK, which is done by executing one of the JSP
examples provided with the Tomcat server. At the page shown in Figure 5, choose JSP Examples. You
should see a page similar to Figure 6.
Figure 6. The JSP Examples Page

Now choose the JSP example Date and select the Execute link. If everything was installed properly
you should see a page similar to Figure 7 (of course with a different date).
If you do not see the previous page, then you need to make sure that the location of your JAVA_HOME
environment variable matches the location of your JDK installation.
Deploying Web Applications to Tomcat
Once Tomcat is installed and running, let's look at the steps necessary to deploy a web application. To
deploy a web app, we need to examine the directory structure of Tomcat. Table 5 describes the
directories that make up a Tomcat installation. It is assumed that the value of TOMCAT_HOME precedes
each of these directories.
And because we are using a beta release of Tomcat, these directories could change without notice.
Table 5. The Tomcat Directory Structure
This directory contains the startup and shutdown scripts for both Windows and Linux.
/bin
This directory contains the main configuration files for Tomcat. The two most important
/conf are the server.xml and the global web.xml.
This directory contains the Tomcat Java Archive files.

/server
This directory contains Java Archive files that Tomcat is dependent upon.
/lib
This directory contains Tomcat's log files.

/logs
This directory contains the source code used by the Tomcat server. Once Tomcat is
/src released, it will probably contain interfaces and abstract classes only.
All web applications are deployed in this directory; it contains the WAR file.
/webapps
This is the directory in which Tomcat will place all servlets that are generated from JSPs. If
/work you want to see exactly how a particular JSP is interpreted, look in this directory.
We will examine most of these directories in future articles. For the remainder of this article we're
interested in the /webapps directory, which is where all of our WAR files will be deployed.
In our last article we described the contents of a web application and how they are packaged. Once you
have a WAR file, containing your web application, deploying web applications to Tomcat is a simple
two-step process.
Steps Involved in Deploying a Web Application to Tomcat
1. Copy your WAR file to the TOMCAT_HOME/webapps directory.
2. Add a new Context entry to the TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml file, setting the values
for the path and docBase to the name of your web application.
<Context path="/onjava" docBase="onjava" debug="0"
reloadable="true" />
Restart Tomcat after completing these steps. Your application should now be running.
The previously described application can be accessed by pointing your browser at
http://localhost/onjava/
If you look at the TOMCAT_HOME/webapps directory, you will see a new directory matching the
name of your WAR file. This is where your working web application now exists. When Tomcat starts it
will extract all WAR files that have been recently placed into the TOMCAT_HOME/webapps directory.
In the next article we will learn how to add Servlets, JSPs, and custom tag libraries to a web
application. We will also discuss the relationship between a web application and its ServletContext.
Also in Using Tomcat:
Configuring Tomcat with IIS Web Server
Configuring Tomcat and Apache With JK 1.2
Demystifying Tomcat 4's server.xml File
Embedding Tomcat Into Java Applications
Using SOAP with Tomcat

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This article, in which we examine issues specific to Tomcat, is the second in our series on the Jakarta-

Tomcat server. In this article we will discuss

Requirements for Installing and Configuring Tomcat

Installing and Configuring Tomcat

Testing Your Tomcat Installation

and you'll see results similar to those in Figure 5.

Figure 6. The JSP Examples Page

Deploying Web Applications to Tomcat

Table 5. The Tomcat Directory Structure

This directory contains the Tomcat Java Archive files.

This directory contains Tomcat's log files.

Configuring Tomcat with IIS Web Server

Configuring Tomcat and Apache With JK 1.2

Demystifying Tomcat 4's server.xml File

Embedding Tomcat Into Java Applications

Using SOAP with Tomcat

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