Deploying Java Applications to Tomcat

Apache Tomcat is the most popular web server environment used to run Java web applications.

The project includes open source implementations of Jakarta EE features such as servlets, Java Server Pages (JSP) and more. If you host your application with Tomcat, the target output of your Java Web application must generate a WAR file. Most Java IDEs include templates (e.g., Maven archetypes) that create the necessary project structure for building and deploying a web application.

Overview & Concepts

Tomcat runs on both Windows and Linux and includes certain functionality for both.

On Windows, Tomcat can run as a console application and is controllable by batch scripts (e.g., %CATALINA_HOME%\bin\startup.bat) or can be hosted as a Windows Service and controlled by the Windows Service Control Manager.

On Linux, it can run as a console application and is controllable by shell scripts (e.g., $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh) or configured on a per-distro basis to run as a daemon where starting/stopping it depends on the init script from the package.

Tomcat internally consists of three major application service components:

• Catalina - Java servlet container
• Coyote - HTTP web server
• Jasper - JSP engine

The $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml is the configuration file for the initial startup port for the web server and individual <Service> elements that contain information about each hosted web application.

Deploying Java Web Applications to Tomcat

By default, applications are packaged as WAR files and deployed to the $CATALINA_HOME\webapps directory. The general process involves:

• stopping the Tomcat server: $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
• deploy WAR file to $CATALINA_HOME\webapps directory
• starting the Tomcat server: $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh

Automation with BuildMaster

The process for automating Tomcat with BuildMaster follows the same pattern as the manual process.

Example OtterScript plan:

set $CATALINA_HOME = $EnvironmentVariable(CATALINA_HOME);

Exec $PathCombine($CATALINA_HOME, bin, shutdown.sh); # .bat on Windows

# the ProfitCalcJava artifact contains  org.inedo.profitcalc-1.2.3.war
Deploy-Artifact ProfitCalcJava
(
    To: $PathCombine($CATALINA_HOME, webapps)
);

Exec $PathCombine($CATALINA_HOME, bin, startup.sh); # .bat on Windows