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Tomcat/Apache UNIX FAQ Some of this stuff was discovered by me (Jan Labanowski, jkl@ccl.net) experimentally. Most of it is, however, assembled by me from various pieces. Please tell me if something is wrong, or written in my alien English and beyond comprehension from English-speaking Earthlings. I will try to fix it, since I would hate to distribute lies and halftruths. I did not have a chance to test everything, so some pointers are just notes in case I need it. I wrote it primarily for myself, so I do not rediscover the wheel too often. All mistakes are mine. Only other people are perfect. Use at your own peril. If you have not visited http://jakarta.apache.org do it now. There is a great FAQ for tomcat written by Jun Inamori at http://www.oop-reserch.com/tomcat_3_1/.

JKL's Tomcat 3.1 Beta 1 UNIX FAQ

Questions (in random order) on UNIX and Tomcat/Apache

Something added March 2001


Answers

  • What is JSP -- Java Server Page?

    This is what I understand that these rapidly changing buzzwords mean. Beware, I am wrong, and not general, and not far reaching enough... Moreover, I speak with UNIX bias. I discovered (on March 27, 2000) a great book: Duane K. Fields, Mark A. Kolb, Web Development with Java Server Pages , Manning Publications, 554 + intros as . It is scheduled to appear in April 2000, but you can buy it really cheap over the net as PDF file (they call it EBook) at http://www.manning.com/. Beware, it is about 600 pages to print (including front and back matter). While for obvious reasons it ends at Tomcat 3.0, it is quite up to date with JSP/J2EE/Servlet specs, and I find it an easy to follow, yet quite packed with practical info. No, I do not work for them...
    JSP -- Java Server Page -- a mixture of HTML, XML, and Java which is great for producing dynamic Web contents. To understand what is happening on the Web Server side, you can look at JSP as shorthand notation for a full blown servlet. It is great, since you can hide programming in JavBeans, define jsp:something XML tags which do special tasks, and use already predefined tags too (say, e.g., to include files). At the same time, you can use normal HTML/JavaScript to design your page. When the Web server (say Apache, but many other servers support it too) a *.jsp file request
    • Apache sends request to Tomcat using a special module jserv. This module handles Apache side of socket connection to Tomcat. They talk a special protocol called AJPV12 (Apache JServ Protocol version 1.2). It was derived from the originl AJPV12 used in the original Apache JServ Project http://java.apache.org/jserv/ but it evolved and is different. Beware!!! Currently the JServ from Apache JServ Project use the same name for the protocol and the module, but these things are different and incompatible. However, it all will be consolidated hopefully soon (so I hear...). To use Tomcat and JSP with Apache you have to use the Tomcat version of jserv module. Note, in this small world viewed from the Tomcat/jserv perspective, the Tomcat is a server (waits for jserv to call him), and jserv is a client, since it makes the first move.

    • Tomcat gets the path to the *.jsp file from Apache's jserv and checks if the *.jsp file is older than the time stamp on the corresponding servlet in its memory. If it is, it skips compilation and executes the servlet. If *.jsp file was recently modified (i.e., the servlet in the memory is older) Tomcat converts the file into Java code. It does it by unfolding the jsp:xxxx tags into pieces of corresponding Java code, converts the static HTML into out.println(something), inserts the Java code from scriplets, etc. You can actually look at this Java code by peeking at the Tomcat work subdirectories under $TOMCAT_HOME/work.

    • Tomcat compiles the source Java code of the servlet and loads it to the Virtual Machine, the servlet container. Of course, the *.jsp page can be buggy, and you will get error page rather than results in such cases.

    • The servlet is executed in the servlet container and the results (i.e., HTML page description), are returned to jserv of Apache, and Apache returns them to the browser..

    Few pointers to stuff on the Web:

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  • What is Servlet Container?

    Servlet container -- The piece of software which runs the servlets. The servlet container can be either:
    1. a standalone application which just displays servlets and does not talk to anything else. This is not really a practical solution but may be great thing for debugging/testing;
    2. an integrated part of the Web Server, i.e., servlet container runs in the same process as Web Server, and has access to all internals of the web server and to its environment variables. This is often the case when Web server is written in Java.
    3. a separate piece of software which talks to a Web Server (or some other server) using some agreed upon protocol. In this case, the Web server is a client, and the servlet container is a server. The Web Server takes requests from browsers, looks at them, and if they are requests to run servlets (or JSPs) it passes them to the servlet?JSP container using some communication/data exchange protocol. The servlet container runs the servlet (it may need to compile the servlet first, though in most cases you need to provide a ready to use class), collects the results, and then passes them back to the web server using a mutually agreed protocol. The web server returns results to a browser which wanted a servlet served.
    Servlet container, has to know where the servlet classes are located, where are the other classes needed to run servlets (e.g., JavaBeans or utility classes), i.e., it needs to have CLASSPATH defined. It will also do many other things depending on the scope of services supported by the servlet container (e.g., authentication, encryption...). Tomcat is more than just a formal servlet container. Ut is also a special server which talks to the Web server and provides Web server with servlet/JSP processing capabilities. Moreover, it is also a simple Web server (working by default on port 8080). It can be interfaced with several Web servers, but I only tried it with Apache, so I do not talk for others.



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  • What is Web Application and WAR?

    Web application -- It is a collection of JSPs, servlets, style sheets, static HTML pages, Java Script or other client scripting embelishments, applets, etc., which are related in some way. It also contains information (called deployment descriptor files) needed to describe what is what in this zoo. The idea here is to collect some related pieces in one place (i.e., under a single subdirectory, analogous to a tar archive for UNIX) and then to mount the whole thing on the Web under some distinct location/URL. In principle, web application can be distributed as a single WAR file (Web Application aRchive) and installed without unpacking in the area known to a Servlet Container (in our case, Tomcat is our Servlet Container). In fact, the Web Application usually does not have to know where it is located in the directory stucture if you know the rules:
    • All links in the HTML portion which refer to the material within its own web application, should be relative.
    • All absolute paths (i.e., paths starting from the / character) within JSP tags (e.g., jsp:include or within web.xml deployment descriptor, refer to the top directory of your web application, and not the top directory of the Web Document Tree.
    • If you really need to have it, you can find what is your actual path in the Web Document Tree by calling getContextPath, e.g., you can use the trick:
      <BASE HREF="<%= request.getContextPath() %>/"> and put it in the <HEAD> of your JSP.
    Word of caution. In practice, the WAR files are still pain to use (as of Tomcat 3.1 beta 1, as far as I know) since they had problems with situations when some class was using another class from the same WAR (some problems with class loader I presume). But they work on it. It is therefore safer at this time to unpack the WARs before using them. WARs are JARs. They are created, signed, packed, etc., the very same way the JAR files are, i.e., with the jar utility from JDK. The different extension was chosen to stress that it is not only a Java code which is in the WAR file, but also JSPs, HTML pages, config files, etc. The WAR has a specific default directory structure, however, you do not have to create a directory if it is empty in a given WAR. Example:
    .../index.html
    .../TheTextFile.txt
    .../OurSoftware/OurProgram.exe
    .../OurSoftware/TheTarFile.tgz
    .../something.jsp
    .../spiffyapplet.class
    .../somedir/someother.html
    .../anotherdir/some.jsp
    .../anotherdir/my.html
    .../anotherdir/funny.gif
    .../images/some.gif
    .../images/some.jpeg
    .../WEB-INF/web.xml
    .../WEB-INF/lib/...
    .../WEB-INF/lib/some.jar
    .../WEB_INF/classes/...
    .../WEB_INF/classes/com/bigcomp/servlets/ByFromUs.class
    .../WEB_INF/classes/com/bigcomp/utils/SnoopUser.class
    .../WEB_INF/classes/com/bigcomp/utils/FancyServlet.class
    
    There are essentially two types of files in this directory structure:
    • Files to be directly served on the Web, i.e., HTML, applets, JSP, style sheets, images, text files, etc. These files are in top directory, and in ordinary directories which will be served as regular Web content in the Web document tree.

    • Files located under WEB-INF directory. These files are not to be served directly by the Web server. The lib subdirectory contains jar files, with Java binary code, which will be automatically included in the Servlet Container CLASSPATH. The files under classes subdirectory represent classes and packages needed within web applications. These can be either servlets to be served or they may be utility classes or JavaBeans (needed by servlets and/or JSPs). The web.xml is an XML file which allows to set and/or modify parameters, arguments, remap names, set mime types, specify tag libraries, specify servlets to be loaded on start-up, define scopes, authentication, encryption, etc., etc., for the components of the current web application. To learn more about it, study the Bible, i.e., Java Servlet Specification, v2.2 ( http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/2.2/ ).
    This directory structure can be changed, but this would require that you remap the default structure via directives in configuration files, and possibly by patching the Java code which is used in Tomcat.

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  • What is Servlet Context?

    Servlet Context -- it is essentially what servlet sees when it runs, and how external world sees the servlet. In Tomcat, servlet runs within the web application (see above) and the directories, as well as web.xml configuration file provides for initialization parameters for servlets, attributes (i.e., sort of UNIX environment variables known to the servlet), name mapping, knowledge of static pages within web application, CLASSPATH, JavaBeans and utility classes which were given in appropriate directories. I also believe that it will be possible to set which virtual machine will run servlets, and other goodies. The external world sees servlet as running in the container which is accessible via the the container path, i.e., the URL path. In the case of Tomcat/Apache combination, the URL path is set via ApJServMount directive in Apache configuration file. Purists are now spinning in their graves, I think...



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  • How to install Tomcat/Apache

    In general, you need to have an Apache which supports DSO modules already installed. It needs to be a version at least 1.3.6, I believe.When this was written, the latest production version was 1.3.12 and this is what I used. You can get Apache from http://www.apache.org. Then you install Tomcat which you take from http://jakarta.apache.org As a part of Tomcat, there comes a specially adapted version of the jserv module, which you need to copy to a libexec directory of Apache. Then you need to configure Apache and Tomcat to work together.. I do not want to give here a detailed prescription of installation, but rather point you to the gory details. I just want to stress few points.
    At this moment, Apache and Tomcat are not perfectly integrated. The interface is still until very active development. But the major point is, that Apache and Tomcat are two separate pieces of software. They formally can run on different machines. They talk to each other via TCP/IP socket and use the special protocol AJPV12 (for more on this check the ( JSP description at the top of this FAQ). On the Apache side the piece which talks to Tomcat is called jserv module. Formally, Tomcat is a TCP server. It waits for incomming connections, usually on port 8007 (but you can change it). These connections come from Apache Web Server (or other servers for that matter, since connectors are written for Netscape and Web IIS servers, and probably others too). Tomcat gets the request from the Web server, processes it, and returns the results back to Web server using the TCP connection and talking via AJPV12 protocol. As you see, there are some things which Apache has to know about Tomcat, but Tomcat does not need to know much about Apache when it is installed. At this point the information about Tomcat which is needed by the Apache Web server is contained in the file $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/tomcat.conf. This file is usually referenced in the main Apache configuration file $APACHE_HOME/conf/httpd.conf via the Include directive somewhere towards the end as, for example:
    Include /usr/local/apache_t3.1b1/sources/build/tomcat/conf/tomcat.conf
    where the $TOMCAT_HOME in this case is: /usr/local/apache_t3.1b1/sources/build/tomcat. This file still has some some historical entries which are the leftovers from the JServ project (which is currently the most stable and optimal way of running servlets in production environment, and which served as a prototype for the Tomcat specific jserv module). But essentially it tells jserv module of Apache:
    • On which port the Tomcat is listening via ApJServDefaultPort directive.
    • That the files with *.jsp extension should be handled by jserv
      AddHandler jserv-servlet .jsp,
    • That certain URLs, should be directed to Tomcat for processing. For example:
      ApJServMount /DynaWeb /root
      tells Apache that URs whose path start with /DynaWeb should go to Tomcat for processing. The /root seems to be fixed at this moment, but it will probably evolve at some point to what it was in the original Apache JServ module.
    • That certain paths in the Web Document Tree should be blocked from public view, e.g.:
      <Location /DynaWeb/WEB-INF/ >
           AllowOverride None
           deny from all
      </Location>
      tells Apache to deny access to the URLs which start from /DynaWeb/WEB-INF. In this case it is probably overkill, since Tomcat most likely checks and enforces that the WEB-INF directory is not served directly.
    • There may be additional directives which take actions BEFORE the request is forwarded to Tomcat, e.g., rewriting URLs with Rewrite, providing Basic Authentication, as for example:
      <Location /DynaWeb>
      AuthType Basic
      AuthName "For internal users only"
      AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache/auth/htpasswd
      AuthGroupFile /usr/local/apache/auth/htgroup
      AuthType Basic
      
      <Limit GET POST>
      require group demo
      </Limit>
      </Location>
      and aliasing some locations, restricting access, etc. I am not sure if the encryption of Tomcat Apache communication is supported at this moment. Yes, the is a bleeding edge, and there is not much documentation, and you need to look up the comments in the files and source code, or simply try, to know what is happening.

    The Tomcat has its config files too, the: $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml, the $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/web.xml, and the web.xml files in each directory. The are some other files, in the $TOMCAT_HOME/conf directory, but I do not think that they are being used at this moment. Either these are things which will be used one day, or they were used one day, and stay in conf just in case they will be needed again. The $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml is the file which you will change most likely, especially to add new contexts, i.e., essentially new web applications. The typical entry looks like this:
      <Context path="/mytests"
       docBase="/usr/local/apache_t3.1b1/htdocs/jkltests" debug="0"
       reloadable="true" />
    where the
    • path sets the path to this context in URLs, e.g., the URLs http://www.webette.com/mytests/index.jsp or http://www.webette.com/mytests/servlet/HelloWorld could be referring to this context.
    • docBase points to the disk directory which holds the web application. Note that directory name does not have to be the same as the URL path. This does not have to be an absolute path. The relative paths will be appended to $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps.
    • reloadable tells the Tomcat if it should reload the JSP page, when its source was changed.
    There are other options here, so you need to read the docs which come with Tomcat. Another popular place to change is the Connector section.
          <Connector
              className="org.apache.tomcat.service.SimpleTcpConnector">
            <Parameter name="handler"
               value="org.apache.tomcat.service.http.HttpConnectionHandler"/>
            <Parameter name="port" value="8080"/>
          </Connector>
    
          <Connector
             className="org.apache.tomcat.service.SimpleTcpConnector">
            <Parameter name="handler"
              value="org.apache.tomcat.service.connector.Ajp12ConnectionHandler"/>
            <Parameter name="port" value="8007"/>
          </Connector>
    The first connector, HttpConnectionHandler, refers to the fact that Tomcat is also a small Web Server, which works on the port 8080 by default. It is great for debugging, but in production environment it may be a liability since it leaves a backdoor for your Web contents, which you cannot protect with password and/or HTTPS protocol. You can change the port to something else (but the hackers with any basic port scanner [e.g., Satan or Saint] will find it in no time), but essentially, in the production environment you simply need to delete this portion or comment it out with a XML comment: <!--   -->. The second connector, Ajp12ConnectionHandler, is the one which manages the communication with Apache. It is not needed when you use Tomcat as a standalone Web Server. However, you have to have it if Tomcat communicates with Apache. The default port is 8007, and you need to change it when you have this port reserved by something else (e.g., a second installation of Apache which usis the JServ. The $TOMCAT_HOME/web.xml sets default and operational environment for the Tomcat server. You probably do not want to change it, but in case you want, you need to read the comments in the twin file, the Document Type Definition fileweb.dtd which explains the structure and the meaning of the web.xml. Find the rest in the $TOMCAT_HOME/docs directory, check the official site http://jakarta.apache.org. and you may also try to look at my brain dump at: http://www.ccl.net/cca/software/UNIX/apache/

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  • How to mount Web application in Apache/Tomcat environment on UNIX?

    When you install Tomcat 3.1beta1, the examples of web applications will be located under directory $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps. For the real stuff, it is probably not where you want your Web Applications to be located. You want them in your Web Documement Tree. For example, for apache, by default, it will be $APACHE_HOME/htdocs. Assuming that your web application is located in the directory /home/joeshmoe/mystuff/Shop, and you want to access it as: http://www.mycomp.com/Shop/ you may want to move it to $APACHE_HOME/htdocs, i.e, create directory $APACHE_HOME/htdocs/Shop. Note, that you can mount and serve on the web any directory which is accessible on your computer. The issue is that from the maintainance perspective, it is nice to have things in the expected place, i.e., under Web Server Document Root directory. But if you just moved it there, and did not change the configuration files, Apache would serve this directory as regular files, and Tomcat would not even know about it. To have this directory served by Apache via Tomcat, you need to block direct access to WEB-INF directory (or even the whole application) through Apache, and make Apache send requests to this directory to Tomcat rather than serve the directory directly. To do that you need to: mount directory as a context for Tomcat but block the direct access to WEB-INF subdirectory, so the regular HTTP Apache requests to this directory end up as "Forbidden". These lines in $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/tomcat.conf should take care of it for the example described above:
      ApJServMount /Shop /root
      <Location /Shop/WEB-INF/>
        AllowOverride None
        deny from all
      </Location>
    Register this context in $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml
      <Context path="/Shop"
      docBase="/path/to/document/root/Shop"
      debug="0"
      reloadable="true">
      </Context>
    Of course, replace the paths/names given here with your actual paths and names. In this case, since the name of your Web application top directory is the same as the name with which it will be referred to in the URL (i.e., Shop), you are OK if you deny access to the WEB-INF in Apache. Hower, if you wanted to serve the Web Application on the Web under the different name, say, you want to mount it as Boutique, your approach would be:
    
      ApJServMount /Boutique /root
      <Location /Boutique/WEB-INF>
        AllowOverride None
        deny from all
      </Location>
      <Directory /path/to/document/root/Shop >
        AllowOverride None
        deny from all
      </Directory>
    Now, you need to place the info also in the $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml
      <Context path="/Boutique"
      docBase="/path/to/document/root/Shop"
      debug="0"
      reloadable="true">
      </Context>
    Of course, replace the paths/names given here with your actual

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  • How to compile servlet

    • Set environment variables (Assuming you use /bin/sh or like):
      JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk1.2.2    (or /usr/java1.2 under Solaris)
      export JAVA_HOME
      TOMCAT_HOME=/usr/local/apache_t3.1b1/sources/build/tomcat
      export TOMCAT_HOME
      PATH=${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin
      export PATH
      CLASSPATH=${JAVA_HOME}/lib/tools.jar:${JAVA_HOME}/lib/dt.jar:${TOMCAT_HOME}/classes
      export CLASSPATH
      
    • Compile your servlet as:
      javac MyNewServlet.java
      
    You can actually make yourself a small UNIX script ahich takes a servlet as a parameter. This way, it will not change you your current environment but it will make sure that you have all the needed classes. For example:
    ============== cut ===========
      #!/bin/sh
      JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk1.2.2    (or /usr/java1.2 under Solaris)
      export JAVA_HOME
      TOMCAT_HOME=/usr/local/apache_t3.1b1/sources/build/tomcat
      export TOMCAT_HOME
      PATH=${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin
      export PATH
      CLASSPATH=${JAVA_HOME}/lib/tools.jar:${JAVA_HOME}/lib/dt.jar:${TOMCAT_HOME}/classes
      export CLASSPATH
      javac $1 
    ============== cut ===========
    You may want to change of the TOMCAT_HOME.

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  • How to remap the servlet URL?

    Let us assume that the Document Root of your Apache Web Server is /home/www. Now, you have some Web application in the physical directory /home/www/jkltests. You need to add the following lines to $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/tomcat.conf file to mount the web application:
      ApJServMount /mytests /root
      <Location /mytests/WEB-INF/ >
        AllowOverride None
        deny from all
      </Location>
      <Directory /home/www/jkltests >
        AllowOverride None
        deny from all
      </Dierectory>
       
    
    This will mount the mytests web application and Apache will forward all requests of a type: http://www.wearebig.com/mytests/something to Tomcat. Moreover, while latest version of Tomcat does it automatically, we explicitly deny access to any URLs like http://www.wearebig.com/mytests/WEB-INF/something. Moreover, since we actually mounted the web application with a different name (mytests than its top directory (jkltests), and since the application top directory is located within the Web Server Document Tree (Document Root for Apache is here /home/www), we need to tell Apache not to URLs like http://www.wearebig.com/jkltests/something to anybody (deny from all). Once we are done with tomcat.conf we need to inform Tomcat about the application by adding the information to the $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml file:
          <Context path="/mytests"
             docBase="/home/www/jkltests" debug="0"
             reloadable="true" />
    Let us assume that you have the following files in /home/www/jkltests:
    
    /home/www/jkltests:
    drwxr-sr-x   3 root     www          512 Apr  1 04:56 WEB-INF
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www           39 Mar 31 15:14 junk.html
    drwxr-sr-x   2 root     www          512 Apr  1 05:08 junky
    
    /home/www/jkltests/WEB-INF:
    drwxr-sr-x   3 root     www          512 Apr  1 04:36 classes
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www          939 Apr  1 04:56 web.xml
    
    /home/www/jkltests/WEB-INF/classes:
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www         1399 Apr  1 03:07 HelloYou.class
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www         1647 Apr  1 02:59 HelloYou.java
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www         1407 Apr  1 03:01 ServletHello.class
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www         1655 Apr  1 03:01 ServletHello.java
    drwxr-sr-x   2 root     www          512 Apr  1 04:35 sp
    
    /home/www/jkltests/WEB-INF/classes/sp:
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www         1413 Apr  1 03:04 HelloJKL.class
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www         1660 Apr  1 03:04 HelloJKL.java
    
    /home/www/jkltests/junky:
    -rw-r--r--   1 root     www          146 Mar 31 22:55 junk.jsp
    In this case, we only have servlets under /home/www/jkltests/WEB-INF/classes directory. The classes in /home/www/jkltests/WEB-INF/classes represent servlets without any package statement, while the HelloJKL class, in the sp subdirectory has the package sp; declaration at the top. HelloJKL is also a servlet. If your deployment descriptor in the /home/www/jkltests/WEB-INF/web.xml is empty, i.e.: looks like:
    ?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
    
    <!DOCTYPE web-app
        PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.2//EN"
        "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2.2.dtd">
    
    <web-app>
    </web-app>
    
    you can access these pages on web as:
      http://my.machine.org/mytests/junky/junk.jsp
      http://my.machine.org/mytests/junk.html
      http://my.machine.org/mytests/servlet/ServletHello
      http://my.machine.org/mytests/servlet/HelloYou
      http://my.machine.org/mytests/servlet/sp.HelloJKL
    However, when you put there a web.xml file like:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
    
    <!DOCTYPE web-app  PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.2//\EN"
        "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2.2.dtd">
    
    <web-app>
      <servlet>
        <servlet-name>JKL</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>sp.HelloJKL</servlet-class>
      </servlet>
      <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>JKL</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/JKLservlet</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>JKL</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>*.jkl</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>
      <servlet>
        <servlet-name>You</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>HelloYou</servlet-class>
      </servlet>
      <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>You</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/YouServlet/*</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>You</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/us/him/her</url-pattern>
      </servlet-mapping>
    </web-app>
    you will be able to access the servlet HelloJKL as:
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/servlet/JKL
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/JKLservlet
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/servlet/sp.HelloJKL
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/whatever/and/so/page.jkl
    while the servlet HelloYou can be accessed as:
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/servlet/HelloYou
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/servlet/You
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/YouServlet
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/YouServlet/whatever.html
    http://heechee.ccl.net/mytests/us/him/her


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  • How to start a servlet automatically on startup.



    Thomas Oellrich wrote:
    
     > Hello,
     >
     > Can anybody tell me whether it's possible to automatically load a servlet
     > on startup of Tomcat? If yes, how? If no, is this feature intended for
     > future releases? I couldn't find any information on this in the official
     > documentation.
     >
    
     Use the <load-on-startup> element in your web.xml file, as described in the
     Servlet 2.2 API spec.  The data value determines the order in which the
     startup servlets are loaded.
    
         <servlet>
             <servlet-name>MyServlet</servlet-name>
             <servlet-class>com.mycompany.servlets.MyServletClass</servlet-class>
    
             <init-param>
                 <param-name>param1</param-name>
                 <param-value>value1</param-value>
             </init-param>
             <load-on-startup>3</load-on-startup>
         </servlet>
    
    
    Craig McClanahan
    ==============================
    Note that there is no space around parameter names and values. The older version of Tomcat were confused when there was a white space around parameters names and values. But it may be fixed by now.

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  • How to start tomcat with servlet.xml other than the default?



    Tell tomcat to use another server.xml by putting in on the startup.sh command line as:
        bin/startup.sh -f /usr/local/mytomcat/conf/server.xml
        


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  • Authentication with Tomcat/Jakarta



    • From: Andreas Siegrist <A.Siegrist@tv1.de> to tomcat-dev@jakarta.apache.org
      Tomcat 3.0
      You may get the user name (and password) by decoding the
      authorization string yourself. We are using a static method in a
      utility class:
      
      public static String getRemoteUser(HttpServletRequest request) {
          String auth = request.getHeader("authorization"); // as send by apache
          if (auth == null) return null;
      
          try {
            auth = new String((new
      BASE64Decoder()).decodeBuffer(auth.substring(6)));
          }
          catch (Exception exc) {
            exc.printStackTrace();
            return null;
          }
      
         if (auth == null)
            return null;
          int pos = auth.indexOf(":");
          if (pos < 0)
            return null;
          return auth.substring(0, pos);
      }
      


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  • Authentication with Apache

    The Basic Authentication with Apache is done with appropriate entries specifying the Location Unfortunately, you cannot use .htaccess file in the web application directory as of now, since Apache does not see those files (it passes requests to Tomcat). However, you can put the instructions into httpd.conf or tomcat.conf to perform Basic Authentication before forwarding requests to Tomcat. For example, to protect context path /examples (i.e., URL to web application residing at http://www.mycom.com/examples) you put something like (modify to taste):
      <Location /examples>
      AuthType Basic
      AuthName "For internal users only"
      AuthUserFile /usr/local/apache/auth/avspass
      AuthGroupFile /usr/local/apache/auth/avspeople
      AuthType Basic
    
      <Limit GET POST>
      require group avs
      </Limit>
      </Location>
    You need to have the files avspass and avspeople or whetever you want to call them already created. Check the Apache docs how to do it. It is simple when you know it. Note that this will work both for HTTPS and HTTP. You may want to disable HTTP (i.e., unsecure) access to this directory, since Basic Authentication with HTTP is a BIG SECURITY RISK -- password is sent in the open, unencrypted.

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  • Changing Tomcat default ports

    In your server.xml find lines:
    <Parameter name="port" value="XXXX"/>
    and change XXXX to what you want.
    • Remember that you need to run tomcat as a root if you want to use ports lower than 1024
    • If you change the tomcat port 8007 (i.e., the one with which it talks to Apache Web server, you need to make the corresponding change in the tomcat.conf file (the line: ApJServDefaultPort 8007).


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  • Disable a Web Server on port 8080 of Tomcat

    Tomcat is a not only a piece which runs JSPs and Servlets and talks AJP protocol to Apache web server. Tomcat is also a small, web server. You can disable the tomcat web-serving activities by commenting out the following portion of server.xml file
    
            <!-- New HttpServer.  -->
            <Connector className="org.apache.tomcat.service.http.HttpAdapter">
            </Connector>
    i.e., changing it to:
    
    <!--  Disabling web server on port 8080 by commenting out the line:
            <Connector className="org.apache.tomcat.service.http.HttpAdapter">
            </Connector>
    -->
    Then you need to kill and restart apache/tomkat.

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  • Examples of my config files for Tomcat 3.1-beta-1 under Solaris



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  • How to pass initial parameters to a servlet on startup?

    You have a servlet myServlet.class in the web application under .../tomcat/webapps/nero and you want to pass initial parameters (arguments) to the servlet. The example of use is in the $TOMCAT_HOME/webapp/test/WEB-INF/classes/ServletParam.java and also look at $TOMCAT_HOME/webapp/test/WEB-INF/web.xml to see how initial parameters are passed. In short: You need to edit the file: .../tomcat/webapps/nero/WEB-INF/web.xml and add there this information between tags <web-app>...</web-app>:
        <servlet>
          <servlet-name>myServlet</servlet-name>
          <servlet-class>myServlet</servlet-class>
          <init-param>
            <param-name>where</param-name>
            <param-value>Rome</param-value>
          </init-param>
          <init-param>
            <param-name>when</param-name>
            <param-value>66</param-value>
          </init-param>
        </servlet>
    
    This will set the initial parameters where="Rome" and when="66". Word of caution. The Tomcat 3.1 Beta 1 had a bug. When you had spaces around the paramater and value in the init-param section, it was confusing the Tomcat. Use the style above and do not leave the space around parameter and value entries.



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  • How to make Tomcat 3.2.1 work with Apache 1.3.3 and mod_jserv

    Kindly contributed by:  Viv Gregory <vivg@layer3.co.uk>
    Solving "http: can't resolve symbol ap_escape_uri"
    or
    How to make Tomcat 3.2.1 work with Apache 1.3.3
    
    
    We have a legacy web server running Redhat 4.2 with a 1.3.3 Apache, when
    I tried to integrate Tomcat 3.2.1 I found that the mod_jserv.so module
    which is used to link Apache to Tomcat was generating an error;
    
            httpd: can't resolve symbol ap_escape_uri
    
    Out of curiosity I looked at the source to mod_jserv.so:
    See:  .../jakarta-tomcat-3.2.1/src/native/apache/jserv/*.c
    
    I found that there was only one use of the string in the code (see
    jserv_ajpv12.c) and figured that it was probably calling an internal
    apache function.
    
    I checked the source to Apache 1.3.3 and could not find the string,
    however by searching for escape_uri I found many similar calls.
    Significantly the Apache 1.3.3 code used escape_uri and the Tomcat code
    used ap_escape_uri.
    
    I changed the source in jserv_ajpv12.c to escape_uri so it would match
    Apache 1.3.3.              
    install instructions.
    
            cd jakarta.../src/native/apache/jserv
            apxs -c *.c -o mod_jserv.so
    
    This also initially failed producing a "command failed with rc=" type
    error message, searching the web I discovered some instructions about
    changing the environment variables in the apxs build program.
    
    Here is a "diff apxs apxs.original.1.3.3" which shows the changes I made
    
    [my changes]
    < my $CFG_CFLAGS_SHLIB  = '-fpic -DSHARED_MODULE';  # substituted via
    Makefile.tmpl
    < my $CFG_LD_SHLIB      = 'gcc';      # substituted via Makefile.tmpl
    < my $CFG_LDFLAGS_SHLIB = '-shared'; # substituted via Makefile.tmpl
    ---
    [original 1.3.3 Apache]
    > my $CFG_CFLAGS_SHLIB  = '';  # substituted via Makefile.tmpl
    > my $CFG_LD_SHLIB      = '';      # substituted via Makefile.tmpl
    > my $CFG_LDFLAGS_SHLIB = ''; # substituted via Makefile.tmpl
    
    I also came across a note saying that one should in fact use the
    following command to build the mod_jserv.so file.
    
            apxs -c -0 mod_jserv.so *.c
    
    This worked so I then put the mod_jserv.so in the correct
    .../apache/libexec area and it was then possible to start Tomcat.
    
    >From then on I could play around with the webapps examples and generaly
    
    fool around with some simple jsp and servlets.
    
    Viv Gregory.(Layer3 Systems Limited)  
    
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Modified: Thu Mar 15 14:14:31 2001 GMT
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