Redeploying changed webapps -- am I missing something?

[Jeff <li...@skubick.com>]

What's the fastest and most convenient way to update a deployed web app from
a new .war file under Tomcat 4?

Under Tomcat 3, I used to just replace the .war file in
$TOMCAT_HOME/webapps, delete the old deployment directory, and let Tomcat
redeploy the new version automatically. Tomcat 4 won't allow that (at least
it won't under Windows 2000 Server w/ISAPI redirector) because Windows
detects files in use and refuses to delete the directory unless I stop
Tomcat first.

"Reload" only seems to notice already-unpacked files in the context path
that have changed.

"Stop" disables the site, but the Windows file locks remain, prohibiting the
context path's deletion.

In theory, "Remove" followed by "Install" should work, but for some reason I
find myself having to stop and restart Tomcat anyway to make the redeployed
site work. Maybe it's just because it might be taking Tomcat more than 5
minutes to prepare itself for serving the first request to that site and I'm
too impatient, but somehow i doubt it.

There HAS to be a better way I'm just not aware of.

Intuitively, it would seem that Tomcat 4's manager app SHOULD have a command
to "redeploy" (taking the context root as a parameter... something like
http://server:8080/manager/redeploy?context=foo (corresponding to the app
autodeployed from $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/foo.war). Or, better yet, if no
"context" parameter were specified, look for changed .war files in
$CATALINA_HOME/webapps and systematically redeploy any that changed since
their original deployment (stopping, removing, and installing each changed
app automatically).

DOES a better way to redeploy webapps from new .war files exist that I just
overlooked?



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