TomCat Feature Requests

[Jonathan Pierce <Jo...@seagram.com>]

Everyone,

I just downloaded and built the Jakarta TomCat webserver with my Development
environment (CodeWarrior) and tried it out. It seems to work well. 

I have a few features that I'd like to see added to the distribution to make the
standalone version of TomCat more useable for deployment.

I've written an implementation for many of these features in my own web server,
but have not yet tried to incorporate them into the TomCat sources. Many of
these features also exist in Sun's JavaWebServer product.

Please let me know whether any of these features are being discussed. I can
assist with the implementation if needed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who
wants to deploy TomCat, not just use it for development.

1. Please extend the Servlet Loader to support loading servlets from jar files.
The jar file name can be the name of the servlet without its package, so servlet
Package1.Servlet1 would load from file Servlet1.jar

2. Please extend the Servlet Loader to dynamically reload servlets if they have
changed. This can be done if the jar file date is newer that when the servlet
was loaded. This would allow developers to rebuild the servlet without having to
restart the servlet engine.

3. Please extend the Servlet Loader to support loading servlets from a URL. 
This would allow the same servlet to be deployed on multiple machines to
distribute processing without the need to redistribute it manually.

4. Please include in the distribution a procedure for installing the servlet
engine as a service on Windows NT.  This can be done using the instsrv.exe and
the SrvAny.exe from the Windows NT resource kit. This would allow the servlet
engine to be restarted automatically when the machine is rebooted. This should
be implemented so that stopping the NT service will shutdown the TomCat
webserver.

5. Please consider adding support for Internet Information Server on Windows NT
using an ISAPI extension that forwards requests from port 80 to the TomCat
servlet engine. This is done by the JRun product.

-Jonathan Pierce
Java Consultant / Web Developer
Seagram Co. Ltd.
E-mail: jonathan_pierce@Seagram.com

Re: TomCat Feature Requests

[James Todd <ja...@eng.sun.com>]

hi jonathan -

	firstly this is a great topic to continue on
	the tomcat-dev aliase.

	regarding the servlet loader it is intended to
	meet the minimal requirements as specified by
	the servlet 2.2 spec
	(http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/2.2), namely
	web application classes are loaded from WEB-INF/classes
	and web application libraries are loaded from
	WEB-INF/lib/*jar. i think this meets some of your
	requirements.

	as to class reloading this is a much requested feature
	which would be nice to address. there are a variety
	of approaches which have been discussed on this and
	other aliases. we should continue the discussion and
	see as to how best to proceed.

	as to the loading servlets from a url, per servlet 2.2
	and tomcat's interpretation there of, it is possible
	to specify a web appliation document base via an http
	url today. the entire web application can be archived
	in a war (web application archive) file and distributed
	from a centralized location.

	as to the nt and iis issues, good points i hope someone
	can address.

	lastly, i've been floating the idea for a bit to
	kick off a tomcat admin project. to that end i believe
	there are about 5 or so folks that are interested in
	proceeding and a couple of other folks who offer opinions
	from time to time. based on your stated objectives i
	have a feeling you'd be interested in seeing a more
	sophisticated administration tool for tomcat.

	hope this helps,

- james

Jonathan Pierce wrote:
> 
> Everyone,
> 
> I just downloaded and built the Jakarta TomCat webserver with my Development
> environment (CodeWarrior) and tried it out. It seems to work well.
> 
> I have a few features that I'd like to see added to the distribution to make the
> standalone version of TomCat more useable for deployment.
> 
> I've written an implementation for many of these features in my own web server,
> but have not yet tried to incorporate them into the TomCat sources. Many of
> these features also exist in Sun's JavaWebServer product.
> 
> Please let me know whether any of these features are being discussed. I can
> assist with the implementation if needed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who
> wants to deploy TomCat, not just use it for development.
> 
> 1. Please extend the Servlet Loader to support loading servlets from jar files.
> The jar file name can be the name of the servlet without its package, so servlet
> Package1.Servlet1 would load from file Servlet1.jar
> 
> 2. Please extend the Servlet Loader to dynamically reload servlets if they have
> changed. This can be done if the jar file date is newer that when the servlet
> was loaded. This would allow developers to rebuild the servlet without having to
> restart the servlet engine.
> 
> 3. Please extend the Servlet Loader to support loading servlets from a URL.
> This would allow the same servlet to be deployed on multiple machines to
> distribute processing without the need to redistribute it manually.
> 
> 4. Please include in the distribution a procedure for installing the servlet
> engine as a service on Windows NT.  This can be done using the instsrv.exe and
> the SrvAny.exe from the Windows NT resource kit. This would allow the servlet
> engine to be restarted automatically when the machine is rebooted. This should
> be implemented so that stopping the NT service will shutdown the TomCat
> webserver.
> 
> 5. Please consider adding support for Internet Information Server on Windows NT
> using an ISAPI extension that forwards requests from port 80 to the TomCat
> servlet engine. This is done by the JRun product.
> 
> -Jonathan Pierce
> Java Consultant / Web Developer
> Seagram Co. Ltd.
> E-mail: jonathan_pierce@Seagram.com
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@jakarta.apache.org

Re: TomCat Feature Requests

[Zvi Avraham <zv...@netmanage.co.il>]

URL rewriting

Re: TomCat Feature Requests

[Keven Ring <ke...@mitre.org>]

Jonathan Pierce wrote:

>
> 4. Please include in the distribution a procedure for installing the servlet
> engine as a service on Windows NT.  This can be done using the instsrv.exe and
> the SrvAny.exe from the Windows NT resource kit. This would allow the servlet
> engine to be restarted automatically when the machine is rebooted. This should
> be implemented so that stopping the NT service will shutdown the TomCat
> webserver.
>

Alternatively, incorporate JST (from www.jobjects.com) , which would
allow creation of a service automatically, without requiring the user to
edit entries in the registry manually.

> -Jonathan Pierce
> Java Consultant / Web Developer
> Seagram Co. Ltd.
> E-mail: jonathan_pierce@Seagram.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@jakarta.apache.org

--
Keven Ring
Senior Software Systems Engineer
The MITRE Corporation
(703)883-7026

RE: TomCat Feature Requests

[Vince Bonfanti <vi...@newatlanta.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Pierce [mailto:Jonathan_Pierce@seagram.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 3:09 PM
> To: general@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: TomCat Feature Requests
> 
> 
> Everyone,
> 
> I just downloaded and built the Jakarta TomCat webserver with my 
> Development
> environment (CodeWarrior) and tried it out. It seems to work well. 
> 

Would you be willing to share your CodeWarrior project file?

Vince Bonfanti
New Atlanta Communications, LLC

vince@newatlanta.com
http://www.newatlanta.com/