You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to users@tomcat.apache.org by Ken Bowen <kb...@als.com> on 2009/04/03 05:10:37 UTC

ROOT options

I've been utilizing the device of renaming myapp.war to ROOT.war in  
order make myapp perform as the default application at http://mydomain.com 
.
However, I thought that earlier this week (maybe last week?), Chuck  
made a comment that this was "the easiest of the options".
I'm wondering if I could get some pointers to reading about what these  
options are.  My searches haven't turned up anything.

Thanks in advance,
Ken

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tomcat.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tomcat.apache.org


Re: ROOT options -- FYI Success+Steps

Posted by Ken Bowen <kb...@als.com>.
Just to let you know that this worked out just fine.  Even though the  
renaming to ROOT.war appears easier, I'm not sure it really is.  For  
the record, I've made this work on my development machine (Mac OS X  
5.6) with Java 1.5 and Tomcat 6.0.18 (a vanilla download from Apache).
Here were my steps:

0. I stopped Tomcat.  The standard appbase is webapps. I removed ROOT  
and ROOT.war.

0a.  I restarted Tomcat andI tested the url http://localhost:8080 --  
it brings up a blank page.I stopped Tomcat again.

1. My app (myapp) was originally configured using the following  
context specification: ~myapp/META-INF/context.xml (abbreviated):

<Context debug="5" reloadable="true">
     <Resource type="javax.sql.DataSource" ...  />
</Context>

2.  I created a new directory xwebapps as a sibling to webapps, and  
moved the (exploded) myapp folder into  xwebapps.

3.  I moved context.xml from xwebapps/myapp/META-INF/context to conf/ 
Catalina/localhost/ROOT.xml.

4.  I inserted the docBase attribute in conf/Catalina/localhost/ 
ROOT.xml as follows:

<Context docBase="../xwebapps/myapp" debug="5" reloadable="true">
   <Resource type="javax.sql.DataSource" ...  />
</Context>

The relative path works because it is interpreted relative to the  
localhost appbase.

5. I restarted Tomcat, and everything works as desired:  The url http://localhost:8080 
  now brings up the myapp application.

As an experiment, I dropped a copy of the original myapp (exploded)  
folder (including META-INF/context.xml) into the standard webapps  
appbase, and restarted Tomcat.  Happily, the two versions of the app  
play nice together:  http://localhost:8080 invokes the xwebapps/myapp  
copy, and http://localhost:8080/myapp invokes the webapps/myapp copy.   
(Since they share the same db, this isn't viable for anything more  
than an experiment, but it's nice to know it works.)

Many thanks,
Ken

On Apr 2, 2009, at 11:34 PM, Caldarale, Charles R wrote:

>> From: Ken Bowen [mailto:kbowen@als.com]
>> Subject: ROOT options
>>
>> I'm wondering if I could get some pointers to reading about
>> what these options are.
>
> You can place a <Context> element in server.xml, but that is  
> strongly discouraged these days, and we will likely yell at you if  
> you do so.
>
> You can also specify the default webapp by creating the file conf/ 
> Catalina/[host]/ROOT.xml that contains a <Context> element with a  
> docBase attribute that points to a location *outside* of the <Host>  
> appBase directory.  You must also remove any ROOT.war file or ROOT  
> directory from the <Host> appBase.  If you want to have the name of  
> your .war file be different from the webapp name, this is the way to  
> do it.
>
> Documentation is here:
> http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/config/index.html
>
> - Chuck
>
>
> THIS COMMUNICATION MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL AND/OR OTHERWISE  
> PROPRIETARY MATERIAL and is thus for use only by the intended  
> recipient. If you received this in error, please contact the sender  
> and delete the e-mail and its attachments from all computers.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tomcat.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tomcat.apache.org
>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tomcat.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tomcat.apache.org


RE: ROOT options

Posted by "Caldarale, Charles R" <Ch...@unisys.com>.
> From: Ken Bowen [mailto:kbowen@als.com]
> Subject: ROOT options
> 
> I'm wondering if I could get some pointers to reading about 
> what these options are.

You can place a <Context> element in server.xml, but that is strongly discouraged these days, and we will likely yell at you if you do so.

You can also specify the default webapp by creating the file conf/Catalina/[host]/ROOT.xml that contains a <Context> element with a docBase attribute that points to a location *outside* of the <Host> appBase directory.  You must also remove any ROOT.war file or ROOT directory from the <Host> appBase.  If you want to have the name of your .war file be different from the webapp name, this is the way to do it.

Documentation is here:
http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/config/index.html

 - Chuck


THIS COMMUNICATION MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL AND/OR OTHERWISE PROPRIETARY MATERIAL and is thus for use only by the intended recipient. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail and its attachments from all computers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@tomcat.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@tomcat.apache.org