How to Configure Contexts? STILL DRIVING ME NUTS!

[Jeff Wishnie <je...@deluxebiz.com>]

Hi All,

Thank you for the responses I received.

>From the responses it's clear to me that I do _not_ understand the mechanism
of how contexts are specified and generated. I've read through the Tomcat
documentation, and gone through the email-list-archives, and am still
confused.

Can someone explain? Once I do understand, I'd be happy to clean it up and
turn it into a FAQ.

Here is what I _think_ I understand:

1. The server.xml file can contain any number of <context> directives
2. It also _must_ contain a context with path="" as the default context
3. In addition, any web-apps that appear in the <Host> directives appBase
will have a context generated for them

Here is what I _don't_ understand:

Q1. Why can't I declare a <Context> with a path (e.g. "/foo") and also use
this app as my default context WITHOUT having it LOADED TWICE? It seems that
if I have two <Context> entries--one with path="/foo" to handle the
"myserver/foo" requests, and another to set it as the default, the App gets
loaded twice.

Q2. What happens when I put an explicit Context entry in server.xml for an
application that sits in my hosts appBase? I do this to explicitly set
parameters like 'path'.

I would expect the explicit Context entry in server.xml to superseed any
generated context, but again, the app seems to get loaded twice.

Q3. In the Tomcat documentation for the <Host> directive, it's mentioned
that you can use .xml files to explicity create Contexts outside of
server.xml. But it isn't clear on where you put these. I quote: "Any XML
file in this directory is assumed to contain a Context element " Ok, but
what is THIS directory? AppBase? Web-application directory? WEB-INF in a
Webapp??

Here is a link to the unclear docs:

http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.1-doc/config/host.html#Automatic%2
0Application%20Deployment

Q4. How do these 4 kinds of Context specifications interact:
    - server.xml entries
    - server.xml default context (not the <defalutContext> directive, the
<context path=""> directive)
    - separate context .xml files
    - auto-generated contexts for web-apps in the AppBase directory

Specifically how can I:
    - Explicitly specify context parameters
    - Satisfy the requirement that there be a default context (path="")
    - NOT have my app loaded multiple times
    ????

Thanks in advance for all your help. As you can tell, I'm getting pretty
frustrated!

- jeff

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Petres" <mp...@rogers.com>
To: "Tomcat Users List" <to...@jakarta.apache.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 3:56 PM
Subject: RE: Servlet's loading twice on start-up--DRIVING ME NUTS!


> Tomcat will (upon startup) scan the appBase="..." directory (default is
> 'webapps') by default and will load any web applications located there. In
> addition if you have a context defined, it will also load the app again!
>
> Try placing your web application some other place but 'webapps' and make
> sure you specify the absolute path in the docBase of your context tag.
>
> Michael Petres
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> InnovObjX Corp.
> Web: www.innovobjx.com
> Tel: 905-729-2235 x3
> Fax: 905-729-2235
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Wishnie [mailto:jeff@deluxebiz.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 6:53 PM
> To: Tomcat Users List
> Subject: Servlet's loading twice on start-up--DRIVING ME NUTS!
>
> I have a very simple Tomcat install with one application. The web.xml for
> the applicaiton loads two servlets on start-up.
>
> According to my logs both servlets have their init() methods called
_twice_.
>
> I've looked through the list archives and gone through the mentionned
causes
> of this problem and, assuming I understand the issues, have ruled them
out.
>
> 1. The servlets are _not_ throwing exceptions
>
> 2. I have only _one_ context defined in server.xml and it is _not_ the
> default context.
>
> I'm going nuts here and would be very grateful for any help folks on the
> list can provide.
>
> Here are the details of my set-up:
>
> Tomcat: 4.1.7-LE
> JDK: 1.4.0_01
> OS: Redhat 7.2
>
> Tomcat layout:
>
> One web application in: $TOMCAT_HOME/ROOT/MyApp
>
> Here are revelant sections from $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml:
>
>   <Host name="localhost" debug="0" appBase="ROOT" unpackWARs="true"
> autoDeploy="false">
>         <Logger className="org.apache.catalina.logger.FileLogger"
>                  directory="logs"  prefix="localhost_log." suffix=".txt"
>                 timestamp="true"/>
>         <Context path="/" docBase="DeluxeCal" debug="0"
crossContext="false"
> reloadable="false" />
>   </Host>
>
> [note that "autoDeploy" and "reloadable" are false and that the Context
> path="/", _not_ ""]
>
> Here are relevent sections from  $TOMCAT_HOME/ROOT/MyApp/WEB-INF/web,xml:
>
>  <servlet>
>         <servlet-name>initServlet</servlet-name>
>         <servlet-class>com.foo.InitServlet</servlet-class>
>         <load-on-startup>10</load-on-startup>
>     </servlet>
>
>     <servlet>
>         <servlet-name>serviceInit</servlet-name>
>         <servlet-class>com.foo.ServiceInitServlet</servlet-class>
>         <init-param>
>             <param-name>endpoint</param-name>
>             <param-value>http://foo.com/service/bar?wsdl</param-value>
>         </init-param>
>         <load-on-startup>20</load-on-startup>
>     </servlet>
>
> Why is Init getting called TWICE for each servlet??
>
> Help!
>
> Thanks!
>
> - Jeff
>
>
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