"path" attribute for "Context" element in tomcat 5.5

["Akoulov, Alexandre [IT]" <al...@citigroup.com>]

Hi all,

I am in the process of upgrading from tomcat-3.3 to tomcat-5.5.12.

One of the changes in tomcat 5.5 is the configuration of contexts (ie web apps) is now being done in individual files (with a ".xml" extension) in the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]/ directory ( rather than in $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml, which is a tomcat-3.3 way).

To test this new configuration I've created the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost/test.xml with the following content:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>

<Context 	path="/testProjYY"
		docBase="/home/alex/release/TestProj/war"  
		reloadable="true" crossContext="true" allowLinking="true" >
		 
	<Logger className="org.apache.catalina.logger.FileLogger"
      	directory="/home/alex/release/tomcat-5.5/logs"  
		prefix="localhost_log_TestProj." suffix=".txt"
           	timestamp="true"/>
</Context> 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see the 'path' attribute is '/testProjYY' and in order to access this app I tried to hit http://sydap42d.aus.nsroot.net:8080/testProjYY/TestServlet url and .... I got 404 (The requested resource (/testProjYY/TestServlet) is not available.) error.

So I went to Context element description (http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/config/context.html) and found the following : "path... The context path of this web application...The value of this field must not be set except when statically defining a Context in server.xml, as it will be infered from the filenames used for either the .xml context file or the docBase." Last sentence indicates that the 'path' attribute value is ignored, unless Context element is defined in server.xml (which is not encouraged in tomcat-5.5), and .xml file name is used as a context path instead. 

Therefore I've modified $CATALINA_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost/test.xml (got rid of the 'path' tag): 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
<Context docBase="/home/alex/release/TestProj/war"  
		reloadable="true" crossContext="true" allowLinking="true" >
		 
	<Logger className="org.apache.catalina.logger.FileLogger"
      	directory="/home/alex/release/tomcat-5.5/logs"  
		prefix="localhost_log_TestProj." suffix=".txt"
           	timestamp="true"/>
</Context> 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then I hit http://sydap42d.aus.nsroot.net:8080/test/TestServlet (/test context path is derived from $CATALINA_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost/test.xml filename) and got the html generated by TestServlet. 

Is it a right way to configure a context ? It just seems a bit strange that the 'path' attribute is completely ignored and instead the filename is used as a context path.


Thanks a lot for your time and assistance on this matter.


Kind regards,

Alex.




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