The DefaultContext Component

[Introduction] [Common Attributes] [Utility Components] [Special Features]

Introduction

A DefaultContext component represents a subset of the Context configuration elements. A DefaultContext can be nested within an Engine or Host.

The elements you configure for a DefaultContext within both the Engine and Host elements are added to the configuration of any automatically created web application context or configured context.

If you wish to configure a Context which does not use the DefaultContext configuration set the Context attribute override="true".

Common Attributes

All implementations of the Context component support the following attributes:

Attribute	Description
`cookies`	Set to `true` if you want cookies to be used for session identifier communication (if supported by the client). Set to `false` if you want to skip even trying session id cookies, and rely only on URL rewriting. If not specified, the default value is `true`.
`crossContext`	Set to `true` of you want calls from within this application to `ServletContext.getContext()` to successfully return the `ServletContext` for other web applications running in this host. Set to `false` in security conscious environments, so that `getContext()` calls will return `null`. The default value is `false`.
`reloadable`	Set this attribute to `true` if you wish to have Catalina check the classes in `WEB-INF/classes` and `WEB-INF/lib` for modification, and automatically reload this application if a change is detected. This feature is very useful during development; however, it requires significant runtime overhead so it is not recommended for production deployment scenarios.
`wrapperClass`	Java class name of the `org.apache.catalina.Wrapper` implementation class that will be used for servlets managed by this Context. If not specified, the standard value (`org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper`) will be used.
`useNaming`	Set this attribute to `true` if you wish to have Catalina enable JNDI. Default is `true`.

Utility Components

You can attach one or more of the following utility components by nesting a corresponding declaration inside your Host element.

Loader - Configure a class loader associated with this Context.
Manager - Configure a session manager for the sessions associated with this Context.
Resources - Configure access to the static resources associated with this Context

Special Features

Lifecycle Listeners

If you have implemented a Java object that needs to know when this Context is started or stopped, you can declare it by nesting a <Listener> element inside the <Context> element. The class you specify in the className attribute of this Listener must implement the org.apache.catalina.LifecycleListener interface, and it will be notified about the occurrence of the corresponding lifecycle events.

Configuration for such a listener might look like this:


    <Context path="/myapp" ...>
      ...
      <Listener className="com.mycompany.MyAppListener"/>
      ...
    </Context>