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In many production environments it is very useful to have the capability
to manage your web applications without having to shut down and restart
Tomcat. This document is for the HTML web interface to the web application
manager. The interface is divided into five sections:
Displays information about the success or failure of the last web application manager command you performed. If it succeeded OK is displayed and may be followed by a success message. If it failed FAIL is displayed followed by an error message. Common failure messages are documented below for each command. The complete list of failure messages for each command can be found in the manager web application documentation.
The Manager section has three links:
The Applications section lists information about all the installed web applications and provides links for managing them. For each web application the following is displayed:
/WEB-INF/lib/ or new classes in
/WEB-INF/classes/ can be used.Signal a stopped application to restart, and make itself available again. Stopping and starting is useful, for example, if the database required by your application becomes temporarily unavailable. It is usually better to stop the web application that relies on this database rather than letting users continuously encounter database exceptions.
If this command succeeds, you will see a Message like this:
Otherwise, the Message will start with FAIL and include an
error message. Possible causes for problems include:
An exception was encountered trying to start the web application. Check the Tomcat 5 logs for the details.
The context path must start with a slash character, unless you are referencing the ROOT web application -- in which case the context path must be a zero-length string.
There is no deployed application on the context path that you specified.
The path parameter is required.
Signal an existing application to make itself unavailable, but leave it deployed. Any request that comes in while an application is stopped will see an HTTP error 404, and this application will show as "stopped" on a list applications command.
If this command succeeds, you will see a Message like this:
Otherwise, the Message will start with FAIL and include an
error message. Possible causes for problems include:
An exception was encountered trying to stop the web application. Check the Tomcat 5 logs for the details.
The context path must start with a slash character, unless you are referencing the ROOT web application -- in which case the context path must be a zero-length string.
There is no deployed application on the context path that you specified.
The path parameter is required.
Signal an existing application to shut itself down and reload. This can
be useful when the web application context is not reloadable and you have
updated classes or property files in the /WEB-INF/classes
directory or when you have added or updated jar files in the
/WEB-INF/lib directory.
NOTE: The /WEB-INF/web.xml
web application configuration file is not checked on a reload;
the previous web.xml configuration is used.
If you have made changes to your web.xml file you must stop
then start the web application.
If this command succeeds, you will see a Message like this:
Otherwise, the Message will start with FAIL and include an
error message. Possible causes for problems include:
An exception was encountered trying to restart the web application. Check the Tomcat 5 logs for the details.
The context path must start with a slash character, unless you are referencing the ROOT web application -- in which case the context path must be a zero-length string.
There is no deployed application on the context path that you specified.
The path parameter is required.
Currently, application reloading (to pick up changes to the classes orweb.xmlfile) is not supported when a web application is installed directly from a WAR file, which happens when the host is configured to not unpack WAR files. As it only works when the web application is installed from an unpacked directory, if you are using a WAR file, you shouldundeployand thendeploythe application again to pick up your changes.
WARNING - This command will delete the
contents of the web application directory and/or ".war" file if it exists within
the appBase directory (typically "webapps") for this virtual host
. The web application temporary work directory is also deleted. If
you simply want to take an application out of service, you should use the
/stop command instead.
Signal an existing application to gracefully shut itself down, and then
remove it from Tomcat (which also makes this context path available for
reuse later). This command is the logical opposite of the
/deploy Ant command, and the related deploy features available
in the HTML manager.
If this command succeeds, you will see a Message like this:
Otherwise, the Message will start with FAIL and include an
error message. Possible causes for problems include:
An exception was encountered trying to undeploy the web application. Check the Tomcat logs for the details.
The context path must start with a slash character, unless you are referencing the ROOT web application -- in which case the context path must be a zero-length string.
There is no deployed application on the context path that you specified.
The path parameter is required.
Web applications can be deployed using files or directories located on the Tomcat server or you can upload a web application archive (WAR) file to the server.
To install an application, fill in the appropriate fields for the type of install you want to do and then submit it using the Install button.
Deploy and start a new web application, attached to the specified Context Path: (which must not be in use by any other web application). This command is the logical opposite of the Undeploy command.
There are a number of different ways the deploy command can be used.
Install a web application directory or ".war" file located on the Tomcat
server. If no Context Path is specified, the directory name or the
war file name without the ".war" extension is used as the path. The
WAR or Directory URL specifies a URL (including the file:
scheme) for either a directory or a web application archive (WAR) file. The
supported syntax for a URL referring to a WAR file is described on the Javadocs
page for the java.net.JarURLConnection class. Use only URLs that
refer to the entire WAR file.
In this example the web application located in the directory
C:\path\to\foo on the Tomcat server (running on Windows)
is deployed as the web application context named /footoo.
In this example the ".war" file /path/to/bar.war on the
Tomcat server (running on Unix) is deployed as the web application
context named /bar. Notice that there is no path
parameter so the context path defaults to the name of the web application
archive file without the ".war" extension.
Install a web application directory or ".war" file located in your Host appBase directory. If no Context Path is specified the directory name or the war file name without the ".war" extension is used as the path.
In this example the web application located in a subdirectory named
foo in the Host appBase directory of the Tomcat server is
deployed as the web application context named /foo. Notice
that there is no path parameter so the context path defaults
to the name of the web application directory.
In this example the ".war" file bar.war located in your
Host appBase directory on the Tomcat server is deployed as the web
application context named /bartoo.
If the Host deployXML flag is set to true, you can install a web application using a Context configuration ".xml" file and an optional ".war" file or web application directory. The Context Path is not used when installing a web application using a context ".xml" configuration file.
A Context configuration ".xml" file can contain valid XML for a
web application Context just as if it were configured in your
Tomcat server.xml configuration file. Here is an
example for Tomcat running on Windows:
Use of the WAR or Directory URL is optional. When used to select a web application ".war" file or directory it overrides any docBase configured in the context configuration ".xml" file.
Here is an example of installing an application using a Context
configuration ".xml" file for Tomcat running on Windows.
Here is an example of installing an application using a Context
configuration ".xml" file and a web application ".war" file located
on the server (Tomcat running on Unix).
Upload a WAR file from your local system and install it into the appBase for your Host. The name of the WAR file without the ".war" extension is used as the context path name.
Use the Browse button to select a WAR file to upload to the server from your local desktop system.
The .WAR file may include Tomcat specific deployment configuration, by
including a Context configuration XML file in
/META-INF/context.xml.
Upload of a WAR file could fail for the following reasons:
The upload install will only accept files which have the filename extension of ".war".
If a war file of the same name already exists in your Host's appBase the upload will fail. Either undeploy the existing war file from your Host's appBase or upload the new war file using a different name.
The file upload failed, no file was received by the server.
The war file upload or install failed with a Java Exception. The exception message will be listed.
If the Host is configured with unpackWARs=true and you install a war file, the war will be unpacked into a directory in your Host appBase directory.
If the application war or directory is deployed in your Host appBase directory and either the Host is configured with autoDeploy=true or liveDeploy=true, the Context path must match the directory name or war file name without the ".war" extension.
For security when untrusted users can manage web applications, the Host deployXML flag can be set to false. This prevents untrusted users from installing web applications using a configuration XML file and also prevents them from installing application directories or ".war" files located outside of their Host appBase.
If deployment and startup is successful, you will receive a Message like this:
Otherwise, the Message will start with FAIL and include an
error message. Possible causes for problems include:
The context paths for all currently running web applications must be unique. Therefore, you must either undeploy the existing web application using this context path, or choose a different context path for the new one.
The URL specified by the WAR or Directory URL: field must identify a directory on this server that contains the "unpacked" version of a web application, or the absolute URL of a web application archive (WAR) file that contains this application. Correct the value entered for the WAR or Directory URL: field.
An exception was encountered trying to start the new web application. Check the Tomcat 5 logs for the details, but likely explanations include problems parsing your
/WEB-INF/web.xmlfile, or missing classes encountered when initializing application event listeners and filters.
The URL for the WAR or Directory URL: field that you specified was not valid. Such URLs must start with
file:, and URLs for a WAR file must end in ".war".
The context path must start with a slash character, unless you are referencing the ROOT web application -- in which case the context path must be a "/" string.
If the application war or directory is deployed in your Host appBase directory and either the Host is configured with autoDeploy=true or liveDeploy=true, the Context path must match the directory name or war file name without the ".war" extension.
If the Host deployXML flag is set to false this error will happen if an attempt is made to install a web application directory or ".war" file outside of the Host appBase directory.
This section displays information about Tomcat, the operating system of the server Tomcat is hosted on, and the Java Virtual Machine Tomcat is running in.