Connect and Deploy

Connect To A Tomcat Server

Before you can do anything to a Tomcat server, you need to enter the connection information, including the url and the authentication credentials. You can pass the connection information on the command line:

$ tomcat-manager --user=ace http://localhost:8080/manager
Password: {you type your password here}

Or:

$ tomcat-manager --user=ace --password=newenglandclamchowder \
http://localhost:8080/manager

You can also enter this information into the interactive prompt:

$ tomcat-manager
tomcat-manager> connect http://localhost:8080/manager ace newenglandclamchowder

Or:

$ tomcat-manager
tomcat-manager> connect http://localhost:8080/manager ace
Password: {type your password here}

See Authentication for complete details on all supported authentication mechanisms.

Deploy applications

Tomcat applications are usually packaged as a WAR file, which is really just a zip file with a different extension. The deploy command sends a WAR file to the Tomcat server and tells it which URL to deploy that application at.

The WAR file can be located in one of two places: some path on the computer that is running Tomcat, or some path on the computer where the command line tomcat-manager program is running.

If the WAR file is located on the same server as Tomcat, we call that server. If the WAR file is located where tomcat-manager is running, we call that local. If the file is already on the server, then we have to tell Tomcat where to go find it. If it’s local, then we have to send the WAR file over the network so Tomcat can deploy it.

For all of these examples, lets assume I have a Tomcat server running far away in a data center somewhere, accessible at https://www.example.com. I’m running the command line tomcat-manager program on my laptop. We’ll also assume that we have already connected to the Tomcat server, using one of the methods just described in Connect To A Tomcat Server.

For our first example, let’s assume we have a WAR file already on our server, in /tmp/fancyapp.war. To deploy this WAR file to https://www.example.com/fancy:

tomcat-manager> deploy server /tmp/myfancyapp.war /fancy

Now let’s say I just compiled a WAR file on my laptop for an app called shiny. It’s saved at ~/src/shiny/dist/shinyv2.0.5.war. I’d like to deploy it to https://www.example.com/shiny:

tomcat-manager> deploy local ~/src/shiny/dist/shiny2.0.5.war /shiny

Sometimes when you deploy a WAR you want to specify additional configuration information. You can do so by using a context file. The context file must reside on the same server where Tomcat is running.

tomcat-manager> deploy context /tmp/context.xml /sample

This command will deploy the WAR file specified in the docBase attribute of the Context element so it’s available at https://www.example.com/sample.

Note

When deploying via context files, be aware of the following:

The path attribute of the Context element is ignored by the Tomcat Server when deploying from a context file.
If the Context element specifies a docBase attribute, it will be used even if you specify a war file on the command line.

Parallel Deployment

Tomcat supports a parallel deployment feature which allows multiple versions of the same WAR to be deployed simultaneously at the same URL. To utilize this feature, you need to deploy an application with a version string. The combination of path and version string uniquely identify the application.

Let’s revisit our shiny app. This time we will deploy with a version string:

tomcat-manager> deploy local ~/src/shiny/dist/shiny2.0.5.war /shiny -v v2.0.5
tomcat-manager> list
Path                     Status  Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/                        running        0 ROOT
/manager                 running        0 manager
/shiny                   running        0 shiny##v2.0.5

Later today, I make a bug fix to ‘shiny’, and build version 2.0.6 of the app. Parallel deployment allows me to deploy two versions of that app at the same path, and Tomcat will migrate users to the new version over time as their sessions expire in version 2.0.5.

tomcat-manager> deploy local ~/src/shiny/dist/shiny2.0.6.war /shiny -v v2.0.6
tomcat-manager> list
Path                     Status  Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/                        running        0 ROOT
/manager                 running        0 manager
/shiny                   running       12 shiny##v2.0.5
/shiny                   running        0 shiny##v2.0.6

Once all the sessions have been migrated to version 2.0.6, I can undeploy version 2.0.5:

tomcat-manager> undeploy /shiny --version v2.0.5
tomcat-manager> list
Path                     Status  Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/                        running        0 ROOT
/manager                 running        0 manager
/shiny.                  running        9 shiny##v2.0.6

The following commands support the -v or --version option, which makes parallel deployment possible:

deploy
undeploy
start
stop
reload
sessions
expire