Configure Tomcat

0. Introduction

[ Tomcat ] : Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. (http://tomcat.apache.org/)

1. Environment

Ubuntu 10.04

JDK 1.6.0 u27

Apache Tomcat 7.0.22

2. Steps

2.0 Install JDK and Tomcat

2.1 All of the configuration files are in the "{$CATALINA_HOME}/conf" folder, and "server.xml" is the core configuration file, the following is the structure of "server.xml"
<Server>
  <Listener/>
  <Listener/>
  <GlobalNamingResources>
    <Resource/>
  </GlobalNamingResources>
  <Service>
    <Connector/>
    <Connector/>
    <Engine>
      <Realm>
        <Realm/>
      </Realm>
      <Host>
        <Valve/>
      </Host>
    </Engine>
  </Service>
</Server>

2.2 Change the port number if necessary, change the port="8080" to port="80" or some other number you like
    <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
               connectionTimeout="20000" 
               redirectPort="8443" />

2.3 Configure virtual directory
2.3.1 Copy folder "{$CATALINA_HOME}/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF" to your site directory
because the /WEB-INF/web.xml is needed for every web sites, you can code it yourself, but it is recommended to copy it (my site directory is /home/yineng/workspace/tomcatwebsite in this article)
2.3.2 Add a index.jsp file to your web site directory which can only content "hello, world"
2.3.3 Edit "{$CATALINA_HOME}/conf/server.xml"
add <Context path="/myweb" docBase="/home/yineng/workspace/tomcatwebsite"/> before </Host>
path : the web browser path, must start with "/"
docBase : absolute disk path of your web site
2.3.4 Now view http://localhost:8080/myweb/ in your browser

2.4 If you want your web site page list the folders and files in the directory user visited, you can edit "{$CATALINA_HOME}/conf/web.xml" like the following, but it is intensely recommend to close listing function when you release the web site
change <param-value>false</param-value> to <param-value>true</param-value>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>listings</param-name>
            <param-value>false</param-value>
        </init-param>

2.5 You may need to shut down and start up the tomcat server several times to see the effect when you configure it
$ ./{$CATALINA_HOME}/bin/shutdown.sh
$ ./{$CATALINA_HOME}/bin/startup.sh

2.6 OK, now your first web site has been deployed

3. Additional Introduction

3.1 /WEB-INF/web.xml
/WEB-INF/web.xml - The Web Application Deployment Descriptor for your application. This is an XML file describing the servlets and other components that make up your application, along with any initialization parameters and container-managed security constraints that you want the server to enforce for you. This file is discussed in more detail in the following subsection.

4. Reference

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/index.html

http://wenku.baidu.com/view/f4bc2ed276a20029bd642d38.html