Tomcat + Windows Server 2008 Can't Find Context?

[Nick Reeve]

Hi,

I have been developing with Tomcat 5.5 on XP/2003 machines for quite a while now with no problems. I am now trying to set up Tomcat on a new pc with Windows Server 2008 (32 bit edition) and cannot seem to get my apps working. Basically, when I startup Tomcat, it doesn't attempt to load any apps configured in the <context> nodes in the server.xml. There are no errors, it just seems to ignore them completely. I tried installing Tomcat 6 but have the same issue.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Nick

[Tim Holloway]

You really shouldn't be defining Context nodes in server.xml. That's been discouraged since Tomcat4. The better procedure would be to make each Context be a separate xml file in TOMCAT_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost or in the meta-information in the WAR. Check the Tomcat docs for details.

Despite that, you should still be able to define contexts in server.xml, you just shouldn't. The Tomcat logs should be giving you some kind of indication as to what Tomcat is doing when it finds a context and attempts to start it up.

You are capitalizing the element name properly, I hope. It's "Context" with a capital C. Like all XML, upper/lower case usage is critical.

[Nick Reeve]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your reply. I have tried moving my context out of the server.xml and into it's own file in the localhost folder and have the same results. I checked it on my old pc and it works fine there. Here is the output from Tomcat:

30-Jul-2009 12:59:07 org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener init
INFO: The APR based Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path: C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 6.0\bin;.;C:\Windows\Sun\Java\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Oracle\product\11.1.0\client_1\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Program Files\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit-32
30-Jul-2009 12:59:07 org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol init
INFO: Initializing Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080
30-Jul-2009 12:59:07 org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 326 ms
30-Jul-2009 12:59:07 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService start
INFO: Starting service Catalina
30-Jul-2009 12:59:07 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine start
INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/6.0.20
30-Jul-2009 12:59:08 org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol start
INFO: Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080
30-Jul-2009 12:59:08 org.apache.jk.common.ChannelSocket init
INFO: JK: ajp13 listening on /0.0.0.0:8009
30-Jul-2009 12:59:08 org.apache.jk.server.JkMain start
INFO: Jk running ID=0 time=0/15  config=null
30-Jul-2009 12:59:08 org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 468 ms

Thanks,
Nick

[Tim Holloway]

Hmmmm. It's obviously not seeing your context definitions. Make sure you're doing the following:

1. Place the context definition file in %CATALINA_BASE%\conf\Catalina\localhost\ and make sure it's readable by whatever account Tomcat's running under.

2. Make sure that the filename extension is ".xml". Example: "mywebapp.xml". And be sure that you make that ""xml" in lower case. Although Microsoft Windows is pretty casual about upper/lower case in filenames and directories, Java is not.

3. The format for a deployment descriptor file should be as follows:

<!--
    
    Context configuration file for the sandbox web app.
    
    $Id: jta-test.xml,v 1.1 2008/11/22 14:03:59 timh Exp $
    
-->


<Context path="/mywebapp"
    docBase="/home/timh/mywebapp.war"
    debug="0" privileged="true"
>
   <Resource name="jdbc/jtaDS" auth="Container"
        type="javax.sql.DataSource" maxActive="100" maxIdle="30"
        maxWait="10000" username="user" password="secret"
        driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"
        url="jdbc:postgresql://database.mousetech.com/mydatabase"
    />
</Context>

I've included a DBCP connection pool definition in this example - it's fairly typical for me. Note that I'm not dropping my WAR file in CATALINA_BASE/webapps, I'm using an external location.

You might want to clean up the Tomcat directories just to ensure that old garbage isn't mucking up the deploy process:

1. Delete all subdirectories under CATALINA_BASE/work/Catalina/localhost/
2. Delete everything under CATALINA_BASE/temp/
3. Delete any WARS or application directories that belong to you in CATALINA_BASE/webapps/

And you might want to clean out the CATALINA_BASE/logs directory just for completeness.

Keep a spare copy of your Context file. If Tomcat decides the deployment is defective, it will delete the copy that's in CATALINA_BASE/conf/Catalina/localhost

[Nick Reeve]

OK, I have figured it out and it's a weird one. For anyone that comes across this problem, here is what's going on:

Turns out that when I was editing both the server.xml and then creating the context files under localhost, Windows was actually creating files elsewhere in a 'virtual location'.

I found that browsing in windows explorer showed that the new context file didn't exist even though I had created it there and could see it in my text editor. There is a button on the toolbar in explorer called 'Compatibility Files' and clicking that shows the file. It's not actually saved there though which explains why Tomcat can't see it. Here is some info on it:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VistasShowCompatibilityFilesAndTheScrumptiousWonderThatIsFileVirtualization.aspx

Basically ensure that you have explicit adminstrator rights to that folder and it will work.

Thanks very much for your help Tim.