Going around and around with this tomcat7-maven-plugin

[Karl Krasnowsky]

I'm trying to upgrade a legacy SOAP web service (I mean LEGACY) from its current Netbeans/Glassfish setup to Maven/Spring web service container
Following an example project, it recommends using the tomcat7-maven-plugin for an "easy" tool to run my service in development without having to install an entire server.
Everything was fine until I attempted to update the hibernate system from v4 (told you it was LEGACY) to v5 (v5.4.1.Final to be exact) .
Now when attempting to start the service in the tomcat plugin I get:

Nov 28, 2020 4:54:47 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig processAnnotationsJar
SEVERE: Unable to process Jar entry [module-info.class] from Jar [jar:file:/c:/Users/kkrasnowsky/.m2/re
pository/org/glassfish/jaxb/txw2/2.3.1/txw2-2.3.1.jar!/] for annotations

Actually multiple of the above, sighting numerous target jars.

Everything I can find related to this online mentions to upgrade to tomcat8 , but all attempts to do this with tomcat8-maven-plugin fail to resolve the plugin and comments imply that this plugin is not available (for a long time!) and many suggestions on how to get around this by actually installing a local tomcat 8 server, which is exactly what I'm wanting to avoid.

If it helps, here's my pom:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.fake.ws.</groupId>
    <artifactId>my-cool-service</artifactId>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>my-cool-service</name>
    <url>http://www.fake.com/my-cool-service</url>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <hibernate.version>5.4.1.Final</hibernate.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
            <version>${hibernate.version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
            <artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
            <version>${hibernate.version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>mysql</groupId>
            <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
            <version>8.0.15</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.ws</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-ws-core</artifactId>
            <version>3.0.10.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>wsdl4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>wsdl4j</artifactId>
            <version>1.6.3</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <finalName>my-cool-service</finalName>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.6.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.maven</groupId>
                <artifactId>tomcat7-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.2</version>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.jvnet.jaxb2.maven2</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-jaxb2-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>0.14.0</version>
                <configuration>
                    <schemaDirectory>src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/xsd</schemaDirectory>
                </configuration>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>generate</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

I'm going around on circles on this and just want a simple server to do some local testing against.

[Rob Spoor]

Karl Krasnowsky wrote:I'm trying to upgrade a legacy SOAP web service (I mean LEGACY) from its current Netbeans/Glassfish setup to Maven/Spring web service container
Following an example project, it recommends using the tomcat7-maven-plugin for an "easy" tool to run my service in development without having to install an entire server.

If your goal is to a) use Spring, and b) run without an entire server, why not go for Spring Boot? Go to https://start.spring.io/, add the "Spring Web Services" dependency, and start from there. If you run "mvn package", then "java -jar target/demo-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar" (or "java -jar target\demo-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar" on Windows), you already have a running web server.

[Tim Holloway]

I'd simplify it first, then upgrade.

The Tomcat Maven plugin is just a convenience to deploy webapp builds. You can deploy builds yourself by simply copying the WAR that maven's war:war goal constructs into a tomcat server. Or even simpler, create a Tomcat Context file that targets the WAR build site in your Maven project's target directory.

I've never used the Maven deployment plugins myself, in fact. I usually control Tomcat via the "mongrel" Eclipse plugin and use target context strategy I just mentioned. That gives me a good turnaround cycle.

I'd be very reluctant to go straight to Spring Boot here, since Spring Boot is Spring plus an embedded Tomcat and the extra degrees of interconnectedness and internalization make it harder to resolve problems. Especially if you need my help. I'm good at Spring and I'm good at Tomcat, but Spring Boot is not an area that anyone has hired me for, so I'm generally second-guessing problems in that area.