Tomcat: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

The Tomcat Admin Webapp

Most of the work in this chapter has been figuring out what needs changing in a configuration file, knowing which XML to edit and then editing that file, and restarting either Tomcat or the affected web application. We end the chapter with a look at an alternative way of making changes to Tomcat's configuration—for some versions of Tomcat.

Tomcat versions before 6.0.0 (including 5.5.x and lower versions) included an administration webapp that allowed inspecting and modifying the configuration of Tomcat from a web application running within the same Tomcat instance. But, when the Tomcat developers refactored Tomcat for the 6.0 branch, they did not maintain the Admin webapp, so this webapp does not build or run on Tomcat 6.0.x, nor does the webapp come with Tomcat 6.0.x. If you want to run the Admin webapp, as of this writing, you must run Tomcat version 5.5.x or lower. The Tomcat developers are, however, planning to refactor and include the Admin webapp in the next branch of Tomcat after 6.0. It is possible that by the time you read this there will be a new branch of Tomcat that includes the Admin webapp.

Most commercial Java EE servers provide fully functional administrative interfaces; many of them are accessible as web applications. The Tomcat Admin webapp is a featureful Tomcat administration tool rivaling these commercial offerings. First included in Tomcat 4.1, it provides control over contexts, data sources, users, and groups. You can also control resources ...