Tomcat : Java Glossary

Apache is a group of people, not a company, who make an opensource webserver. They refer to the open source project as Jakarta, and the servlet womb part of it as Catalina. Jasper is the JSP (Java Server Pages) Tomcat includes Catalina and the vanilla HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) server. It is free. It supports JSP. It is easy to set up. It does not support EJB. Tomcat is now considered ex-Jakarta, but still Apache. What that means practically, I have no idea. Version 7.0.27 handles Servlets 3.0 and JSP 2.2 Last revised/verified: 2012-04-05 On Windows it comes with an installer. After you have installed, set up the environment in the control panel.

set CATALINA_HOME=J:\Program Files\tomcat-7.0.27
set JAVA_HOME=J:\Program Files\java\jdk1.7.0_04

Then invoke J:\Program Files\tomcat-7.0.27\bin\ startup.bat to launch Tomcat. In your browser type http://localhost:8080 and you will see a web page served by Tomcat sporting a green and yellow colour scheme, a cat and a feather if all went according to plan. Note that is localhost:8080 not localhost:80. You can then run the various examples. Use J:\Program Files\tomcat-7.0.27\bin\ shutdown.bat to shut Tomcat down. Glassfish is a common faster alternative that in addition handles EE (Enterprise Edition).

Directory Structure

You would typically install Tomcat in X:\Program Files\tomcat-7.0.27. Everything fits in the tree structure under that directory.

Tomcat Directories
Directory	Use
bin	Executables, startup.bat, shutdown.bat and *.sh files to control taking Tomcat up and down.
conf	.policy, .properties and *.xml files to configure Tomcat.
lib	*.jar files.
logs	logs of what Tomcat did.
temp	temporary work space.
webapps	Has a tree structure like the equivalent statically-served web pages. Instead of .html files, it mostly has .jsp files. Also contains .html, .gif, .png, .jpg, *.svg etc. files served statically.
webapps/docs	Where to extract the documentation tar file.
webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/web.xml	The Web Application Deployment Descriptor for your application. This is a *.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 lets your clients use short simple names to invoke your Servlets, which may have long qualified names.
webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes	contains any Java class files (and associated resources) required for your application, including both Servlet and non-Servlet classes, that are not combined into *.jar files. This includes your Java source to handle your custom tags. If your classes are organized into Java packages, you must reflect this in the directory hierarchy under /WEB-INF/classes/. For example, a Java class named com.mindprod.practice. MyServlet would need to be stored in a file named /WEB-INF/classes/com/mindprod/practice/ MyServlet.class.
webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/jsp	contains *.tld taglib descriptor files.
webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/tags	contains *.tag files.
webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib	Contains *.jar files that contain Java class files (and associated resources) required for your application, including third party class libraries or JDBC (Java Data Base Connectivity) drivers.
work	Where Tomcat puts the .java and .class files it generates from the *.jsp files.

Catalina
EE
Glassfish
JSP
passwords
Servlet
Servlet womb
Taglibs
Taglibs under Tomcat
Tomcat documentation
Wikipedia on Tomcat

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