TomcatAntTasks

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1. Rather than defining each task with a <taskdef>, I created a tomcatTasks.properties file with the following contents:

deploy=org.apache.catalina.ant.DeployTask
install=org.apache.catalina.ant.InstallTask
list=org.apache.catalina.ant.ListTask
reload=org.apache.catalina.ant.ReloadTask
remove=org.apache.catalina.ant.RemoveTask
resources=org.apache.catalina.ant.ResourcesTask
roles=org.apache.catalina.ant.RolesTask
start=org.apache.catalina.ant.StartTask
stop=org.apache.catalina.ant.StopTask
undeploy=org.apache.catalina.ant.UndeployTask

2. Then I created a tomcat.properties file with the following contents. Make sure the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml file has an entry with username/password admin/admin and that they have the manager role.

# Properties for Tomcat Server
tomcat.server=localhost
tomcat.manager.url=http://${tomcat.server}:8080/manager
tomcat.username=admin
tomcat.password=admin      

3. I included a reference to tomcat.properties in my build.xml file:

<property file="tomcat.properties"/>

4. Then I added all a single taskdef and all the targets/tasks I wanted to use to my build.xml file:

<taskdef file="${ant-contrib.dir}/tomcatTasks.properties">
        <classpath>
            <pathelement path="${tomcat.home}/server/lib/catalina-ant.jar"/>
        </classpath>
    </taskdef>
    <target name="install" description="Install application in Tomcat"
        depends="package-web">
        <deploy url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
            username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}"
            path="/${webapp.name}"
            war="file:${webapp.dist}/${webapp.war}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="remove" description="Remove application in Tomcat">
        <undeploy url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
            username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}"
            path="/${webapp.name}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="reload" description="Reload application in Tomcat">
        <reload url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
            username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}"
            path="/${webapp.name}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="start" description="Start Tomcat application">
        <start url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
            username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}"
            path="/${webapp.name}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="stop" description="Stop Tomcat application">
        <stop url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
            username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}"
            path="/${webapp.name}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="list" description="List Tomcat applications">
        <list url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
            username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}"/>
    </target>

NOTE: There are a few things I discovered in this process:

• If you put a context.xml file in your WAR's META-INF directory, the deploy task will recognize it and use it. This is the same as defining your context in server.xml or putting an appname.xml file in $CATALINA_HOME/webapps. In Tomcat 4, this only works with the deploy task. In Tomcat 5, this will work with any war - even if you just drop it into $CATALINA_HOME/webapps.

That's a very slick feature IMO. Now if there was only a way to deploy the JDBC Driver with the WAR and have it auto-deployed to $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.

• All these tasks will overwrite your server.xml file in Tomcat 4.1.x. They do create a backup, but if you're having configuration issues after using these, revert back to your original server.xml. I've included a minimal server.xml for Tomcat 4.1.29. Also, the war is deployed under the $CATALINA_HOME/work/Standalone/localhost/manager directory.

• In Tomcat 4.1.x, the reload target doesn't work with WARs. You have to use "ant stop start" to simulate a reload.

The good news is that all of the issues that occur in Tomcat 4.1.x are gone in Tomcat 5.

• In Tomcat 5, the server.xml is not overwritten. The context.xml is extracted where you would expect it ($CATALINA_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost), and the WAR is deployed (and expanded) to the webapps directory.
• The reload target works in Tomcat 5 - providing you don't have any non-serializable attributes in your session.

server-minimal-4.1.29.xml		2693 bytes
server-minimal-5.0.16.xml		1680 bytes