My application context is defined as an XML file located in `my/path/to/Tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/my-app.xml`. <Context docBase='/my/path/to/myApp/myAppWarFile.war'> <Environment name='my_config_dir' value='/my/path/to/myApp' type='java.lang.String'/> </Context> `/my/path/to/myApp` contains the WAR file myAppWarFile.war and a number of externalized properties that are read by Spring. Tomcat is configured with autoDeploy turned off. When I start Tomcat, it creates `my/path/to/Tomcat/conf/webapps/my-app/` and the WAR file gets unpacked into this location as expected, and the application of course can run as expected. When I want to deploy a new version without restarting Tomcat, I run the undeploy command as follows: curl http://localhost:8080/manager/text/undeploy?path=/my-app --user my-username:my-password ... and that works. But when I instruct Tomcat to deploy with the following curl statement, I get a failure. curl http://localhost:8080/manager/text/deploy?config=file:/my/path/to/Tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/my-app.xml --user my-username:my-password # Tomcat response FAIL - Invalid context path null was specified Adding the path does not help much, I still get a failure. curl http://localhost:8080/manager/text/deploy?config=file:/my/path/to/Tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/my-app.xml\&path=/my-app --user my-username:my-password # Tomcat response FAIL - Failed to deploy application at context path /my-app The worst part is that tailing catalina.out does not yield any insight. And on top of that, Tomcat deletes the application context XML file `my/path/to/Tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/my-app.xml`! Naturally I have reviewed Tomcat documentation (https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/manager-howto.html#Deploy_using_a_Context_configuration_%22.xml%22_file) and I have googled all day to figure this out, but I have not found anything that can help me with this particular configuration. It feels as though the choice is: 1. Tomcat with autoDeploy on (not recommended for production) in which case simply dropping the new WAR to `/my/path/to/myApp/` will cause Tomcat to hot deploy the app. 2. Tomcat with autoDeploy off, but re-deploying requires a Tomcat restart because the deploy API does not seem to be working as advertised. Has anybody made this work with this configuration? ADDITIONAL INFORMATION I turned up the logging on Catalina. When I run the first deploy command without the path, I get this set of log entries: FINE: Start processing with input [config=file:/my/path/to/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/my-app.xml] Oct 13, 2015 10:04:53 AM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler process FINE: Socket: [org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketWrapper@189651c1:Socket[addr=/0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1,port=45415,localport=8080]], Status in: [OPEN_READ], State out: [OPEN] Oct 13, 2015 10:04:53 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor process FINE: Error parsing HTTP request header java.io.EOFException: Unexpected EOF read on the socket at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.setRequestLineReadTimeout(Http11Processor.java:168) at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:982) at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:611) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:316) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615) at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744) Oct 13, 2015 10:04:53 AM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler process FINE: Socket: [org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketWrapper@189651c1:Socket[addr=/0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1,port=45415,localport=8080]], Status in: [OPEN_READ], State out: [CLOSED] Oct 13, 2015 10:04:53 AM org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.LimitLatch countDown FINE: Counting down[http-bio-8080-exec-16] latch=1 SERVER CONFIG Apache Tomcat 7.0.55 (but confirmed same problem with 7.0.59 and 8.0.12. Tomcat configured to run as a service with tomcat user and group owning the catalina base and subfolders, and the docBase folders outside of the appBase Centos 6.5