> Hello. I am seeking some advice for the best ways to deploy Java web
> applications to different Tomcat environments.
>
> In particular, my application requires that a JNDI resource be defined
> for a database, where the database server address and credentials will
> vary depending on the environment the application is deployed to.
>
> * Tomcat: 8.0.36
> * OS: varies depending on the environment deployed to
>
> If I include in the WAR file, a META-INF/context.xml that includes the
> Resource element, Tomcat will use that to create the file:
> $CATALINA_HOME/conf/engine/host/my-application.xml
>
> The context file my-application.xml can then be modified so that the
> Resource settings are appropriate for the environment.
>
> However, if, for any reason, the application is undeployed and then
> re-deployed, my-application.xml will be recreated with the settings as
> they originally appeared in the WAR file.
>
> The options that seem evident to me are:
>
> 1) Create a different WAR file for each environment. This strikes me as
> a bit onerous.
>
> 2) Use environment variables in my-application.xml such as:
> url="${databaseurl}" and then define those environment variables using
> the Environment element in the GlobalNamingResources of Tomcat's
server.xml.
>
> Regarding #2, would it be possible to instead use a properties file to
> define the variables? I assume adding entries to catalina.properties
> would work, but is it possible to define a properties file separate from
> catalina.properties which deals more with system properties rather than
> application properties?
>
We set such system properties in setenv.sh, e.g.:
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Ddatabase.password=$DATABASE_PASSWORD"
The environment variable $DATABASE_PASSWORD is used because we wrap our
applications along with tomcat and jvm in docker images. Operations
specify environment specific parameters (as database passwords) when they
launch the docker container with -e switch, e.g.:
docker run -d -e DATABASE_PASSWORD=secret .....
Due to docker we don't need context.xml files inside WARs. Instead we have
application specific tomcat config files in our source trees. Our build
process includes them in the docker image as top level tomcat config. As
we build application specific images there is just one app per image and
thus per tomcat instance.
Of course that is linux only.
regards,
Christoph
> I haven't been able to find a documented standard methodology for Tomcat
> deployments to different environments, but I'm certain there must be
> some common and elegant ways of doing this. I'm interested in hearing
> what others have done.
>
> Thank you,
> Philip
>
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