I have been working with Tomcat 6.0.20 running as a windows service for about a year. I update the application war file every few months. After reading the Tomcat 6.0 User Guide, Section 4, Deployer -Deploying on a running war Tomcat I expected to be able to just drop the updated war file into the web apps folder, overwriting the old war file of the same name and it would automatically replace the previously exploded war with the new. The document says, 'If the Host autoDeploy attribute is "true", the Host will attempt to deploy and update web applications dynamically, as needed, for example if a new .WAR is dropped into the appBase. For this to work, the Host needs to have background processing enabled which is the default configuration'. I could not get this to happen. The new war would not re-deploy while Tomcat was running and would not re-deploy after restarting Tomcat. I then read the Tomcat Configuration Reference, Context section and followed the link to Automatic Application Deployment where I read the following, 'If you redeploy an updated WAR file, be sure to delete the expanded directory when restarting Tomcat, so that the updated WAR file will be re-expanded (note that the auto deployer, if enabled, will automatically expand the updated WAR file once the previously expanded directory is removed).' I tried this and it does exactly what I wanted, so that is what I have been doing. Can someone enlighten me on my confusion between the two sets of instructions.
Joe
