Professional Apache Tomcat 5 (Programmer to Programmer)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 624 pages
• Published by: Wrox
• Edition: 1st Edition May 28, 2004
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0764559028
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0764559020
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 2 pounds

Product Description
What is this book about?

The Apache Tomcat server and related technologies give Java developers a rich set of tools to quickly build more sophisticated Web applications. Tomcat version 5 supports the latest JSP and Servlet specifications, JSP 2.0, and Servlets 2.4. This completely updated volume offers you a thorough education in Tomcat 5 as well as 4.1.

What does this book cover?

You will learn to solve the problems that arise with installation and configuration, security, system testing, and more. This edition also introduces you to Tomcat clustering for planning and deploying installations in mission-critical production environments, and explores the new support for Tomcat in popular IDEs, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, NetBeans/Sun Java Studio, and JBuilder.

You’ll discover how to manage class loaders and Connectors, understand how to use IIS as a Web server front-end for Tomcat, examine JDBC-related issues in Tomcat, and be ready to put this technology to work.

Here are some other things you'll learn from this book:

• Techniques and troubleshooting tips for installing JVM and Tomcat on Windows and UNIX/Linux systems
• Detailed Tomcat configuration, such as Access log administration, Single Sign-on across Web applications, request filtering, the Persistent Session Manager, and JavaMail session setup
• How to resolve JDBC connectivity issues, including connection pooling, JNDI emulation, configuring a data source, and alternative JDBC configurations
• How to use Web servers like Apache and IIS with Tomcat to serve static content
• A wide range of security issues, from securing Tomcat installations to configuring security policies for Web applications that run on them
• How to configure Tomcat for virtual hosting environments
• Procedures for load-testing Web applications deployed in Tomcat using the open source JMeter framework
• How to set up Tomcat clustering to provide scalability and high availability to Web applications
• How to embed Tomcat within custom applications

Who is this book for?

This book is for J2EE system administrators and Java developers with responsibilities for Tomcat configuration, performance tuning, system security, or deployment architecture.

Download Description
What is this book about?

Professional Apache Tomcat 5 shows system administrators and Java developers how to install, configure, and run the Tomcat server. The authors focus on solving real-world problems encountered in all phases of server administration, including the following:

• Installation
• Configuration
• Managing class loaders and connectors
• Security
• Shared hosting and clustering
• System testing

The book provides comprehensive coverage of all of the latest features of Tomcat Releases 4.1 and 5.0. (Tomcat 5.0, which is expected to release at the end of this year, supports JSP 2.0 and Servlets 2.4. Given that many companies are slow to upgrade, the authors also cover Release 4.1.).

Reader Reviews
There is a lot of good information in this book, and it's true that it gets into JMX, the web-based manager and admin apps, etc., etc. But I have some real concerns with this book. Here are four everyday "real world" tasks that a professional really needs to know and that one is hard-pressed to find accurately and succinctly discussioned in this book: (1) JVM memory settings -- in what file to set them; (2) How to pre-compile JSPs so that they are not compiled "on the fly" after deployment (absolutely crucial for the real world); (3) how to define a context.xml file and put it in your app's META-INF directory; (4) How to get an app deployed to the root. I hope the authors can address these issues in the next edition. Here's some more detail on these issues: (1) Memory settings: p. 417: Gives switches for memory optimization, but doesn't say what is the best file in the Tomcat deployment for updating such settings. (The info in "Shared Tomcat Hosting," pp. 392-393, doesn't help for the easy case.) There is no discussion that if you use the Windows Service, the memory settings are set through the "Configure Tomcat" GUI application (and catalina.bat isn't used). A eneral* item for "memory settings" is not listed in the index under JVM. (2) How to pre-compile JSPs: Nothing. A better book would provide a working ant target for this. jspc (and/or org.apache.jasper.JspC) isn't even in the index. (3) How to use a context.xml file and put it in your web-app's META-INF: Nothing. This is incredibly important because it's how you would define a DataSource without having to meddle with the server.xml file. (4) How to get an app deployed to the root path. While there is some discussion of the root (e.g., p. 92), I don't see anything that points out the crucial piece of information, which is that the .war must be named ROOT.war (you can deploy another .war to the root, but with some settings it won't get redeployed properly after a fresh startup). ----- I also wish the discussion of the JK and JK2 connectors was more complete. The discussion of the internals are interesting, but you would never learn about the no-jk environment variable (crucial for getting Apache to skip JK for certain paths) for JK. And if there is such a feature for JK2 (I don't think there is), you'd never find it here. In short, I keep this near my desk, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to someone.