I have to go with Gabe on this one. I recently relied on a hosting vendor to 'configure tomcat accurately' in Linux, and what a nightmare!
The problem is that TC is so customizable. Depending on your school of thought, you might like the distro version - or you might like the project version of install. If you like Linux, and are a Linux admin - using the rpm would suit you fine. However, not everyone is familiar with Linux - some of us are straight TC administrators. Then again some of us are just web jockeys who are suddenly flung into the administration world. *waves* I have found that due to some webapp dependencies, linked files cannot be used accurately in some TC setups (as the rpm of Tomcat does - linking files sometimes 10 levels deep!). For a person who is not a Linux admin, tryig to configure a TC app with files linked everywhere is highly frustrating and confusing. Top this off with an OS distro that is fully integrated into the OS - where are the libraries again? What happened to that jar file? What do you mean the JVM is not running??!!? TC winds up as a 'linux user' and as such needs special permissions - and then cannot access log files, config files, and woe to me, its own files!!! I finally convinced hosting vendor to totally rebuild the server so that I can then install the native (what I call encapsulated) TC. Everything is there, where it should be, and usable by my webapps with the right permissions (having been installed by the TC and not some rpm). It is a matter of familiarity. I am familiar with the standard TC project install that does not rely on any OS for functionality. It is modular, easy to locate, and wonderfully portable to something else. ~LZM~ -----Original Message----- From: Gabe Wong [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 3:10 PM To: Tomcat Users List Subject: Re: HOWTO: install a Tomcat web application on Fedora 7 [was: ...] John Pye wrote: > Here are some instructions that hopefully will be of use to future users: > > 1. To install tomcat on Fedora 7, just run "yum install tomcat5 > tomcat5-webapps tomcat5-admin-webapps". > 2. Your configuration files are in /etc/tomcat5. You may need to edit > server-minimal.xml to set the port that Tomcat listens on. You > will need to edit the file tomcat-users.xml and add a user with > the role 'manager' if you want to be able to use the Tomcat > Manager application. > 3. You can start and stop Tomcat by running '/etc/init.d/tomcat5 > start' (or stop,restart, etc). > 4. Any Tomcat web application that you want to serve should be > dropped into /var/lib/tomcat5/webapps/ > 5. You can view your Tomcat website via > http://yourserver.example.com:8080/. > > This webpage had some good instructions: > http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/2007/01/14/tomcat_5_on_fedora_core_6_in_five_ea sy_steps.html > > I have often felt that Java developers, with their 'completely platform > independent' system don't acknowledge that platform-specific knowledge > is often a barrier to getting those Java applications up and running. > The above steps make maximum use of the packaging work that Fedora and > JPackage maintainers have done, and made this job very much easier for > me than downloading the platform independent packages and working out > their particular conventions etc. > The concern that some of us on this list has with the various Platform specific distros, is that they are usually altered from the original Apache distribution. As soon as anything is altered, you have incompatibility issues. Most applications are developed and tested on the Apache distributions. You may not notice incompatibilities until you try to deploy a real complex application. That said, I am not saying one is right or wrong. It is just that just as Java has become relatively stable (predictable), there enters the various Linux based distros to add to the equation. Some of these distros do not follow the generally accepted JAVA programming principles (what is acceptable today). These distros usually follow the principles of traditional Linux based programming, such as PHP, Python, etc. And that is primarily to make packages globally accessible on the system. This is where the distinction between traditional linux applications and present day java applications are being missed. Most Java applications are dependent on a specific version of an application server, JVM, libraries, etc. Thus a one package for all creates issues. So moving forward, are Java Applications now to be built for a specific Linux distro, in addition to supporting the traditional purist java programming environment. Or is it that a new generation of java programmers under the Linux distro environment will give raise. Will there then be two camps or platforms? Or will the new generation become the standard. I say this because as I speak, more and more I see java questions on Linux lists instead of pure java lists. I know I do not usually rant, but this is an issue that needs to be addressed. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.1/1299 - Release Date: 2/26/2008 9:08 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------- To start a new topic, e-mail: users@tomcat.apache.org To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
