Apache Tomcat Administration Training Course

Tomcat Overview

• A quick overview of Apache
• The Apache Software Foundation
• The Jakarta Project
• Tomcat Licensing
• J2EE Technologies
• Java Web Development
• Servlet/JSP Containers

Java Web Applications

• An Overview of Servlets
• The Advantages of Servlets and Their Lifecycle
• JavaServer Pages
• JSP, JavaBeans, and JSP Tag Libraries
• MVC Frameworks

Installing Tomcat

• Downloading and Installing Apache Tomcat
• Downloading and installing a JVM, Tomcat, and Ant
• Windows Installer
• Java memory management and tuning the JVM for performance

Tomcat Directories

• Tomcat installation directories, the directory structure, the bin directory, and common/shared directories
• The conf directory, logs directory, server directory, work directory, temp directory, and webapps directory
• Structure of the Web Application Directory
• Deploying HTML and JSP pages and web contexts
• JSP pages and the generated code
• Deploying a web application

Configuring Tomcat

• Configuring Tomcat and examining the techniques
• Tomcat's Component Architecture
• The <Server> Element, <Service> Element, <Connector> Element, <Engine> Element, <Host> Element, <Context> Element, <Realm> Element, <Valve> Element, <Listener> Element, <Loader> Element, and <Manager> Element
• The server.xml file
• Modifying server.xml

Web Applications

• Web application administration and deployment
• Directory structure of a web app
• The web.xml configuration file
• Deployment Descriptors
• The <web-app> element
• Mapping a servlet to a URL
• The <resource-ref> element
• The <env-entry> element
• The <ejb-ref> element
• A sample web.xml file
• Deploying a web application
• Tomcat's default conf/web.xml file
• Tuning default JSP and static-content servlets

Tomcat Manager

• Deploying and managing web applications using the Tomcat Manager
• Starting the Tomcat Manager and exploring its interface
• Examining the Manager section
• Applications, deployment, and server information
• Creating a WAR file
• Lab 4: Deploying a WAR File
• Java Management Extensions (JMX) on Tomcat
• Tomcat integration with Ant

Advanced Features

• Utilising some of Tomcat's advanced features
• Valves, Access Log Valve, and Single Sign-on Valve
• Remote Address Filter and Remote Host Filter
• Request Dumper Valve
• Configuring JNDI Resources
• JNDI: Java Naming and Directory Interface and defining a JNDI Resource
• The <environment> element and the <resource> element
• Configuring a JavaMail Session
• Global Resources

JDBC Connectivity

• Configuring Tomcat to connect to a database
• Overview of JDBC
• JDBC Drivers
• Connecting to a database and connection pools
• Downloading and installing MySQL
• Configuring MySQL for Tomcat
• Creating a database in MySQL
• Downloading and deploying a JDBC driver
• Defining a DataSource in Tomcat and defining a Data Source manually
• Modifying the deployment descriptor
• Detecting and closing leaked database connections

Tomcat Security

• Examining security on Tomcat and its configuration
• Security considerations
• File system security and filesystem recommendations
• Java Security Manager
• Granting permissions to Java applications and examining Java permissions
• Creating and adding your own policies
• Enabling the Java Security Manager
• Security Manager tips and security realms
• Examining different types of realms and configuring a realm
• Users and roles (authentication and authorisation)
• Creating a Data Source Realm
• Password protection
• FORM-based authentication
• Configuring Tomcat for SSL
• Requiring SSL in applications

Connecting

• Connecting Tomcat to Apache
• Examining connectors
• HTTP Connectors
• Advantages of using a web server
• Connector protocols
• Configuring an AJP connector
• Downloading mod_jk
• Creating the mod_jk.conf file
• Starting Tomcat
• Creating a worker
• Configuring httpd.conf
• Testing the setup
• Load balancing applications across multiple Tomcat instances
• Issues with load balancing
• Server affinity via sticky sessions
• Shared session storage
• Replicated sessions via Tomcat clustering
• Shared hosting
• Tomcat virtual hosting
• Configuring Tomcat to enable virtual hosting as a standalone server
• Configuring Tomcat to enable virtual hosting using jk2 or webapp
• Configuring Tomcat as Standalone
• Configuring Tomcat with AJP
• Separate JVM for each host

Load Testing

• JMeter Application
• Load Testing with JMeter
• Installing and running JMeter
• Creating a test plan
• Configuring the Thread Group and adding a task
• Configuring the HTTP Request
• Adding a Report Listener
• Running the test plan
• Viewing the results