The Ultimate Apache Tomcat Training Course: All In One

Install Tomcat on your local system and test it in a browser. The lesson contrasts unverified and verified installs, using an Emacs-based Install 0.60 demo to guide a hands-on setup.

Install Tomcat 8 from the core distribution and configure JAVA_HOME to point to your JDK. Start Tomcat and verify the setup by loading localhost:8080 in your browser.

Download the Apache Tomcat 8 binary zip, verify digital signatures with MD5 and SHA-1, then set JAVA_HOME and JRE_HOME and start Tomcat on macOS or Windows.

Verify Apache Tomcat downloads by comparing MD5 and SHA-1 hashes to the server, then verify the digital signature.

Verify the Tomcat download's integrity using GPG, obtain the signer's public key via a trusted key server, and confirm trust with a fingerprint check.

Learn how Tomcat serves as a multi-threaded Java web container, deploy a simple Preds.war, and verify startup with curl using the JRE home settings.

Explore how Tomcat performs request mapping and dispatching, routing requests to resources inside a war file via a path like /preds/ajax.jsf, and how the deployment descriptor defines the default page.

Explore Tomcat's directory structure, including bin, conf, lib, logs, temp, work, and webapps, and understand how web apps deploy via server.xml and war files.

Set JAVA_HOME (and optionally JRE_HOME), choose an archive or installer, verify downloads with MD5 or SHA-1 and a digital signature, then start Tomcat to verify installation.

Discover how HTTP drives Tomcat as a web server, using request-response messaging, verbs like get and post, stateless design, and app-level state management, headers and status codes.

Explore HTTP basics, including request and response messages, headers, and status codes, and inspect traffic with curl using practical GET and POST examples.

Explore how HTTP requests reach the Tomcat web container and are handled by static content, app specific servlets, or framework servlets (JSF), using a request map and response channel.

Learn how Tomcat supports packed and unpacked deployment, working with war files and directories to deploy and redeploy web apps using scripts, maven, and IDEs like Eclipse and NetBeans.

Examine three deployment examples in Emacs, covering a Fahrenheit-to-Centigrade web app, a JSF-based app, and a JPA-backed app with PostgreSQL, focusing on war file structure and config.

Master web app deployment basics for Tomcat by properly packaging war artifacts. Place xml config, tld, libraries under web-inf and classes under web-inf/classes to avoid deployment issues.

Automate war file deployment with Ant scripts and the Tomcat deployer, using build.xml and the default task to manage dependencies like compile, build, and clean.

Demonstrate automatic war deployment using an Ant script, including editing the build file, setting the Tomcat home, and deploying to Tomcat web apps.

Engage in a hands-on Apache Tomcat deployment exercise, deploying a simple servlet via an ant build script and experimenting with war-based deployment in the webapps directory.

Explore Tomcat deployment options, including pack vs unpack, war files, and manual script-based deployment. Compare Ant and Maven, and understand how Servlet API and Tomcat lib affect classpath.

Navigate a deployed war file in Tomcat to troubleshoot not found navigation issues using relative links, servlet mappings, and context routes, with recommendations to place HTML at the top level.

Learn to troubleshoot web-app navigation inside a war file on Tomcat by understanding URL patterns, symbolic names, and servlet mappings, and keep artifacts simple to avoid navigation errors.

Analyze how a deployed war's file structure and relative links can produce 404 not found errors, and advocate top-level assets, alias-based navigational paths, and servlet mappings.

Explore the Tomcat web console, including public and private admin tabs, view server status, and configure Tomcat users, restart the server, and use the manager to deploy apps.

Explore how Tomcat aids webapp troubleshooting at deployment by identifying bad deployment descriptors, JSP problems, and Java code issues, plus using Catalina.out and Jasper for debugging.

Explore common Tomcat deployment errors, focusing on bad XML in web.xml inside a war file, how mismatched tags cause context startup failure, and reading Catalina logs for clues.

Learn how JSP scripts are translated into servlets by Jasper in Tomcat, before deployment or on first request via lazy translation, with debugging support.

Learn how Tomcat's JSP translation errors reveal deployment-time issues, using line-by-line source clues and stack traces to fix missing semicolons and type resolution in GSP and JSP scripts.

Learn to detect and debug run-time errors in Tomcat by shifting focus from translation time issues to runtime issues, using log analysis and customized logging for web apps.

Learn how to precompile jsp scripts in a Tomcat environment, analyze Jasper translation to dot Java, generate web fragments, and troubleshoot compilation with Ant and servlet mappings.

Identify and fix common Tomcat troubleshooting issues in development mode, including bad XML configs, JSP translation errors, and runtime exceptions, using logging, redeploys, and heap monitoring to stabilize apps.

Explore the web app types Tomcat can handle—HTML-centric websites, web services, and web sockets. Understand rest style and soap based web services, with apps packaged as a war file.

From a Tomcat admin perspective, inspect the shop.war deployment, its jsp/gsp templates and servlets, and note the Postgres backend and email server requirements for the demo.

Explore a RESTful web service called Predictions RSS, demonstrating CRUD operations via HTTP verbs, and show how a WAR file bundles libraries with Jersey/JAX-RS, plus curl tests and JSON/XML outputs.

Build a web socket chat app with the chit-chat war on Tomcat, using HTML and JavaScript to echo messages and broadcast to all sessions.

Explore concurrency in modern web servers and how Tomcat uses a single process with multi-threading and non blocking IO. Learn thread pools, connectors, and common race conditions.

Explore concurrency challenges in Tomcat's multithreaded environment, identify race conditions in a servlet, and implement thread-safe patterns using synchronized blocks and Java.util.concurrent types like AtomicInteger.

Tomcat manages concurrency with a one-thread-per-request model and per-connector thread pools, while developers prevent data races using synchronized blocks or thread-safe data types.

Explore two jar management options in Tomcat: place jars in Tomcat home lib or embed them in the deployed war; prefer war packaging for reproducible deployments.

Get a big-picture view of web server and web app security, focusing on transport layer security with HTTPS and on user authentication and role authorization in Tomcat.

Explore how Tomcat secures web traffic with TLS handshakes, certificates, and cryptographic suites, using curl to trace HTTPS on port 8443, while Catalina enforces user roles.

Explore core security concepts in Tomcat, including public-key infrastructure, key stores and trust stores, certificates, and how HTTPS uses asymmetric then symmetric encryption to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.

Explore how public and private keys, digital certificates, and certificate authorities secure HTTPS, and examine key store versus trust store during a Java TLS handshake with RSA and cipher suites.

Configure Tomcat for https by generating a self-signed certificate with keytool and updating server.xml to enable an https connector on port 8443, with http-to-https redirection.

Configure Tomcat for HTTPS by generating a digital certificate with keytool, backing up config, and restarting Tomcat to test with a browser on HTTPS localhost:8443.

Assess https configuration for tomcat by generating a self-signed certificate, comparing jsoc and the apache portable runtime, and configuring a keystore in jks or pkcs12 with tls and secure ports.

The lecture teaches how to enforce HTTPS for a web app or parts of it using Tomcat configurations and a deployment descriptor, redirecting HTTP to HTTPS via a security constraint.

Discover how Tomcat's container-managed security handles user authentication and role authorization for web apps, using http modes like basic, digest, form, and client cert.

Understand how tomcat security realms perform user authentication and role authorization. Review built-in realms—jdbc, data source, jndi, user database, memory, jaas—and how to configure them in tomcat and web.xml.

Demonstrates container-managed security in a Tomcat web app, wiring https, user authentication, and role-based authorization with a login page, tomcat-users.xml, and a big shot role.

Secure web applications by applying https for wire level security, along with user authentication and role authorization, and configuring certificates, key stores, and Tomcat realms.

Explore Tomcat logging, analyze and archive logs, and compare the default Julie setup with log4j for more advanced needs, using tools like AWStats, Java Melody, Octopussy, and log rotate.

Configure virtual hosting in Tomcat by adding hosts with the host manager or server.xml. Map two domains to separate app bases with auto deploy.

Examine remote monitoring and management of Tomcat with JConsole and VisualVM, configure catalina_home and catalina_base, and connect via port 9876 using SSH and Monit for insights.

Learn how Tomcat can host web apps written in non-jvm languages via CGI, using a CGI servlet to bridge the web server and local programs.

Tomcat is a production-grade web server designed for JVM languages that can host web apps, web services, and CGI for non-jvm languages, while staying lightweight and extensible.