Spring Boot war file works with embedded but not with standalone Tomcat

Question

I want to create a war file from a Spring Boot application, which I can deploy to a standalone Tomcat container, not using the embedded one.

I can create the war file and run it on its own using "java -jar pdfjs-annotator.war" and it works fine.

I built the application using gradle bootRepackage (Using Gradle, Tomcat7, Java 1.7).

But when I deploy the war file to a standalone Tomcat and start it, the app seems to boot without errors according to the log, but I cannot access any of the resources nor do the controller urls work.

For example, my index.html is a static html page under src/main/resources/static/index.html, which I can usually call via localhost:8080/index.html, but when deployed to a standalone Tomcat, the page does not get delivered (it's then in the war file in WEB-INF/classes/static/index.html) through that same url. And also any kind of controller mapping don't seem to work. I am getting a 404 error instead.

build.gradle:

buildscript {
    ext {
        springBootVersion = '1.2.3.RELEASE'
    }
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}") 
        classpath("io.spring.gradle:dependency-management-plugin:0.5.0.RELEASE")
    }
}

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse-wtp'
apply plugin: 'idea'
apply plugin: 'spring-boot' 
apply plugin: 'io.spring.dependency-management' 
apply plugin: 'war'


war {
    baseName = 'pdfjs-annotator'
    version = '1.0.0-SNAPSHOT'
}

allprojects {
    apply plugin: 'java'
    sourceCompatibility = 1.6
    targetCompatibility = 1.6
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

configurations {
    providedRuntime
}

dependencies {
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa")
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-rest")
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web")
    runtime("mysql:mysql-connector-java")
    providedRuntime("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-tomcat")
    testCompile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test")
    compile ('org.hibernate.javax.persistence:hibernate-jpa-2.0-api:1.0.1.Final')
}


eclipse {
    classpath {
         containers.remove('org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER')
         containers 'org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER/org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType/JavaSE-1.7'
    }
}

task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
    gradleVersion = '2.3'
}

My main application class:

@EnableJpaRepositories
@SpringBootApplication
public class PdfAnnotator extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(PdfAnnotator.class, args);
    }

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
        return application.sources(PdfAnnotator.class);
    }

}

When I look into the exploded war, I do see the following META-INF/MANIFEST.MF:

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Start-Class: com.mypackage.pdfcomment.PdfAnnotator
Spring-Boot-Version: 1.2.3.RELEASE
Main-Class: org.springframework.boot.loader.WarLauncher

The gradle build process usually generated two war artifacts, one named .war and one named .war.original - the .war is the one that holds proper MANIFEST.MF entries and it's the one I used to deploy to the standalone Tomcat.

What's missing? I already checked other questions here on SO:

and also the Spring Boot docs, but could not find a hint of what's wrong.

* === Update === *

I installed a brand new Tomcat7, deployed the war file there, and everything's working fine. Seemed to be some issue with the Tomcat instance/configuration I had running. Not sure what exactly the issue was, but I won't bother to check it further since it's working fine now with the new Tomcat.

Spring Boot gradle plugin does usually create two artifacts one with the tomcat inside and one not. I forgot about the nameing but just try both. Beside that I would use a war file. I know that it isn't necessary anymore but to be safe. — mh-dev, May 09 '15 at 18:10
@mh-dev Right, I think you mean .war and .war.original - I will give it a try. So far, I've just used the .war. — Mathias Conradt, May 09 '15 at 18:11
@mh-dev I tried both, but no difference. The .war that I used should be the right one anyway, because that's the only one that has proper MANIFEST.MF entries. — Mathias Conradt, May 09 '15 at 18:16
Did you check with the tomcat adminstration panel if the app was deployed and checked all tomcat logs for anything? (also the context path of your app) — mh-dev, May 09 '15 at 18:18
Yes, the app is properly loaded as I can see in the Tomcat manager and I can see no errors in the log. Log of boot up process is here: http://pastebin.com/sHNgQrRr — Mathias Conradt, May 09 '15 at 18:21
It seems as if some kind of Dispatcher logic is missing, i.e. for serving the html pages from WEB-INF/classes/static, but Spring Boot docs doesn't say much about it. — Mathias Conradt, May 09 '15 at 18:23
Are you 100% sure that your test context path is correct, because this is differnt between spring boot with embedded tomcat and in the deployed app. — mh-dev, May 09 '15 at 18:23
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/77407/discussion-between-mathias-lin-and-mh-dev). — Mathias Conradt, May 09 '15 at 18:24
The log output shows that the app has started successfully so your build.gradle and app configuration are, more than likely, correct. The log on pastebin shows a context path of `/pdfjs-annotator-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT`. Have you tried `http://localhost:8080/pdfjs-annotator-1.0.0-SNAPSHOT/index.html`? — Andy Wilkinson, May 10 '15 at 06:22
Update: Thanks to @mh-dev for the time and support via TeamViewer yesterday. The project is actually setup correctly, it seems to be something with the Tomcat instance I had running. I setup a brand new Tomcat7 instance, deployed the war, and everything's fine. So obviously some issues with the Tomcat I had been using. — Mathias Conradt, May 10 '15 at 07:46

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 19 '17 at 17:29

I had this exact problem. It was because my application was built with Java 1.8 but Tomcat was running with 1.7. Everything appeared to deploy properly and there were no errors. I simply got a 404 trying to hit my services which had otherwise been fine with the embedded tomcat server. Took me ages to figure it out but it was just a case of upgrading java on the Tomcat installation.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 10 '15 at 07:49

0

The project is actually setup correctly and it turned out that the problem was with the Tomcat instance I was running. Probably something wrong with the configuration or jars. The instance is in place already for a long time, maybe things got messed up over time.

Now with a brand new Tomcat7 instance installed, the war works just fine.

answered May 10 '15 at 07:49

Mathias Conradt

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I think this could be your problem http://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/#howto-create-a-deployable-war-file – Giordano Jun 11 '15 at 13:29
I had all this in place, but didn't work. Anyway, it was related to the Tomcat instance itself, not the app. – Mathias Conradt Jun 11 '15 at 17:19

Spring Boot war file works with embedded but not with standalone Tomcat

2 Answers2