mvn tomcat:run - how do I edit server.xml?

Question

I want to run "mvn tomcat:run" from the command line, but how can I edit the server.xml to set maxHttpHeaderSize="65536" in the connectors? Or can I configure the connectors in the pom.xml?

Cheers

Nik

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 12 '12 at 15:20

The org.codehaus.mojo:tomcat-maven-plugin will let you set the path to the server.xml file in the configuration section:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  <artifactId>tomcat-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <serverXml>path_to_server_xml_file</serverXml>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 08 '10 at 13:27

Unfortunately, after doing some research, I don't think there's a way to edit server.xml's connectors. mvn tomcat:run uses an embedded Tomcat.

Unless someone finds something, it seems like your best bet will be to move to the maven cargo plugin and ZIP up your own Tomcat installation with your custom server.xml.

<cargo containerId="tomcat7x" [...]>
  <zipUrlInstaller
      installUrl="file://tomcat-custom.zip",
      installDir="target/installs"/>
  [...]
</cargo>

Or something of the sort...

It seems you're right, there is no way to do that at the moment other than rolling my own hack, such as through the cargo plugin. — niklassaers, Sep 16 '10 at 07:49

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 20 '12 at 00:01

I have been experimenting with using the serverXml parameter for the tomcat:run goal (http://tomcat.apache.org/maven-plugin-2/tomcat6-maven-plugin/run-mojo.html#serverXml).

The following server.xml seems to run with no errors, but without a Context element it does not load the webapp. I think if I copied my Context element from src/main/webapp/META-INF/context.xml to inside the Host element, it might work just fine:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<Server port="-1" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
    <Service name="Catalina">
        <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" />
        <Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost">
            <Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps">
            </Host>
        </Engine>
    </Service>
</Server>

To run with this server, I pass the serverXml as a property on the Maven command line:

mvn -Dmaven.tomcat.serverXml=src/main/resources/server.xml tomcat:run

The goal might have to be tomcat6:run if you are using a version of the plugin that supports both Tomcat 6 and 7.

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 02 '15 at 08:43

see http://docs.codehaus.org/display/CARGO/Custom+File+Configurations

i think you can do it like this and place your custom server.xml in your project:

<configuration>
    <type>standalone</type>
    <configfiles> 
        <configfile> 
            <file>${basedir}/src/main/resources/server.xml</file> 
            <todir>conf</todir> 
        </configfile> 
    </configfiles> 
</configuration>

and use default cargo server.xml as a template to get property replacement:

<Server port="@cargo.rmi.port@" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="@catalina.logging.level@">

  <Service name="Catalina" debug="@catalina.logging.level@">

    <Connector port="@cargo.servlet.port@"
        maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
        enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100"
        connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true"
        scheme="@cargo.protocol@" secure="@catalina.secure@"
        debug="@catalina.logging.level@"
        emptySessionPath="@catalina.connector.emptySessionPath@"
        URIEncoding="@catalina.servlet.uriencoding@" />

    <!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port @cargo.tomcat.ajp.port@ -->
    <Connector port="@cargo.tomcat.ajp.port@" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" />

    <Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="@cargo.hostname@" 
        debug="@catalina.logging.level@">

      <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.MemoryRealm" />

      <!-- Note: There seems to be a bug in Tomcat 5.x if the debug attribute 
           is present. Ideally we would have written:
               debug="@catalina.logging.level@"
           However, doing this result in a NullPointerException in 
           ExpandWar.java at line 145. -->
      <Host name="@cargo.hostname@" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true"
          autoDeploy="true" xmlValidation="false" xmlNamespaceAware="false">

        <!-- Contexts to explicitely point to where the wars are located -->
        @tomcat.webapps@

        <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve"
            directory="logs" prefix="@cargo.hostname@_access_log." suffix=".txt"
            pattern="common" resolveHosts="false"/>

      </Host>
    </Engine>
  </Service>
</Server>

mvn tomcat:run - how do I edit server.xml?

4 Answers4