How do I use Ant's DeployTask to deploy a Web application to Tomcat?

Question

$ ant deploy
Buildfile: /Users/simpatico/SOLR_HOME/build.xml

deploy:

BUILD FAILED
/Users/simpatico/SOLR_HOME/build.xml:531: java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 403 for URL: http://localhost:8080/manager/deploy?path=%2Fsolr
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1436)
    at org.apache.catalina.ant.AbstractCatalinaTask.execute(AbstractCatalinaTask.java:228)

Total time: 2 seconds

In build.xml:

<!--http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/manager-howto.html#Executing_Manager_Commands_With_Ant-->
  <!-- Configure properties to access the Manager application -->
  <property name="url"      value="http://localhost:8080/manager"/>
  <property name="username" value="admin"/>
  <property name="password" value="admin"/>

  <!-- Configure the custom Ant tasks for the Manager application -->
  <taskdef name="deploy"    classname="org.apache.catalina.ant.DeployTask"/>

<!-- Configure the context path for this application -->
  <property name="path"     value="solr"/>

  <target name="deploy" description="Install web application"
          >
    <deploy url="${url}" username="${username}" password="${password}"
            path="${path}" war="file:${dist}/solr.war"/>
  </target>

Both a path of /solr and solr don't work.

<tomcat-users>
    <role rolename="manager-gui"/>
    <user password="admin" roles="manager-gui,manager-script,admin" username="admin"/>
</tomcat-users>

EDIT: now it fails to deploy becauase the app already exists at path /solr

undeploy: [undeploy] OK - Undeployed application at context path /solr

deploy: [deploy] FAIL - Application already exists at path /solr

BUILD FAILED /Users/simpatico/SOLR_HOME/build.xml:532: FAIL - Application already exists at path /solr

does the user admin/admin have the correct roles configured in tomcat-users.xml to acces the management interface? — csupnig, May 04 '11 at 08:33
@simpatico: 403 means "Forbidden", are you sure you provide correct credentials? BTW, what version of Tomcat is used (is it 5.5)? — barti_ddu, May 04 '11 at 08:51
@barti_ddu - tomcat 7. I've provided the credentials on both sides in the q (admin/admin) — simpatico, May 04 '11 at 08:53
@simpatico: afair, for tc7 deployment url looks like `http://host:port/manager/text/deploy?path=/foo` — barti_ddu, May 04 '11 at 08:58
for some reason SO won't show a part i've added to the question which shows the modified deploy and undeploy targets — simpatico, May 04 '11 at 09:14

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 04 '11 at 08:59

3

If you check out the documentation page of the Manager App, you can see the main difference is the url of the script. The example uses (mind the /text part):

<property name="url"      value="http://localhost:8080/manager/text"/>

In a *nix environment you have to check what user runs the server, and if that user has the correct permissions to alter files under your web directory.

answered May 04 '11 at 08:59

vbence

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@vbence - you nailed it (I was looking at 5.5 that google gave). Now however it doesn't deploy becasue the app is already deployed, as shown in Q edit. – simpatico May 04 '11 at 09:11
@simpatico just copy-paste the **undeploy** task from the documentation. – vbence May 04 '11 at 09:19
@vbence - that's what i did, and modified the deploy to depend on undeploy – simpatico May 04 '11 at 09:22
@simpatico I guess you "deployed" your application by hand (not thru the Manager App). Try deleting it by hand and then making the initial deployment thru `ant`. After that you must be able to *undeploy* it. – vbence May 04 '11 at 09:24
@vbence - nope, undeployed by hand.. then ant deploy it works (since there's nothing to undeploy) but ant deploy again will give the error – simpatico May 04 '11 at 09:28
@simpatico You can not deploy two times in a row. You have to undeploy to be able to deploy again. – vbence May 04 '11 at 10:43
@vbence - yes, but every deploy is preceeded by an undeploy, which even reports success. – simpatico May 04 '11 at 10:45
@simpatico Interesting.. try separating them to different tasks. – vbence May 04 '11 at 11:26
@vbence - what I've found out is that ant undeploy deletes the app from webapps but then it reappears immediately..what might be going on? – simpatico May 04 '11 at 18:49
the issue is that I had under $CATALINA_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost a solr.xml that deployed the app automatically. – simpatico May 05 '11 at 11:33

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 26 '13 at 09:40

<target name="tomcatdeploy" description="Install web application"  >
    <deploy_tomcat url="${admin.url}" username="${admin.name}" password="${admin.password}" path="/${webapp}" war="file:${dropoff.warfile.dir}/${webapp}.war"/>
</target>

 <target name="check-context">
    <available file="${app.base.dir}/${webapp}.war" property="context.present"/>
</target>

<target name="undeploy" depends="check-context" if="context.present" description="Remove web application" >
   <undeploy_tomcat   url="${admin.url}" username="${admin.name}" password="${admin.password}" path="/${webapp}"/>
</target>

First call "undeploy" then "tomcatdeploy" ant tasks. You have to provide ${pamram} values as necessary. "undeploy" task will check if given war file exists in the webapps directory, if so it will do actual un-deploying.

How do I use Ant's DeployTask to deploy a Web application to Tomcat?

2 Answers2