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 and 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.
• Using the Windows installer.
• Java memory management and tweaking the JVM for optimal performance.

Tomcat Directories

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

Configuring Tomcat

• Configuring Tomcat and examining various 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.
• The 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.
• Exploring the Manager section.
• Applications, deployment, and server information.
• Creating a WAR file.
• Lab 4: Deploying a WAR file.
• Java Management Extensions (JMX) on Tomcat.
• Integrating Tomcat with Ant.

Advanced Features

• Utilising some of Tomcat's advanced features.
• Valves, including the Access Log Valve and Single Sign-on Valve.
• Remote Address Filter and Remote Host Filter.
• The 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.
• An overview of JDBC.
• JDBC drivers.
• Connecting to a database and using 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.
• The Java Security Manager.
• Granting permissions to Java apps and understanding Java permissions.
• Creating and adding your own policies.
• Enabling the Java Security Manager.
• Security Manager tips and security realms.
• Exploring different types of realms and configuring a realm.
• Users and roles (authentication and authorization).
• Creating a Data Source Realm.
• Protecting passwords.
• FORM-based authentication.
• Configuring Tomcat for SSL.
• Requiring SSL in applications.

Connecting

• Connecting Tomcat to Apache.
• Exploring 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 related to 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 stand-alone server.
• Configuring Tomcat to enable virtual hosting using jk2 or webapp.
• Configuring Tomcat as a stand-alone server.
• Configuring Tomcat with AJP.
• Using a separate JVM for each host.

Load Testing

• The 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.