Apache Tomcat Administration Training Course

Tomcat Overview 

• Brief introduction to Apache
• The Apache Software Foundation
• The Jakarta Project
• Licensing for Tomcat
• J2EE Technologies
• Java Web Development
• Servlet and JSP Containers

Java Web Applications

• Fundamentals of Servlets
• Benefits of Servlets and their Lifecycle
• JavaServer Pages (JSP)
• JSP, JavaBeans, and Tag Libraries
• MVC frameworks

Installing Tomcat

• Obtaining and installing Apache Tomcat
• Installing a JVM, downloading Tomcat, and installing Ant
• Using the Windows installer
• Java memory management and optimizing the JVM for performance

Tomcat Directories

• Overview of installation directories, general structure, the bin directory, and common/shared directories
• Details on the conf, logs, server, work, temp, and webapps directories
• Understanding the web application directory structure
• Deploying HTML and JSP pages and defining web contexts
• JSP pages and their generated code
• Process of deploying a web application

ConfiguringTomcat

• Approaches to configuring Tomcat and relevant techniques
• Tomcat’s component architecture
• The <Server>, <Service>, <Connector>, <Engine>, <Host>, <Context>, <Realm>, <Valve>, <Listener>, <Loader>, and <Manager> elements
• The Server.xml file
• Modifying the server.xml configuration

Web Applications

• Administration and deployment of web applications
• Directory structure of a web application
• The web.xml configuration file
• Deployment Descriptors
• The <web-app></web-app> element
• Mapping Servlets to URLs
• The <resource-ref></resource-ref> element
• The <env-entry></env-entry> element
• The <ejb-ref></ejb-ref> element
• A sample web.xml file example
• Deploying a web application
• Tomcat’s default conf/web.xml file
• Optimizing default JSP and static content servlets

Tomcat Manager

• Deploying and managing web applications via the Tomcat Manager
• Launching and utilizing the Tomcat Manager
• Reviewing the Manager section
• Applications, deployment options, and server information
• Creating a WAR file
• Lab 4: Deploying a WAR file
• Java Management Extensions (JMX) in Tomcat
• Integrating Tomcat with Ant

Advanced Features

• Leveraging advanced Tomcat capabilities
• Valves, including Access Log and Single Sign-on Valves
• Remote Address and Remote Host Filters
• The Request Dumper Valve
• Configuring JNDI resources
• JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Interface) and defining JNDI resources
• The <environment></environment> and <resource></resource> elements
• Setting up a JavaMail session
• Global resources

JDBC Connectivity

• Configuring Tomcat for database connections
• An overview of JDBC
• JDBC drivers
• Database connections and connection pooling
• 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 manual data source definition
• Modifying the deployment descriptor
• Detecting and closing leaked database connections

Tomcat Security

• Security considerations and configuration in Tomcat
• Key security factors
• File system security and best practices
• The Java Security Manager
• Granting permissions to Java applications and reviewing Java permissions
• Creating and adding custom policies
• Enabling the Java Security Manager
• Tips for the Security Manager and Security Realms
• Types of Realms and configuring a Realm
• Users and roles (authentication and authorization)
• Creating a Data Source Realm
• Password protection mechanisms
• FORM-based authentication
• Configuring Tomcat for SSL
• Enforcing SSL in applications

Connecting

• Connecting Tomcat to Apache
• An examination of Connectors
• HTTP Connectors
• Benefits 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
• Challenges in load balancing
• Server affinity through sticky sessions
• Shared session storage
• Replicating sessions via Tomcat clustering
• Shared Hosting
• Tomcat Virtual Hosting
• Enabling virtual hosting in Tomcat as a standalone server
• Enabling virtual hosting in Tomcat using jk2 or webapp
• Configuring Tomcat as Stand-alone
• Configuring Tomcat with AJP
• Assigning a separate JVM for each host

Load Testing

• The JMeter application
• Conducting load tests with JMeter
• Installing and running JMeter
• Creating a test plan
• Configuring the Thread Group and adding tasks
• Configuring HTTP requests
• Adding a Report Listener
• Executing the test plan
• Reviewing the results