[cosmo-dev] cosmo webapp packaging

[Brian Moseley]

On Nov 16, 2007 7:54 AM, Benoit Mercier <Benoit.Mercier at usherbrooke.ca> wrote:
>
> It would be so nice to simply be able to extract or download the cosmo war and drop it "as it" in a running Tomcat.  We will still have to adapt the connection to the database by editing the /conf/Catalina/localhost/chandler.xml file created automagically by Tomcat from the context.xml file, but so much easier...  I am perhaps missing something, but I think it would be nice to have this configuration that suits the 2 worlds: embedded/bundled and "standard J2EE deployment".

the war expects the following things from the deployer:

1) in server.xml, a data source resource
2) in server.xml, a mail resource
3) in server.xml, a resource that specifies the filesystem location of
cosmo.properties
4) somewhere in the classpath (typically in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib)
a commons-logging provider - i've never tested to be sure, but if you
don't drop in log4j, I believe Tomcat falls back to JDK logging

it seems reasonable for us to provide a context.xml in the war in
order to allow Tomcat to autocreate a chandler.xml. I know that's more
preferred than configuring server.xml directly. I'll give it a try.

however, I don't think it's appropriate to package cosmo.properties or
log4j.jar in the war. in order for the deployer to modify
cosmo.properties, to provide his own log4j configuration, or to use a
different logging provider altogether, he'd have to "hack the war" in
the way that you've done.