Apache Tomcat Administration Training Course

Introduction to Tomcat 

• A brief overview of Apache
• The Apache Software Foundation
• The Jakarta Project
• Tomcat licensing details
• J2EE technologies
• Java web development fundamentals
• Servlet and JSP containers

Java Web Applications

• Overview of Servlets
• Benefits of Servlets and their lifecycle
• Introduction to JavaServer Pages
• JSP, JavaBeans, and JSP Tag Libraries
• MVC frameworks

Tomcat Installation

• Downloading and installing Apache Tomcat
• Acquiring a JVM, downloading Tomcat, and installing Ant
• Using the Windows installer
• Java memory management and JVM tuning for performance

Tomcat Directory Structure

• Overview of Tomcat installation directories, structure, the bin directory, and common/shared directories
• Detailed look at the conf, logs, server, work, temp, and webapps directories
• Structure of the web application directory
• Deploying HTML and JSP pages and web contexts
• JSP pages and generated code
• Deploying web applications

Configuring Tomcat

• Tomcat configuration techniques
• Tomcat component architecture
• Key elements: <Server>, <Service>, <Connector>, <Engine>, <Host>, <Context>, <Realm>, <Valve>, <Listener>, <Loader>, and <Manager>
• The server.xml file
• Modifying server.xml

Web Applications

• Web application administration and deployment
• Directory layout for web apps
• 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
• 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 via the Tomcat Manager
• Launching and exploring the Tomcat Manager
• Overview of the Manager section
• Applications, deployment, and server information
• Creating WAR files
• Lab 4: Deploying a WAR file
• Java Management Extensions (JMX) in Tomcat
• Integrating Tomcat with Ant

Advanced Features

• Leveraging advanced Tomcat features
• Valves, including Access Log and Single Sign-on Valves
• Remote Address and Remote Host filters
• Request Dumper Valve
• Configuring JNDI resources
• JNDI: Java Naming and Directory Interface and defining resources
• The <environment></environment> element and the <resource></resource> element
• Configuring JavaMail sessions
• Global resources

JDBC Connectivity

• Configuring Tomcat for database connectivity
• JDBC overview
• JDBC drivers
• Database connections and connection pooling
• Downloading and installing MySQL
• Configuring MySQL for Tomcat
• Creating a database in MySQL
• Downloading and deploying JDBC drivers
• Defining a DataSource in Tomcat and manual setup
• Modifying the deployment descriptor
• Detecting and closing leaked database connections

Tomcat Security

• Security considerations and Tomcat configuration
• Security best practices
• Filesystem security and recommendations
• The Java Security Manager
• Granting permissions to Java apps and understanding Java permissions
• Creating and adding custom policies
• Enabling the Java Security Manager
• Security Manager tips and Security Realms
• Types of Realms and realm configuration
• Users and roles (authentication and authorization)
• Creating a Data Source Realm
• Password protection
• FORM-based authentication
• Configuring Tomcat for SSL
• Requiring SSL in applications

Integration and Connectivity

• Connecting Tomcat to Apache
• Examining 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 associated with load balancing
• Server affinity using sticky sessions
• Shared session storage
• Replicated sessions via Tomcat clustering
• Shared hosting
• Tomcat virtual hosting
• Configuring Tomcat for virtual hosting as a stand-alone server
• Configuring Tomcat virtual hosting using jk2 or webapp
• Configuring Tomcat as stand-alone
• Configuring Tomcat with AJP
• Dedicated JVM per 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
• Analyzing results