[FIXED] Setting URL with subfolder in Tomcat 9

Issue

I have Tomcat 9. I am trying to get the URL lik this: http://default.local:8080/default_war/ but my site is still available only by http://default.local:8080. The address I am going to set is also generated by Intellij in Run/Configuration so it shoud be possible to set it. Of course I could edit it in Intellij but I wonder how to achieve URL subderictories in Tomcat 9.

What should I change in my code? Here there are my setting files:

$ cat /home/u/opt/tomcat/conf/server.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener" />
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener" SSLEngine="on" />
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JreMemoryLeakPreventionListener" />
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.GlobalResourcesLifecycleListener" />
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.ThreadLocalLeakPreventionListener" />
  <GlobalNamingResources>
    <Resource name="UserDatabase" auth="Container"
              type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"
              description="User database that can be updated and saved"
              factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory"
              pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" />
  </GlobalNamingResources>
  <Service name="Catalina">
    <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
               connectionTimeout="20000"
               redirectPort="8443" />
    <Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost">
      <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.LockOutRealm">
        <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm"
               resourceName="UserDatabase"/>
      </Realm>

      <Host name="default.local"  appBase="default"
            unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true">
        <Context path="/default_war" />
        <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve" directory="logs"
               prefix="localhost_access_log" suffix=".txt"
               pattern="%h %l %u %t &quot;%r&quot; %s %b" />
      </Host>


    </Engine>
  </Service>
</Server>
u@i3 ~/opt/tomcat

---

$ cat conf/Catalina/default.local/ROOT.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Context docBase="${catalina.base}/deploy/default_war.war">
</Context>
u@i3 ~/opt/tomcat
$ 

Solution

This is happening because you are using a context file called ROOT.xml.

The ROOT application is the one which is served from the base URL - in your case, http://default.local:8080.

Depending on exactly how you deployed your WAR, you will need to take the following steps:

1 - Stop Tomcat and change the name of the ROOT.xml file to default_war.xml.

The above step means you are no longer using a ROOT-based webapp (see final note below for more on that).

2 - Because you have specified appBase="default" in your server.xml, you may also need to go to that default folder and remove any sub-folders in there, before restating Tomcat.

I would expect there to be a ROOT folder in there, because you have already used a ROOT.xml context file. You don't want that folder, because that will continue to serve your webapp from the base URL.

When you restart Tomcat, you should see a new folder called default_war in the default folder - and that is where your application will be served from - and it should be available only at http://default.local:8080/default_war/.

Background note: In Tomcat, ROOT is something of a special case. When you download and install a fresh installation of Tomcat, you will see a folder called ROOT in the webapps directory. This is where the main Tomcat welcome/congratulations page is served from - and like your ROOT.xml content, it is served from the base URL. You can see some of the possible configurations in the "naming" table shown in this Tomcat documentation page.

Answered By - andrewJames