How do I use Apache tomcat 7 built in Host Manager gui?

Question

Hi I have Apache Tomcat 7.0.5 on my Windows server, and i see that it has a built in Host Manager, but i can't seem to find any useful info on how to use it or set up a virtual Host with that GUI.

The fields are Name: Aliases: App Base: AutoDeploy Deploy on Startupdeploy XML UnpackWARS ManageApp: any where I can get a tutorial on how to set it up, or info on this??

Thanks!

Prentiss

none of these "answers" answered the question. They all say how to start/deploy/configure/enable the host-manager, but none say how to USE it. – Lorenelorens

@BrianMinton Hopefully mine does now, for those looking for answers (as I was!) – Pourpoint

Answer 1

Solution for a fresh install of Tomcat 7 on Ubuntu 12.04.

Edit this file - /etc/tomcat7/tomcat-users.xml to add this xml section -

<tomcat-users>
<role rolename="admin"/>
<role rolename="admin-gui"/>
<role rolename="manager-gui"/>
<user username="tomcatadmin" password="tomcat2009" roles="admin,admin-gui,manager-gui"/>
</tomcat-users>

restart Tomcat -

service tomcat7 restart

urls to access managers -

1. tomcat test page - http://localhost:8080/
2. manager webapp - http://localhost:8080/manager/html
3. host-manager webapp - http://localhost:8080/host-manager/html

just wanted to put the latest info out there.

Ammon

Answer 2

Host Manager is a web application inside of Tomcat that creates/removes Virtual Hosts within Tomcat.

A Virtual Host allows you to define multiple hostnames on a single server, so you can use the same server to handles requests to, for example, ren.myserver.com and stimpy.myserver.com.

Unfortunately documentation on the GUI side of the Host Manager doesn't appear to exist, but documentation on configuring the virtual hosts manually in context.xml is here:

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/virtual-hosting-howto.html.

The full explanation of the Host parameters you can find here:

http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/host.html.

Adding a virtual host

Once you have access to the host-manager (see other answers on setting up the permissions, the GUI will let you add a (temporary - see edit at the end of this post) virtual host.

At a minimum you need the Name and App Base fields defined. Tomcat will then create the following directories:

{CATALINA_HOME}\conf\Catalina\{Name}
{CATALINA_HOME}\{App Base}

• App Base will be where web applications will be deployed to the virtual host. Can be relative or absolute.
• Name is usually the fully-qualified domain name (e.g. ren.myserver.com)
• Alias can be used to extend the Name also where two addresses should resolve to the same host (e.g. www.ren.myserver.com). Note that this needs to be reflected in DNS records.

The checkboxes are as follows:

• Auto Deploy: Automatically redeploy applications placed into App Base. Dangerous for Production environments!
• Deploy On Startup: Automatically boot up applications under App Base when Tomcat starts
• Deploy XML: Determines whether to parse the application's /META-INF/context.xml
• Unpack WARs: Unpack WAR files placed or uploaded to the App Base, as opposed to running them directly from the WAR.
• Tomcat 8 Copy XML: Copy an application's META-INF/context.xml to the App Base/XML Base on deployment, and use that exclusively, regardless of whether the application is updated. Irrelevant if Deploy XML is false.
• Manager App: Add the manager application to the Virtual Host (Useful for controlling the applications you might have underneath ren.myserver.com)

---

Update: After playing around with this same process on Tomcat8, the behaviour I'm seeing is that adding a virtual host via the GUI isn't persistent - it doesn't get written to server.xml, even on shutdown. Therefore (unless I'm doing something terribly wrong), you can create it in the GUI, but you'll need to edit server.xml anyway, as per the first link above, to make it stick.

Pourpoint

should be accepted answer, only one that attempts to answer question. thanks. – Lamebrain

Let's say we deploy a war file using Web Application Manager, and the path is "MySite", now after going to Host Manager, do we use "MySite" as app base or "/MySite"? – Surfboat

Answer 3

To access "Host Manager" you have to configure "admin-gui" user inside the tomcat-users.xml

Just add the below lines[change username & pwd] :

<role rolename="admin-gui"/>
<user username="admin" password="password" roles="admin-gui"/>

Restart tomcat 7 server and you are done.

Haunted

This only worked for me when I used the following code: <role rolename="manager-gui"/> <user username="admin" password="password" roles="manager-gui"/> – Studnia

I confirm that "manager-gui" is the correct role for Tomcat 7.0.54. – Heptachord

Answer 4

I'm not sure about Tomcat 7, but with Tomcat 6... once you start Tomcat: By going into the bin directory and starting startup.bat (win) or startup.sh (Unix/osx) it will spin up a local instance of the server running usually on port 8080 by default. Then by going to http://localhost:8080/ and seeing that it is running, there is a link to the manager. If that page is not there, you can try loading the manager by going directly to manager/html, and that will load the Host Manager gui.

http://localhost:8080/manager/html

Make sure Tomcat is running first and that 8080 is the right port. These are just the defaults that tomcat usually runs with.

To login you need to edit the conf/tomcat-users.xml, and create a Manager GUI role

<role rolename="manager-gui"/>

and add that to a user

<user username="admin" password="password" roles="manager-gui"/>

Then when you go to Manager GUI app at http://localhost:8080/manager/html it will prompt you for a username/password, which you added to that config file.

Fairly

yeah tomcat is running fine, I've deployed a few apps on it as well, but I want to know how to use the host manager. – Prentiss

Oh, you also have to edit conf/tomcat-users.xml and add a <role rolename="manager-gui"/> and <user username="admin" password="password" roles="tomcat, manager-gui"/>, so you can login to the Manager GUI. – Fairly

Bernie, I can go in fine. I'm sorry I'm not being very clear. I want to know how to USE the gui. what do I put in name, in Appbase, do I leave all the checkboxes checked, do I uncheck some. that kind of thing. – Prentiss

Answer 5

Just a note that all the above may not work for you with tomcat7 unless you've also done this:

sudo apt-get install tomcat7-admin

Codie

A lot of people can overlook this answer. – Obsolescent

Answer 6

Tomcat 8:

The following worked for me with tomcat 8.

Add these lines to apache-tomcat-8.0.9/conf/tomcat-users.xml

For Manager:

<role rolename="manager-gui"/>
<user username="admin" password="pass" roles="manager-gui"/>

For Host Manager:

<role rolename="admin-gui"/>
<user username="admin" password="pass" roles="admin-gui"/>

Override

Answer 7

Well if you are using Netbeans in Linux, then you should look for the tomcat-user.xml in

/home/Username/.netbeans/8.0/apache-tomcat-8.0.3.0_base/conf (its called Catalina Base and is often hidden)

instead of the apacahe installation directory.

open tomcat-user.xml inside that folder, uncomment the user and roles and add/replace the following line.

    <user username="tomcat" password="tomcat" roles="tomcat,admin,admin-gui,manager,manager-gui"/>

restart the server . That's all

Burnt

Answer 8

For tomcat 8

1.Go to context.xml file located for instance../home/ubuntu/tomcat/webapps/manager/META-INF/

comment out valve tag. save and exit

2.Go to tomcat-users.xml file located in conf directory of tomcat. Add the respective roles

under the tomcat-users tag. Save and exit.

3. Restart the tomcat.

Now, you will be able to have access to the manager app.

Mocambique