spring boot doesn't work in tomcat container

[mjason3]

Hi,

I can run the spring boot in embeded tomcat. but after deploying to a tomcat container, i encounter this issue:
Mon Jun 30 19:35:36 CST 2014
There was an unexpected error (type=Internal Server Error, status=500).
org.apache.jsp.WEB_002dINF.views.documentation_jsp

[wilkinsona]

I think this may be a symptom of #1187. Which version of Boot are you using?

[mjason3]

@wilkinsona I'm using the 1.1.3.RELEASE. Finally, i resolved it by adding jsp-api, servlet-api with scope "provided". Btw, Is an executable jar a recommended way or SpringBoot want to enable both jar and war? If the SpringBoot want to enable both two ways, i have to say, current support is terrible. My suggestion will be if the package type is war, automatically remove the embed tomcat/jetty dependencies.

[wilkinsona]

Thanks for following up. The problem you've seen should now be fixed in the 1.1.4 snapshots.

If you have no desire to deploy your application to a servlet container then, yes, an executable jar is the recommended way to package your application. What is the problem you're seeing with the current executable war support, beyond the problem you've reported here? What is it that makes you consider it to be "terrible"?

A war that's been repackaged by the Spring Boot Maven or Gradle plugin contains the embedded Tomcat/Jetty dependencies to allow it to be run as a self-contained executable or by deploying it to a Servlet container. If you know that you'll only ever deploy your application to a Servlet container you can easily build a traditional war file by not using the plugin or, in the case of Gradle, configuring it to disable repackaging.

[mjason3]

Hi @wilkinsona , yes, the support of executable jar is cool. My goal is to use embed tomcat as a development env in IDE, and release it to a production env which is a tomcat or other web container. So i configure the package type as war. One issue is i have already reported above(glad to see it will be fixed soon) Another "issue" is i don't want my war package contains all the embed tomcat related dependencies like jasper which may result in conflicts.

[mjason3]

@wilkinsona exclusion is a solution to exclude embed tomcat dependencies. However, SpringBoot is born to save such configuration effort. When I am switching between dev and prod, i hope there is a better way. That's why i say current war support is terrible. It's more like a feature request. :-)

[wilkinsona]

i don't want my war package contains all the embed tomcat related dependencies like jasper which may result in conflicts

There is only a chance of a conflict due to the bug in 1.1.3. If you use 1.1.2 or a 1.1.4 snapshot, the jars for the embedded servlet container and its dependencies will be packaged in WEB-INF/lib-provided/ and a Servlet container will ignore them. They'll only be used when you run in development, either directly in your IDE, or using java -jar.

You're paying a small price in terms of the size of your application's war file to gain seamless movement from running as a self-contained application at development time to deploying to a Servlet container when you go into production. This is the best that Boot can do as it's impossible for us to detect at build time whether you're building your app for development or production. If you really want different binaries for development and production, then you could use a profile in your build (assuming you're using Maven) to control whether or not Boot's plugin performs its repackaging.

[mjason3]

That makes sense. Thanks for the detailed explanation, Andy! I think the following way is good enough for my use case

its dependencies will be packaged in WEB-INF/lib-provided/ and a Servlet container will ignore them

[naruraghavan]

I am using 1.1.4 and still unable to deploy the resulting war into a regular tomcat due to the embedded tomcat. I don't see lib-provided under WEB-INF. What could be wrong?

[naruraghavan]

configurations {
    querydslapt
    provided
}

buildscript {
    repositories {
        maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/libs-release" }
        maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/libs-snapshot" }
        mavenLocal()
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:1.1.4.RELEASE")
        classpath("org.flywaydb:flyway-gradle-plugin:3.0")
        classpath("com.h2database:h2:1.4.178")
    }
}

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'idea'
apply plugin: 'spring-boot'
apply plugin: 'flyway'
apply plugin: 'war'

jar {
    baseName = 'netstar-content-rest-services'
    version = '1.0.0'
}

war {
    baseName = 'ncrs'
}

sourceCompatibility = 1.7

//applicationDefaultJvmArgs = [
//        "-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=5005"
//]

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
    maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/libs-release" }
    maven { url "https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/releases" }
    maven { url "http://repo.spring.io/libs-snapshot" }
}

sourceSets {
    main.compileClasspath += configurations.provided
    test.compileClasspath += configurations.provided
    test.runtimeClasspath += configurations.provided
}

flyway {
    url = "jdbc:h2:tcp://localhost/./netstar-content"
    user = 'sa'
}


dependencies {
    versionManagement 'io.spring.platform:platform-versions:1.0.1.RELEASE@properties'

    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web")
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa")
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-rest")
    compile("com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind")
    compile("org.springframework.hateoas:spring-hateoas")

    compile("org.springframework.plugin:spring-plugin-core")
    compile("net.sf.ehcache:ehcache:2.8.3")
    compile("org.springframework:spring-context-support")
    compile("org.springframework.data:spring-data-redis")
    compile("org.springframework:spring-tx")
    compile("org.springframework:spring-tx-events:1.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT")

    compile("redis.clients:jedis")
    compile("org.apache.commons:commons-pool2")
    compile("com.jayway.jsonpath:json-path")
    compile("com.h2database:h2")
    compile("org.jsoup:jsoup:1.7.3")
    compile('org.apache.commons:commons-lang3')
    compile("org.apache.httpcomponents:httpclient")
    compile("com.cenqua.clover:clover:3.3.0")
    compile("com.jolbox:bonecp:0.8.0.RELEASE")

    // for the anontation processor
    querydslapt group: 'com.mysema.querydsl', name: 'querydsl-jpa', version: '2.8.0', classifier: 'apt-one-jar', transitive: false

    compile group: 'org.projectlombok', name: 'lombok', version: '1.14.2'

    // for compiling
    compile("com.mysema.querydsl:querydsl-jpa")
    compile("com.mysema.querydsl:querydsl-apt")

    compile fileTree(dir: "${project.projectDir}/external/lib", includes: ['*.jar'])

    testCompile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test")

    //For tomcat
    provided("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-tomcat")

    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-actuator")
}

//Querydsl

def generatedSrcDir = 'src/main/generated'
task createGeneratedSrcDir << {
    file(generatedSrcDir).mkdirs()
}
compileJava.dependsOn createGeneratedSrcDir

compileJava {
    options.compilerArgs << '-processor' << 'com.mysema.query.apt.jpa.JPAAnnotationProcessor' << '-s' << file(generatedSrcDir).absolutePath
}

clean {
    delete generatedSrcDir
}

task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
    gradleVersion = '1.11'
}

[wilkinsona]

You need to declare the embedded server container dependencies in a configuration named providedRuntime as described here

[mjason3]

@wilkinsona I have upgraded to 1.1.4 and there is a exception Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/ServletContext Is this configuration incorrect?

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
            <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

[wilkinsona]

That configuration looks right to me. I've just double-checked by modifying the Web UI sample with the provided dependencies and a SpringBootServletInitializer subclass. It ran successfully on Tomcat 7.0.54.

If you want me to investigate further, knowing the version of Tomcat that you're using and the full stack trace of the exception would help. Even better would be small app that reproduces the problem.

[mjason3]

I encountered this exception only in IntelliJ community edition. However, in eclipse, everything goes well.