After installation, you will have a new tool called tomcat-manager
. Run this with no command line arguments to invoke an interactive, line-oriented command interpreter:
$ tomcat-manager
tomcat-manager> connect http://localhost:8080/manager admin newenglandclamchowder
--connected to http://localhost:8080/manager as ace
tomcat-manager> list
Path Status Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/ running 0 ROOT
/manager running 14 /usr/share/tomcat7-admin/manager
/host-manager running 0 /usr/share/tomcat7-admin/host-manager
tomcat-manager> exit
Use the exit
or quit
command to exit the interpreter and return to your operating system shell.
The interactive shell has a built-in list of all available commands:
tomcat-manager> help
tomcat-manager is a command line tool for managing a Tomcat server
Connecting to a Tomcat server
============================================================
connect Connect to a tomcat manager instance.
which Show the url of the tomcat server you are connected to.
Managing applications
============================================================
list Show all installed applications.
deploy local Deploy a local war file to the tomcat server.
deploy server Deploy a war file to the tomcat server.
deploy context Deploy a context xml file to the tomcat server.
redeploy Undeploy an existing app and deploy a new one in its place.
undeploy Remove an application at a given path from the tomcat server.
start Start a deployed tomcat application that isn't running.
stop Stop a tomcat application and leave it deployed on the server.
restart Start and stop a tomcat application. Synonym for reload.
reload Synonym for 'restart'.
sessions Show active sessions for a tomcat application.
expire Expire idle sessions.
Server information
============================================================
findleakers Show tomcat applications that leak memory.
resources Show global JNDI resources configured in Tomcat.
serverinfo Show information about the tomcat server.
sslconnectorciphers Show SSL/TLS ciphers configured for each connector.
status Show server status information in xml format.
threaddump Show a jvm thread dump.
vminfo Show diagnostic information about the jvm.
Settings, configuration, and tools
============================================================
config Edit or show the location of the user configuration file.
edit Edit a file in the preferred text editor.
exit_code Show a number indicating the status of the previous command.
history View, run, edit, and save previously entered commands.
py Execute python commands.
pyscript Run a file containing a python script.
set Change program settings.
show Show all settings or a specific setting.
settings Synonym for 'show'.
shell Execute a command in the operating system shell.
shortcuts Show shortcuts for other commands.
Other
============================================================
exit Exit this program.
quit Synonym for 'exit'.
help Show available commands, or help on a specific command.
version Show the version number of this program.
license Show the MIT license.
As well as help for each command:
tomcat-manager> help stop
usage: stop [-h] [-v VERSION] path
Stop a running tomcat application and leave it deployed on the server.
positional arguments:
path The path part of the URL where the application is
deployed.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v VERSION, --version VERSION
Optional version string of the application to stop. If
the application was deployed with a version string, it
must be specified in order to stop the application.
This document does not include detailed explanations of every command. It does show how to connect to a Tomcat server and deploy a war file, since there are quite a few options for both of those commands. For everything else, the built-in help should be sufficient.
Before you can do anything to a Tomcat server, you need to enter the connection information, including the url and the authentication credentials. You can pass the connection information on the command line:
$ tomcat-manager --user=ace http://localhost:8080/manager
Password: {you type your password here}
Or:
$ tomcat-manager --user=ace --password=newenglandclamchowder \
http://localhost:8080/manager
You can also enter this information into the interactive prompt:
$ tomcat-manager
tomcat-manager> connect http://localhost:8080/manager ace newenglandclamchowder
Or:
$ tomcat-manager
tomcat-manager> connect http://localhost:8080/manager ace
Password: {type your password here}
Tomcat applications are usually packaged as a WAR file, which is really just a zip file with a different extension. The deploy
command sends a WAR file to the Tomcat server and tells it which URL to deploy that application at.
The WAR file can be located in one of two places: some path on the computer that is running Tomcat, or some path on the computer where the command line tomcat-manager
program is running.
If the WAR file is located on the same server as Tomcat, we call that server
. If the WAR file is located where tomcat-manager
is running, we call that local
. If the file is already on the server, then we have to tell Tomcat where to go find it. If it's local
, then we have to send the WAR file over the network so Tomcat can deploy it.
For all of these examples, lets assume I have a Tomcat server running far away in a data center somewhere, accessible at https://www.example.com
. I'm running the command line tomcat-manager
program on my laptop. We'll also assume that we have already connected to the Tomcat server, using one of the methods just described in interactive_connect
.
For our first example, let's assume we have a WAR file already on our server, in /tmp/fancyapp.war
. To deploy this WAR file to https://www.example.com/fancy
:
tomcat-manager> deploy server /tmp/myfancyapp.war /fancy
Now let's say I just compiled a WAR file on my laptop for an app called shiny
. It's saved at ~/src/shiny/dist/shinyv2.0.5.war
. I'd like to deploy it to https://www.example.com/shiny
:
tomcat-manager> deploy local ~/src/shiny/dist/shiny2.0.5.war /shiny
Sometimes when you deploy a WAR you want to specify additional configuration information. You can do so by using a context file. The context file must reside on the same server where Tomcat is running.
tomcat-manager> deploy context /tmp/context.xml /sample
This command will deploy the WAR file specified in the docBase
attribute of the Context
element so it's available at https://www.example.com/sample
.
Note
When deploying via context files, be aware of the following:
- The
path
attribute of theContext
element is ignored by the Tomcat Server when deploying from a context file. - If the
Context
element specifies adocBase
attribute, it will be used even if you specify a war file on the command line.
Tomcat supports a parallel deployment feature <https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.5-doc/config/context.html#Parallel_deplo yment> which allows multiple versions of the same WAR to be deployed simultaneously at the same URL. To utilize this feature, you need to deploy an application with a version string. The combination of path and version string uniquely identify the application.
Let's revisit our shiny
app. This time we will deploy with a version string:
tomcat-manager>deploy local ~/src/shiny/dist/shiny2.0.5.war /shiny -v v2.0.5
tomcat-manager>list
Path Status Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/ running 0 ROOT
/manager running 0 manager
/shiny running 0 shiny##v2.0.5
Later today, I make a bug fix to 'shiny', and build version 2.0.6 of the app. Parallel deployment allows me to deploy two versions of that app at the same path, and Tomcat will migrate users to the new version over time as their sessions expire in version 2.0.5.
tomcat-manager>deploy local ~/src/shiny/dist/shiny2.0.6.war /shiny -v v2.0.6
tomcat-manager>list
Path Status Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/ running 0 ROOT
/manager running 0 manager
/shiny running 12 shiny##v2.0.5
/shiny running 0 shiny##v2.0.6
Once all the sessions have been migrated to version 2.0.6, I can undeploy version 2.0.5:
tomcat-manager>undeploy /shiny --version v2.0.5
tomcat-manager>list
Path Status Sessions Directory
------------------------ ------- -------- ------------------------------------
/ running 0 ROOT
/manager running 0 manager
/shiny. running 9 shiny##v2.0.6
The following commands support the -v
or --version
option, which makes parallel deployment possible:
- deploy
- undeploy
- start
- stop
- reload
- sessions
- expire
You can edit current or previous commands using standard readline
editing keys. If you aren't familiar with readline
, just know that you can use your arrow keys, home
to move to the beginning of the line, end
to move to the end of the line, and delete
to forward delete characters.
Interactive mode keeps a command history, which you can navigate using the up and down arrow keys. and search the history of your commands with <control>+r
.
You can view the list of previously issued commands:
tomcat-manager> history
And run a previous command by string search:
tomcat-manager> history -r undeploy
Or by number:
tomcat-manager> history -r 10
The history
command has many other options, including the ability to save commands to a file and load commands from a file. Use help history
to get the details.
The show
or settings
(they do exactly the same thing) commands display a list of settings which control the behavior of tomcat-manager
:
tomcat-manager> show
autorun_on_edit=False # Automatically run files after editing
colors=True # Colorized output (*nix only)
debug=False # Show stack trace for exceptions
echo=False # For piped input, echo command to output
editor=/usr/local/bin/zile # Program used to edit files
locals_in_py=True # Allow access to your application in py via self
prompt='tomcat-manager> ' # The prompt issued to solicit input
quiet=False # Don't print nonessential feedback
status_prefix=-- # String to prepend to all status output
status_to_stdout=False # Status information to stdout instead of stderr
timeout=10 # Seconds to wait for HTTP connections
timing=False # Report execution times
You can change any of these settings using the set
command:
tomcat-manager> set prompt='tm> '
tm>
Quotes around values are not required unless they contain spaces or other quotes.
tomcat-manager
reads a user configuration file on startup. This file allows you to:
- change settings on startup
- define shortcuts for connecting to Tomcat servers
The location of the configuration file is different depending on your operating system. To see the location of the file:
tomcat-manager> config file
/Users/kotfu/Library/Application Support/tomcat-manager/tomcat-manager.ini
You can edit the file from within tomcat-manager
too. Well, it really just launches the editor of your choice, you know, the one specified in the editor
setting. Do that by typing:
tomcat-manager> config edit
This file uses the INI file format. If you create a section called settings
, you can set the values of any of the available settings. My config file contains:
[settings]
prompt='tm> '
debug=True
editor=/usr/local/bin/zile
You can also use the configuration file to set up shortcuts to various Tomcat servers. Define a section named the shortcut, and then include a property for url
, user
, and password
. Here's a simple example:
[localhost]
url=http://localhost:8080/manager
user=ace
password=newenglandclamchowder
With this defined in your configuration file, you can now connect using the name of the shortcut:
tomcat-manager> connect localhost
If you define a user
, but omit password
, you will be prompted for it when you use the shortcut in the connect
command.
Save the output of the list
command to a file:
tomcat-manager> list > /tmp/tomcat-apps.txt
Search the output of the vminfo
command:
tomcat-manager> vminfo | grep user.timezone
user.timezone: US/Mountain
Or the particularly useful:
tomcat-manager> threaddump | less
You can copy output to the clipboard by redirecting but not giving a filename:
tomcat-manager> list >
You can also append output to the clipboard using a similar method:
tomcat-manager> serverinfo >>
Use the shell
or !
commands to execute operating system commands (how meta):
tomcat-manager> !ls
Of course tab completion works on shell commands.
You can launch a python interpreter:
tomcat-manager> py
Python 3.6.1 (default, Apr 4 2017, 09:40:51)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.42.1)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveTomcatManager)
py <command>: Executes a Python command.
py: Enters interactive Python mode.
End with ``Ctrl-D`` (Unix) / ``Ctrl-Z`` (Windows), ``quit()``, ``exit()``.
Non-python commands can be issued with ``cmd("your command")``.
Run python code from external script files with ``run("script.py")``
>>> self.tomcat
<tomcatmanager.tomcat_manager.TomcatManager object at 0x10f353550>
>>> self.tomcat.is_connected
True
>>> exit()
As you can see, if you have connected to a Tomcat server, then you will have a self.tomcat
object available. See package
for more information about what you can do with this object.