[fedora-java] Eclipse and Tomcat - where?

[Fernando Lozano]

Hi Daniel,

First, you need to tell the list which plug-in you are using to run web 
apps inside Tomcat. The Eclipse SDK per se does not provide this 
capability, so you do have something else besides Eclipse and Tomcat. 
This plug-in may have specific requirements regarding yout Tomcat 
installation that may not be met by Fedora Tomcat installation, and this 
would be the plug-in fault as Fedora Tomcat works out-of-the-box and the 
Eclipse help system, which is based on Tomcat, also works fine.

About the requirement of running under root (or the tomcat user) it s a 
common requirement with server software under Linux. Running Tomcat 
using the default configuration provided by Fedora Core may need write 
access to some directories witch are owned by a system user, so you 
cannot start it using your regular user account, the same way you cannot 
start apache, sendmail or samba using your regular user accoint. Maybe 
to satisfy your plug-in needs you'll need to provide a different Tomcat 
installation under your home dir.

The standard Tomcat installation does not comply with Linux best 
practices of isolating read-only directoryes (like program executables 
and libraries) from read-write directories (like logs and config files) 
and so Fedora Tomcat uses a different file system layout. Your plug-in 
may not be able to accept /usr/share/tomcat5 as a Tomcat installation 
directory because not all Tomcat files are there.

[]s, Fernando Lozano


>>>>>Of course, the Tomcat dialog box pops up and asks where the
>>>>>Tomcat installation directory is.... ugh....  I have NO CLUE!
>>>>>
>>>>>On windows, Tomcat is installed by Eclipse so I dont have to
>>>>>figure this out....  but on Fedora, seems like I do.
>>>>>
>>>>>Can someone tell me what to do?
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Well, I don't know what dialog box this is, but on Fedora the Tomcat
>>>>installation directory (CATALINA_HOME) is /usr/share/tomcat5/.
>>>>
>>>>Cheers,
>>>>Gary
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Hmmm.. ok, so I have that - but this did not help.
>>>
>>>The specific dialog box appears when you attempt to run the
>>>web-application project (RunAs->Run on Server) and you
>>>are then to choose the application server (tomcat 4,5,5.5)
>>>and provide the tomcat installation directory otherwise
>>>you cannot run the application.  I entered the pathname of
>>>/usr/share/tomcat5 and it does not allow me to continue.
>>>I tried different tomcat versions (5.0, 5.5) and neither
>>>worked.
>>>
>>>So- I am stuck - and cannot even get my application to run
>>>at this time.  Any ideas?
>>>      
>>>
>>Is it trying to launch tomcat itself?  That won't work as it's supposed
>>to run as root (or the tomcat user or whatever).
>>    
>>
>
>Tomcat is a java servlet application server and yet developers
>using eclipse are doing development work so why should it be a
>"root" requirement to run and/or start it? Sure beats me...
>
>But in any case and from what I can tell, no matter what I enter into
>the "Tomcat installation directory" textbox, the eclipse program
>keeps saying that the directory provided is not a valid tomcat installation
>directory and will not allow me to continue.  I have used eclipse on windows
>for awhile and tomcat (or other server) selections runs fine - "root" or not
>and it even "installs" the server (along with Sun's version of their app server
>w/ DB support) which makes it pleasant for developers so why not follow the same
>pathway for linux-based developers? Why force configuration make us jump through
>hoops when all "we" care about is to develop applications? I *should* be able to
>choose *any* AS with Eclipse under Linux?
>
>Anyone care to jump in and tell me how to get tomcat started under
>Eclipse's control?
>
>Dan
>  
>