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Bug 277688 - Documentation should be changed (Tomcat ROOT is not running by default)
Summary: Documentation should be changed (Tomcat ROOT is not running by default)
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Documentation
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Project-specific documentation (show other bugs)
Hardware: All Linux
: High normal (vote)
Assignee: Java team
URL: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/java/to...
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on: 428002
Blocks: 322979
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Reported: 2009-07-13 17:51 UTC by Keith Nickum
Modified: 2012-12-07 13:11 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


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Description Keith Nickum 2009-07-13 17:51:37 UTC
URL "Chapter 4. Usage", Section: "Tomcat's Standard Web Applications" suggests that both 'ROOT' and 'manager' webapps are installed and running by default (e.g. on a vanilla install, should be able to go to <servername>:8080/ to get ROOT webapp). This is not entirely true. #gentoo-java IRC suggests adding a line to mention (in my words..) that ROOT is installed but not running by default

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install tomcat (emerge tomcat)
2. Run '/etc/init.d/tomcat-6 start'
3. go to http://<servername>:8080/
4. blank page appears, showing port is open/listening but no content being served
Actual Results:  
Blank page

Expected Results:  
Based on documentation, a page stating "Congrats you installed tomcat" with links should appear.

Either you should get the expected results, or, more appropriately, the documentation should be changed to match the actual results (and perhaps give an indication as to how things can be changed to give the expected results)
Comment 1 Keith Nickum 2009-07-13 18:06:17 UTC
Summary should state that the problem is that the documentation doesn't match the reality.
Comment 2 Jamie McLaughlin 2009-08-24 13:18:27 UTC
This discrepancy between the documentation and the reality is clearly wasting time for many people, even causing them to fall back to Tomcat 5. Note this forum thread:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-713224.html

I think a note on the Gentoo Tomcat Guide, and perhaps the ebuild (to appear after installation), would save people a huge amount of unnecessary hassle.
Comment 3 Mark Nowiasz 2009-10-20 12:26:33 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> This discrepancy between the documentation and the reality is clearly wasting
> time for many people, even causing them to fall back to Tomcat 5.

Yes, that's true - I myself have given up trying to make Tomcat 6 work - I've reverted to 5.5, since I encountered several errors:

- There's no working welcome app
- I was unable to make the docs work
- When trying to install the examples webapp, an exception occured: Error configuring application listener of class listeners.ContextListener

After unmerging Tomcat 6 and emerging Tomcat 5.5, everything worked just fine.

> I think a note on the Gentoo Tomcat Guide, and perhaps the ebuild (to appear
> after installation), would save people a huge amount of unnecessary hassle.

Yes, indeed - but I'm not sure if it's a matter of incorrect documentation - it looks much more than a broken ebuild. Right now Tomcat 6 seems to be quite unusable :-/

Comment 4 David Coornaert 2010-03-28 10:31:06 UTC
any progress on this ?
I've been bugged by this too, 
sample apps work, just the basic "welcome page" that doesn't..

only difference I observed is versioning in web.xml (1.4) in sample apps, for 1.5 in welcome page's web.xml 

xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd"
and 
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
Comment 5 William L. Thomson Jr. 2011-02-15 03:14:37 UTC
Tell me how a welcome page and a server able to serve up its own documentation, that is readily available via the web and other means has any relevance to if a server is up and running?

Also where in the documentation does it say ROOT web app is up and running by default? Its installed by default yes, but does not provide the welcome page as expected. Its been quite a while, but I recall the welcome page install being part of examples or something. Thought I documented this all before my departure by I guess not. I know the missing welcome page has come up many times before, and thats my fault for not documenting that, so I simply don't have to repeat myself :)

IMHO if you need a welcome page to confirm an install of Tomcat was successful, or Tomcat's ability to serve up its own documentation, then maybe you should not be running gentoo. When you start Tomcat and go to port :8080 if you don't get 404 or browser time out. Well your connected to an up and running Tomcat server, thats not serving up anything, but can :)

In production environments you need not a welcome page, documentation, or the rest. I prefer to cater more to that user base, than those that require the other things that are not necessary to any real functionality of Tomcat. Given the amount of bugs open on Tomcat that actually effect functionality.

I will at minimum see about updating the documentation and improving on it when I get around to making one for 7.x. Also your welcome for having created documentation in the first place, much less packaging it, and all the rest, which can go unappreciated at times. Just keep that in mind when making requests for missing welcome pages, or documentation not being served up ;)
Comment 6 Jamie McLaughlin 2011-02-15 11:20:56 UTC
Thanks very much! You're completely right that the welcome page is unnecessary. It's just helpful if the documentation makes its absence clear.
Comment 7 William L. Thomson Jr. 2011-02-16 16:13:19 UTC
If recruiting will ever get off their butt and re-process me as a returning developer, then I will take care of this and would have long ago. See bug 135927 almost a year now....

There will also be a new guide for Tomcat 7 when ever I get cvs access again.
Comment 8 Ralph Sennhauser (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2012-12-07 13:11:00 UTC
Installing documentation and examples is handled by a new useflag extra-webapps. If installed the instance manger script will configure them. For more info see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Apache_Tomcat.

Thanks for the report.