Using wget and the Tomcat manager, you can script remote tomcat deploys, undeploys, starts, stops, and status.

First, make sure the Tomcat manager is installed and running:

In Tomcat 5.5, the manager GUI comes packaged, but not configured. To configure:

cp tomcat5.5/server/webapps/manager/manager.xml tomcat5.5/conf/Catalina/localhost/
vi tomcat5.5/conf/tomcat-users.xml

add:

<role rolename="manager"/>
<user username="admin" password="test1234" roles="tomcat,manager"/>

and now restart Tomcat.

The manager GUI can now be seen at:

http://hostname:8080/manager/html

and you will be prompted for the username and password you provided in the tomcat-users.xml

Status

Now, we can get the status of all deployed apps by running the following command:

wget http://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/manager/list -O - -q

for example:

wget http://admin:test1234@blojszp1:8080/manager/list -O - -q

shows the status of all applications deployed and running on this particular Tomcat instance:

/balancer:running:0:balancer
/testapp:running:0:testapp
/host-manager:running:0:/u01/app/tomcat/server/webapps/host-manager
/:running:0:ROOT
/manager:running:0:/u01/app/tomcat/server/webapps/manager

Undeploy

To undeploy an application, issue the following command:

wget "http://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/manager/undeploy?path=/<context path>" -O - -q

WARNING!!!!! – the undeploy function will REMOVE the application AND war file from the webapps directory.

For example:

wget "http://admin:test1234@blojszp1:8080/manager/undeploy?path=/testapp" -O - -q
OK - Undeployed application at context path /testapp

Deploy

An application can be deployed using a similar command:

wget "http://<user>:<pass>@<host>:<port>/manager/deploy?path=/<context>&war=file:<filepath>" -O - -q

Where the “war=file:” is the path to the war file on the server you are deploying it to. This particular method does not ‘push’ a war file to the destination server.

For example: (this should all be on one line, but for formatting reasons, I had to split it up…)

wget
"http://admin:test1234@blojzsp1:8080/manager/deploy?path=/testapp&war=file:/staging/testapp.war"
-O - -q
OK - Deployed application at context path /testapp

Stop

You can stop a particular application:

wget "http://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/manager/stop?path=/<context path>" -O - -q

For example:

wget "http://admin:test1234@blojzsp1:8080/manager/stop?path=/testapp" -O - -q
OK - Stopped application at context path /testapp

Notice the application shows as ‘stopped’ when you list the applications:

wget http://admin:test1234@blojszp1:8080/manager/list -O - -q
/balancer:running:0:balancer
/testapp:stopped:0:testapp
/host-manager:running:0:/u01/app/tomcat/server/webapps/host-manager
/:running:0:ROOT
/manager:running:0:/u01/app/tomcat/server/webapps/manager

Start

And to start that application:

wget "http://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/manager/start?path=/<context path>" -O - -q

For example:

wget "http://admin:test1234@blojzsp1:8080/manager/start?path=/testapp" -O - -q
OK - Started application at context path /testapp