How to provide a context configuration for a web application in Tomcat?

Question

I have a web application that relies on some resources and parameters to be configured after it is installed, like a JDBC connection.

What I have come up with is pro

Answer 1

This is how we can manage to externalize webapp context from .WAR File

1. Place your .WAR file somewhere outside tomcat
2. Create a $APP_NAME.xml file into $TOMCAT_HOME/conf/[Engine]/[Host]/ directory.
3. Now file "$APP_NAME.xml" we just created need to have context definition and parameters + Any EnvironmentVariable you want specific to that context.

For e.g. I have an webapp called VirtualWebApp.

I will create file like VirtualWebApp.xml with below context definition :

To access these environment variables you have to write below code(Just lookup) :

InitialContext initialContext = new javax.naming.InitialContext();

host = (String)initialContext.lookup("java:comp/env/webservice.host");
port = (String)initialContext.lookup("java:comp/env/webservice.port");