Chapter 7.2 Deploying Web Applications on Tomcat startup
For statically deploying web applications to Tomcat, use the location appBase. Copy an exploded web application to the location, or a compressed web application resource .WAR file.
If the Host’s deployOnStartup attribute holds “true”, all web applications in the location specified by the Host’s appBase attribute are deployed on Tomcat startup.
The following lists the deployment sequence on Tomcat startup:
1. Any Context Descriptors are deployed first.
2. Exploded web applications which are not referenced by any Context Descriptor are deployed next.
If exploded web applications have an associated .WAR file in the appBase and happens to be newer, the exploded directory is removed. The web application will be redeployed from the .WAR.
3. .WAR files are lastly deployed.
If there are no existing Context Descriptor, a new one will be created for each deployed web application.