I am struggling to figure out why my Tomcat installation is failing to allow
me to connect my java web application to a database. I am looking for ideas
as to how to find out what is wrong. I have (what I think) is the same setup
on another machine and it works fine. The only difference between these is
that the working one in tomcat 5.0 and this machine is tomcat 5.5 (although I
am just about and try with a 5.0 setup).
I am trying with this simple piece of code - plucked from the tomcat docs.
Context initCtx;
try {
initCtx = new InitialContext();
Context envCtx = (Context) initCtx.lookup("java:comp/env");
DataSource ds = (DataSource) envCtx.lookup("jdbc/akcmoney");
Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
} catch (Exception e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
and with debug, I can see that initCtX, envCtx and ds all are assigned non
null values, but the ds.getConnection() results in the following.
Cannot create JDBC
driver of class '' for connect URL 'null'
I have the postgresql jdbc driver jar in $CATALINA.BASE/common/lib
Server.xml contains
<Context docBase="akcmoney" path="/akcmoney" reloadable="true"
source="">
<Resource auth="Container" name="jdbc/akcmoney"
type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
<ResourceParams name="jdbc/akcmoney">
<parameter>
<name>factory</name>
<value></value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>driverClassName</name>
<value>org.postgresql.Driver</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>url</name>
<value></value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>username</name>
<value>tomcat4</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>password</name>
<value>xxxxxxx</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>maxActive</name>
<value>20</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>maxIdle</name>
<value>10</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>maxWait</name>
<value>-1</value>
</parameter>
</ResourceParams
</Context>
my WEB-INF/web.xml contains this reference.
<resource-ref>
<description>AKCMoney Database</description>
<res-ref-name>jdbc/akcmoney</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
<res-sharing-scope>Shareable</res-sharing-scope>
</resource-ref>
Anyone any ideas where I am going wrong, or how to look at the contents of the
nitCtX, envCtx and ds variables in the above code snippet to understand how
far I have got

Hello,

there is a difference between how resources are defined in 5.0 and
5.5. In 5.0 you could provide your resource definitions right in the
server.xml, but in 5.5 you need to create a separate context.xml file
($CATALINA_HME/conf/Catalina/<hostname>/context.xml) and put resource
definitions there.
See this link:

I also had this problem when migrating from 5.0 to 5.5. After I
defined a separate context.xml it started to work again.

Regards,

Saturday 23 September 2006 09:57, Andrew Stepanenko wrote:
Hello,

there is a difference between how resources are defined in 5.0 and
5.5. In 5.0 you could provide your resource definitions right in the
server.xml, but in 5.5 you need to create a separate context.xml file
($CATALINA_HME/conf/Catalina/<hostname>/context.xml) and put resource
definitions there.
See this link:

I also had this problem when migrating from 5.0 to 5.5. After I
defined a separate context.xml it started to work again.

The docs seem very vague on this issue, but it does imply that I could still
use $CATALINA_HME/conf/server.xml

question that isn't answered in the docs is what the root element should
be - the best seems to be the example for accessing a database, and even
there it puts <Context >

I tried with context.xml in the directory you mentioned and it said it
couldn't find the webapp "context", so I renamed it to my application and
tried again. But it didn't work.

So still stumped

Hello,

looks like the docs I gave a link to describe the old approach, sorry.
Here is what I have in my context.xml:

<!-- The contents of this file will be loaded for each web application
<Context path="" docBase="/"
debug="1" reloadable="true">

<!-- Default set of monitored resources
<WatchedResource>WEB-INF/web.xml</WatchedResource>

<Resource name="jdbc/unfasHB" auth="Container" scope="Shareable"
type="javax.sql.DataSource"
factory=""
url=";characterEncoding=UTF-8&characterSetResults=UTF-8"
driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
username="andrews"
password="xxx"
maxIdle="5"
maxActive="50"
autoReconnect="true"
/>
</Context>

also, the format of <Resourcehas been changed. Now, all
configuration data should be provided as attributes and not nested
tags.

Regards,
Andrew Stepanenko,
http://unf.tane.edu.ua

9/23/06, Alan Chandler <alan (AT) chandlerfamily (DOT) org.ukwrote:
Saturday 23 September 2006 09:57, Andrew Stepanenko wrote:
Hello,

there is a difference between how resources are defined in 5.0 and
5.5. In 5.0 you could provide your resource definitions right in the
server.xml, but in 5.5 you need to create a separate context.xml file
($CATALINA_HME/conf/Catalina/<hostname>/context.xml) and put resource
definitions there.
See this link:

I also had this problem when migrating from 5.0 to 5.5. After I
defined a separate context.xml it started to work again.

The docs seem very vague on this issue, but it does imply that I could still
use $CATALINA_HME/conf/server.xml

question that isn't answered in the docs is what the root element should
be - the best seems to be the example for accessing a database, and even
there it puts <Context >

I tried with context.xml in the directory you mentioned and it said it
couldn't find the webapp "context", so I renamed it to my application and
tried again. But it didn't work.

So still stumped

There are two pieces of information about the Context file while deploying
your application as a WAR that the Tomcat documentation fails to make
absolutely clear:

1) the Context file name must be "context.xml"; do not attempt to name it
anything else.
2) put the file in the /WEB-INF folder of the WAR

The file will be extracted and the name changed automatically by the Tomcat
engine. than that, what Mr. Stepanenko gave you is relatively
identical to what I have in my Context file.

H

9/23/06, Andrew Stepanenko <andrew.stepanenko (AT) gmail (DOT) comwrote:

Hello,

looks like the docs I gave a link to describe the old approach, sorry.
Here is what I have in my context.xml:

<!-- The contents of this file will be loaded for each web application
<Context path="" docBase="/"
debug="1" reloadable="true">

<!-- Default set of monitored resources
<WatchedResource>WEB-INF/web.xml</WatchedResource>

<Resource name="jdbc/unfasHB" auth="Container" scope="Shareable"
type="javax.sql.DataSource"
factory=""

url=";characterEncoding=UTF-8&characterSetResults=UTF-8"
driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
username="andrews"
password="xxx"
maxIdle="5"
maxActive="50"
autoReconnect="true"
/>
</Context>

also, the format of <Resourcehas been changed. Now, all
configuration data should be provided as attributes and not nested
tags.

Regards,
Andrew Stepanenko,
http://unf.tane.edu.ua

9/23/06, Alan Chandler <alan (AT) chandlerfamily (DOT) org.ukwrote:
Saturday 23 September 2006 09:57, Andrew Stepanenko wrote:
Hello,

there is a difference between how resources are defined in 5.0 and
5.5. In 5.0 you could provide your resource definitions right in the
server.xml, but in 5.5 you need to create a separate context.xml file
($CATALINA_HME/conf/Catalina/<hostname>/context.xml) and put resource
definitions there.
See this link:

I also had this problem when migrating from 5.0 to 5.5. After I
defined a separate context.xml it started to work again.

The docs seem very vague on this issue, but it does imply that I could
still
use $CATALINA_HME/conf/server.xml

question that isn't answered in the docs is what the root element
should
be - the best seems to be the example for accessing a database, and even
there it puts <Context >

I tried with context.xml in the directory you mentioned and it said it
couldn't find the webapp "context", so I renamed it to my application
and
tried again. But it didn't work.

So still stumped

Saturday 23 September 2006 15:23, David Smith wrote:
Correction: context.xml belongs in META-INF of the war archive.

K, I am begining to comprehend - and knowledge about the context.xml in the
META-INF file for a WAR archive is good. I was looking for a way to wrap all
the info about the application in one directory structure - for my version
control.

Does this work with Tomcat 5.0 - thats my current production environment?

HWEVER, in the short term I am not working with WAR files - instead I am
trying to deploy the application inside Eclipse. I tried creating a directory
etc under eclipse's (probably WTP plugin's) server configuration, but it
doesn't publish that to the conf directory inside it's CATALINA_HME.

So still not sure how to proceed.

you may very well be publishing to your own webapp context.xml
i.e $
Until you feel comfortable with the reliability of deployment in the meanwhile I would create your war by hand
(and then let the IDE automate only after you have already established a reliable manual deployment environment)
*Most IDE's* support the capability to export build command which will produce a build.xml you can work with
this presupposes you have downloaded ANT and set ANT_HME to the location where you installed Ant
M-
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Message
From: "Alan Chandler" <alan (AT) chandlerfamily (DOT) org.uk>
To: <users (AT) tomcat (DOT) apache.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: Struggling with basic database connection

Saturday 23 September 2006 15:23, David Smith wrote:

>Correction: context.xml belongs in META-INF of the war archive.


K, I am begining to comprehend - and knowledge about the context.xml in the
META-INF file for a WAR archive is good. I was looking for a way to wrap all
the info about the application in one directory structure - for my version
control.

Does this work with Tomcat 5.0 - thats my current production environment?

HWEVER, in the short term I am not working with WAR files - instead I am
trying to deploy the application inside Eclipse. I tried creating a directory
etc under eclipse's (probably WTP plugin's) server configuration, but it
doesn't publish that to the conf directory inside it's CATALINA_HME.

So still not sure how to proceed.

Saturday 23 September 2006 15:23, David Smith wrote:
Correction: context.xml belongs in META-INF of the war archive.

I have just conducted experiments with Tomcat 5.0

putting a context.xml file in META-INF doesn't appear to work

I have not been having success with putting in conf/server.xml - but I have
had success with putting the context in