Question

I have developed a small application based on Play Framework (I am still learning). Now I need to bundle it for shipping. One way is to create a war file and deploy it in a servlet container such as tomcat- That is very clear from the docs. The other option is to use the built in http server. This is what I want to do since it is the recommended way.

Now how do I pull off the application from my development application so that I can deploy it into the production server – I mean how do I compile and produce a bundle that can be distributed to my client who will do something like unzip the distribution parkage and run a script to start the server?

Or I put it this way, do I need to set play path on my production server, then copy my project files to the production server so that my user can run it using play run, as I have been doing in my development environment?

The docs only say that I need to change to production mode.

Answer 1

You definitly need to have play in your environment variable if you don’t want to build a war file, because running it on your production server requires ‘play start MYAPP’ (starts the app and puts it in a background process). The App does not run standalone without the framework itself.

I mean how do i compile and produce a
bundle that can be distributed to my
client who will do something like
unzip the distribution parkage and run
a script to start the server?

Well, this is precisly what the war file is for. If you want autmatic deployment there is IMHO no way around a war file. On the otherhand you dont need the Framework on your production server when building a war file. You could bild the war with play war and the distribute it to your production server (if it is a tomcat) using the maven tomcat plugin.