Question

What is the correct way to deploy a GWT app to Tomcat? I have made a GWT app with server side code (servlets). It works in Hosted mode but only when I copy the WAR folder (after compiling) to Tomcat webapp directory and rename the war folder correctly.

My GWT app servlet is in URI /mygwtapp, so I renamed the folder mygwtapp. The app loads correctly with the problem that servlet do not run i.e. /mygwtapp/servlet does not run.

All the libraries needed by the server side code are in the WEB-INF/lib folder. What could be the reason for this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

By default, Tomcat serves an app named ‘mygwtapp’ from the context path ‘/mygwtapp’. (Whereas the GWT built-in jetty serves it from the context path ‘/’.)

Your servlet paths will usually be ‘/mygwtapp/*’. This means, that in conjunction with the context path, your servlets are now accessible from ‘/mygwtapp/mygwtapp/*’. _{(Try it: Simply enter the full URL in your browser – the Servlet will usually complain that something is missing, or that it doesn’t support GET, but you’ll know for sure now, where it lives.)}

So you have two options:

1. Tell the client side to call the servlets at ‘/mygwtapp/mygwtapp/*’ (I think, this is already taken care of automatically when using the @RemoteServiceRelativePath annotation)
2. Adjust the Context path of the web application in Tomcat, as explained in http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/config/context.html