Deploy multiple webapps with application specific config in Tomcat from Eclipse

Question

I have a Tomcat 7 Server in Eclipse with two webapps a and b and need to find out how to have application specific configuration files for tomcat that works with Eclipse.

Now I want for each webapp a custom config file, like described here: Apache Tomcat: multiple webapps. So I created a <TomcatDirectory>/conf/Catalina/localhost folder and put the a.xml and b.xml there. This works fine when I run Tomcat from command line.

But where have I to put the application specific configuration files a.xml and b.xml when I run Tomcat from within eclipse?

I already tried to put the files in Eclipse in <EclipseWorkspace>\Servers\<ServerName>\conf\Catalina\localhost\ but WTP does not copy this files to <EclipseWorkspace>\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0\conf\Catalina\localhost

Answer 1

Leave them in <TomcatDirectory>/conf/Catalina/localhost

Server > Open > Server Locations

Change from: Use workspace metadata To: Use Tomcat instalation

Now a.xml and b.xml from <TomcatDirectory>/conf/Catalina/localhost will be used.

Answer 2

If it's for development's purpose, you can specify a folder into the "docBase" attribute of context file like this :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Context crossContext="true" docBase="C:/devel/MyApp/web/target/MyApp-web" path="/MyApp" reloadable="true">
    <Resource
        ... />
</Context>

By adding these context files directly into /conf/Catalina/localhost, everything is configured and should work like you want but you'll have to stop the tomcat server every time you'll want to clean and build your project.