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The default appBase location is "$CATALINA_BASE/webapps", or "$CATALINA_HOME/webapps", if no base directory has been defined. Next, if the application does not contain a Context fragment, one must be added within the appropriate Host element in Tomcat's server. xml configuration file.
The webapps directory is where deployed applications reside in Tomcat. The webapps directory is the default deployment location, but this can be configured with the appBase attribute on the <Host> element.
The default directory for Tomcat files will be in /usr/local/tomcat9, you can view the configuration files inside the conf folder, the main page that you have seen above, when you open your website on the 8080 port is in /usr/local/tomcat9/webapps/ROOT/.
The context path refers to the location relative to the server's address which represents the name of the web application. By default, Tomcat derives it from the name of the deployed war-file. So if we deploy a file ExampleApp. war, it will be available at http://localhost:8080/ExampleApp.
It can be changed in the $CATALINA_BASE/conf/server.xml in the <Host />. See the Tomcat documentation, specifically the section in regards to the Host container:
Tomcat 6 Configuration
Tomcat 7 Configuration
The default is webapps relative to the $CATALINA_BASE. An absolute pathname can be used.
Hope that helps.
Find server.xml at $CATALINA_BASE/conf/server.xml
Find appBase attribute in <Host> element
by default it will be something like :
<Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps ...>
Change appBase to your required path. There are different way people put it, but I use
/c:/myfolder/newwebapps
Remember, no slash at the end, but at start. Also note it's direction as well.
Change appBase in server.xml
If you want to keep both previous webapps and a new one, you can use another Host instance with another port defined in tomcat.
I'm using Tomcat through XAMPP which might have been the cause of this problem. When I changed appBase="C:/Java Project/", for example, I kept getting "This localhost page can't be found" in the browser.
I had to add a folder called ROOT inside the Java Project folder and then it worked. Any files you're working on have to be inside this ROOT folder but you need to leave appBase="C:/Java Project/" as changing it to appBase="C:/Java Project/ROOT" will cause "This localhost page can't be found" to be displayed again.
Maybe needing the ROOT folder is obvious to more experienced Java developers but it wasn't for me so hopefully this helps anyone else encountering the same problem.
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