Spring Boot REST Controller returns 404 when deployed on external tomcat 9 server

Question

I have a spring boot rest web application which works perfectly on the embedded server. However after following the steps mentioned in the is blog https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/#howto-create-a-deployable-war-file, I got a 404 error message whan I send a resquest to a resource on the server.I have used java 1.8.0_212 locally and used java 1.8.0_131 and deployed my app on tomcat 9 on the server. One thing that's puzzling me is that the repositories which extends CrudRepository can be accessed. Below is my application's entry point.

@SpringBootApplication
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "com.dbe.ref")
public class RefmsApplication extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder builder) {
        return builder.sources(RefmsApplication.class);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(RefmsApplication.class, args);
    }

and also my pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.dbe.ref</groupId>
    <artifactId>refms</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <name>refms</name>
    <description>project for Rural electrification fund</description>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>LATEST</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
        <start-class>com.RefmsApplication</start-class>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-rest</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.oracle</groupId>
            <artifactId>ojdbc6</artifactId>
            <version>11.2.0.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>jquery</artifactId>
            <version>2.2.1</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>angularjs</artifactId>
            <version>1.4.10</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>bootstrap</artifactId>
            <version>3.3.4</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.webjars</groupId>
            <artifactId>font-awesome</artifactId>
            <version>4.7.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>eu.michael-simons</groupId>
            <artifactId>wro4j-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
            <version>0.3.4</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.sf.jasperreports</groupId>
            <artifactId>jasperreports</artifactId>
            <version>6.4.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
            <artifactId>poi</artifactId>
            <version>3.14</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>net.sourceforge.dynamicreports</groupId>
            <artifactId>dynamicreports-core</artifactId>
            <version>5.0.0</version>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <finalName>refms</finalName>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Here is part of the log:

2017-09-19 10:38:20.564  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.FilterRegistrationBean   : Mapping filter: 'errorPageFilter' to: [/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.565  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.FilterRegistrationBean   : Mapping filter: 'characterEncodingFilter' to: [/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.566  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.FilterRegistrationBean   : Mapping filter: 'hiddenHttpMethodFilter' to: [/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.568  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.FilterRegistrationBean   : Mapping filter: 'httpPutFormContentFilter' to: [/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.568  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.FilterRegistrationBean   : Mapping filter: 'requestContextFilter' to: [/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.571  INFO 6660 --- [           main] .s.DelegatingFilterProxyRegistrationBean : Mapping filter: 'springSecurityFilterChain' to: [/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.571  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.FilterRegistrationBean   : Mapping filter: 'configurableWroFilter' to urls: [/wro4j/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.572  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.ServletRegistrationBean  : Mapping servlet: 'dispatcherServletRegistration' to [/refms/*]
2017-09-19 10:38:20.573  INFO 6660 --- [           main] o.s.b.w.servlet.ServletRegistrationBean  : Mapping servlet: 'dispatcherServlet' to [/]

Answer 1

Check if the

<build>
     <finalName>refms</finalName>
         ...
</build>

in the pom.xml corresponds with the

server.contextPath=/refms

in the application.properties and check the

<Context path="/refms"/>

in the context.xml. Perhaps your root context in tomcat after deploy was different.

Additionally, change this dependence

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId> 
</dependency>

by this

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>   
</dependency>

for external tomcat

Answer 2

There is a little difference when you deploy application on embedded server and external server by default.

With embedded server you can access you application by using:

http://localhost:<port>/<resourceName>

While if you deploy war in another container then you need to add application name with version like:

http://localhost:<port>/<applicationNameWithVersion>/<resourceName>

For example if you deploy this example then URL for embedded server is:

http://localhost:8080/greeting

And URL for Externally deployed application if like:

http://localhost:8999/gs-rest-service-0.1.0/greeting

Note: This URL is of my application server so it may have some changes for yours.

Comment if you need help.

Answer 3

Check the root package in src/main/java, it should be the same as the package name mentioned in the POM groupid ie. com.dbe.ref if there is any mismatch than the same issue occurs.