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Tomcat functions as a servlet container developed under the Jakarta Project at the Apache Software Foundation. Tomcat implements the servlet and the JavaServer Pages (JSP) specifications from Sun Microsystems. It's considered to be an application server.
Environment
Tomcat runs with any web server that supports servlets and JSPs. Tomcat comes with the Jasper compiler that compiles JSPs into servlets. The Tomcat servlet engine often appears in combination with an Apache webserver.
Tomcat can also function as an independent web server in itself: it operates as such in development environments with no requirements for speed and transaction handling.
Since its developers write Tomcat in Java, it runs on any operating system that has a JVM.
Development Status
Members of the Apache Software Foundation and independent volunteers develop and maintain Tomcat. Users have free access to the source code and to the binary form of Tomcat under the Apache Software Licence. The initial Tomcat release appeared with versions 3.0.x. Tomcat 5.x, the latest production quality release as of 2004, implements the Servlet 2.4 and JSP 2.0 specifications. As of version 4.x, Jakarta Tomcat uses the Catalina servlet container.
Directory structure
The directory hierarchy of a Tomcat installation comprises :
- bin - startup, shutdown and other scripts and executables
- common - common classes that Catalina and web applications can use
- conf - XML files and related DTDs to configure Tomcat
- logs - Catalina and application logs
- server - classes used only by Catalina
- shared - classes shared by all web applications
- webapps - directory containing the web applications
- work - temporary storage for files and directories
Product features
Tomcat 3.x (initial release)
- implemented on Servlet 2.2 and JSP 1.1 specifications
- servlet reloading
Tomcat 4.x
- implemented on Servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 specifications
- servlet container redesigned as Catalina
- JSP engine redesigned as Jasper
- Coyote connector
- Java Management Extensions (JMX), JSP and Struts-based administration
Tomcat 5.x
- implemented on Servlet 2.4 and JSP 2.0 specifications
- reduced garbage collection
- native Windows and Unix wrappers for platform integration
History
Tomcat started off as a servlet specification implementation by James Duncan Davidson who worked as a software architect at Sun. He later helped in making the project open source and in its donation by Sun to the Apache Software Foundation.
James had initially hoped that the project would become open-sourced, and since most open-source projects had O'Reilly books associated with them featuring an animal on the cover, he wanted to name the project after an animal. He came up with Tomcat, since he reasoned the animal represented something that could take care and fend for itself.
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