Deploying Spring Boot WAR file with JSP to Tomcat

Deploying Spring Boot WAR file with JSP to Tomcat

Here we can deploy a Spring Boot application using JSP to external Tomcat server. First we create a simple spring boot web application with JSP then we will create a WAR file of it and finally we deploy the WAR file in the external tomcat server.

Development Steps

1. Create Spring Boot Application
2. Add maven dependencies
3. Configure InternalResourceViewResolver for JSPs in application.properties file
4. Create JSP page
5. Create WAR file
6. Deploy to Tomcat

1. Create a Spring Boot application

   There are many ways to create a Spring Boot application. You can refer below articles to create a Spring Boot application.

2. Add maven dependencies

   < ?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 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
   < modelVersion>4.0.0< /modelVersion>
   < parent>
   < groupId>org.springframework.boot< /groupId>
   < artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent< /artifactId>
   < version>2.1.0.RELEASE< /version>
   < relativePath />
   < !-- lookup parent from repository -->
   < /parent>
   < groupId>net.ducatindia< /groupId>
   < artifactId>spring-data-war< /artifactId>
   < version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT< /version>
   < packaging>war< /packaging>
   < name>spring-data-war< /name>
   < description>Demo project for Spring Boot Restful web services< /description>
   < properties>
   < java.version>1.8< /java.version>
   < /properties>
   < dependencies>
   < dependency>
   < groupId>org.springframework.boot< /groupId>
   < artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web< /artifactId>
   < /dependency>
   < !-- Need this to compile JSP -->
   < dependency>
   < groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed< /groupId>
   < artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper< /artifactId>
   < scope>provided< /scope>
   < /dependency>
   < 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-test< /artifactId>
   < scope>test< /scope>
   < exclusions>
   < exclusion>
   < groupId>org.junit.vintage< /groupId>
   < artifactId>junit-vintage-engine< /artifactId>
   < /exclusion>
   < /exclusions>
   < /dependency>
   < /dependencies>
   < build>
   < finalName>springboot-jsp-web< /finalName>
   < plugins>
   < plugin>
   < groupId>org.springframework.boot< /groupId>
   < artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin< /artifactId>
   < /plugin>
   < /plugins>
   < /build>
   < /project>
   

3. Create HelloWorldController

   Let’s create a simple HelloWorldController class which exposes a “/test” request mapping:

   packagenet.ducatindia.springboot;
   
   importorg.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
   importorg.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
   
   @Controller
   publicclassHelloWorldController {
   @RequestMapping("/test")
   publicStringsayHello() {
   return"hello";
       }
   }
   

4. Configure InternalResourceViewResolver for JSPs in application.properties file

   spring.mvc.view.prefix=/WEB-INF/view/

   spring.mvc.view.suffix=.jsp

5. Create JSP page

   Create JSP view pages under src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/view directory ( If the directory does not exist then create directory structure):

   <%@ pagelanguage="java"contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
   < !DOCTYPE html>
   < html>
   < head>
   < metacharset="ISO-8859-1">
   < title>Insert title here< /title>
   < /head>
   < body>
   < p>
       Hello World! Time is <%=newjava.util.Date() %>
   < /p>
   
   < p>
       We are running on  <%=application.getServerInfo() %>!!!
   < /p>
   
   < /body>
   < /html>
   

6. Create WAR file

   To create a WAR file, perform the following steps.

   1. Update main Spring Boot application

      In your main Spring Boot application, you need to extend the SpringBootServletInitializer and override the configure(…) method:

      packagenet.ducatindia.springboot;
      
      importorg.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
      importorg.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
      importorg.springframework.boot.builder.SpringApplicationBuilder;
      importorg.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.SpringBootServletInitializer;
      
      @SpringBootApplication
      publicclassSpringDataWarApplicationextendsSpringBootServletInitializer {
      
      @Override
      protectedSpringApplicationBuilderconfigure(SpringApplicationBuilderapplication) {
      returnapplication.sources(SpringDataWarApplication.class);
          }
      
      publicstaticvoidmain(String[] args) {
      SpringApplication.run(SpringDataWarApplication.class, args);
          }
      }
      

   2. Update Maven POM file

      • • Update your POM.xml to use WAR packaging

      < packaging>war< /packaging>

      • • In POM.xml, add dependency to be able to compile JSPs

      < dependency>
      < groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed< /groupId>
      < artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper< /artifactId>
      < scope>provided< /scope>
      < /dependency>
      

      • • Make sure the Tomcat embedded does not interfere with the external Tomcat server.

      < dependency>
      < groupId>org.springframework.boot< /groupId>
      < artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat< /artifactId>
      < scope>provided< /scope>
      < /dependency>
      

      • • Create the WAR file with the command:

      mvn clean install

      This will generate a WAR file in your project directory: target/springboot-jsp-web.war

7. Deploy to Tomcat

   Copy your WAR file to the < tomcat-server>/webapps directory, wait for few seconds for Tomcat to deploy your app.

   In a web browser, access your app at: http://localhost:8080/springboot-jsp-web/test

   If everything is successful, you will see your application’s web page.

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