Tomcat and Cocoon Installation

Try out the Package Installers!

I've created a native Mac OS X package Tomcat+Cocoon-2.pkg that should install Tomcat 3.2.1 and Cocoon 1.8.2, as well as mod_jk.so which helps to integrate Tomcat with the default Apache Web Server. PLEASE! ANYONE! Try these out and give me some feedback. Do not try to install this package if you already have Tomcat installed on your system. (Although it shouldn't be hard to rename your current Tomcat root directory to something else and try the installation.)

5/12/2001 - New Package Version Ready for testing!!

There is a new version of the package installer available for testing. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me with feedback. I've taken out the reboot feature because it didn't work. (I think this is a bug with the package installer or Mac OS X. You will probably want to reboot anyway in order to start Tomcat.

Additionally, I've added some goodies in case you are one of the intrepid people who rebuilt Apache from scratch and found mod_jk not working anymore. Honestly, I doubt there are any good reasons to be rebuilding Apache. You can open yourself to a host of difficulties. Anyway, if you need to build a custom version of mod_jk.so, download the NEW package installer and follow these instructions...

Tomcat+Cocoon Package Orig Release - Tomcat+Cocoon Package New Release

Here are a few of the features that this package should include...

Automatic Startup Next time you reboot, you'll see a message "Starting Tomcat" along with the other status messages. You should be able to immediately bring up Internet Explorer and browse http://localhost:8080 to see the Tomcat startup screen.
Automatic Pass-through with Apache You don't have to shutdown the default Web Server (Apache) or keep Tomcat listening on an unconventional port (like 8080). Apache should "just know" if a request is for a servlet or JSP or XML page and automatically pass such a request to Tomcat. This is done with the module mod_jk.so. You can test this by browsing first to http://localhost:8080/examples/jsp/dates/date.jsp (which is how you would send the request directly to Tomcat) and then trying http://localhost/examples/jsp/dates/date.jsp (just like the last URL, but with the ":8080" part missing).
XML Processing with Cocoon Tomcat (and Apache) should intelligently forward requests for XML files (with an .xml extension) to Cocoon, which dynamically translates the XML file into browser-friendly HTML. You can verify that Cocoon is working with Tomcat by browsing http://localhost:8080/cocoon/Cocoon.xml and you can verify that Apache is forwarding requests succesfully by browsing http://localhost/cocoon/Cocoon.xml. If you want to see a simple example running in Cocoon, direct your browser to http://localhost:8080/cocoon/samples/hello/hello-page.xml. (Again, you should be able to drop the ":8080" part if the requests are running through Apache properly.)

The mod_jk module was compiled against the version of Apache that came installed with OS X. If for any reason you have a newer version of Apache installed, you will have to recompile mod_jk. I have some quick instructions for how to compile mod_jk under Apache 1.3.x. The process for compiling under Apache 2.x should be almost identical. (I'm not going install Apache 2 on my own machine, so I can't say for certain.) If anyone does determine the exact command, please e-mail me and I'll update my instructions. 5/12/2001 IMPORTANT UPDATE: Because of the unexpected number of people who are installing different versions of Apache and finding themselves in trouble, I've built in a custom-compiling feature into the package installer. Follow these instructions instead to get a custom version of mod_jk.so. Note, this requires the "Version 2" of my package installer.

Obviously I don't have the resources to promise support to everyone interested in JSP/Servlet/XML features in OS X. These notes are cryptic and represent my trying to slam something together before I can grab some much needed sleep.

I would, however, love feedback from anyone who tries to install the package with or without success. The reason I included all these hyperlinks was to give you a good diagnostic tool that can help determine at what point the system is breaking down.

Also, drop me a note if something in my writing sounds like I'm speaking another language. You've got to remember that I've been working with these tools for a couple years now, so I can easily forget what the average user does or doesn't automatically know.