Professional Apache Tomcat 136
| Professional Apache Tomcat | |
| author | Chanoch Wiggers et al |
| pages | 600 |
| publisher | Wrox Press Ltd |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Liam |
| ISBN | 1861007736 |
| summary | Comprehensive guide to Apache's Tomcat server |
The book covers every aspect of installing and configuring Tomcat in a great deal of depth, detailing its every aspect. From standalone use (where Tomcat is used as a general web server as well as for serving Java content), to integration with the leading web servers Apache (both Unix and Windows versions) and Microsoft's Internet Information Services, nothing appears to have been left out (however, integration with Netscape's Enterprise Server is mentioned in passing early on, but doesn't appear again).
Being only a month old, it's pretty much bang up to date, covering Tomcat 3.x, 4.0.x and 4.1.x with Apache 1.3.x and 2.0.x and IIS 4 and 5.
The book starts with an introduction to the Apache project, and Tomcat's place in the wider scheme of things. The historical progression in serving dynamic web content from CGI to Servlets and JSP is charted, and there's an overview of JSP tags and general web application architecture. This is interesting enough and useful as background, but as this book is intended for administrators, it's covered quickly in the first two chapters, and the main business of installing Tomcat gets underway in chapter 3.
Installation is discussed with both Windows and Linux users in mind, from both binary and source distributions. As the Tomcat source is usually built with Ant, build and installation of this tool is also discussed (Ant and Log4j, both also part of Jakarta, get chapters of their own later in the book). From there, basic configuration of the standalone server followed by detailed examinations of the components that make up Tomcat's architecture fills the next 200 or so pages.
Serious users of Tomcat will wish to employ Tomcat with an existing web server, and four chapters concentrate on this job. There is more emphasis on Apache than IIS, though given Apache's dominance of the web server field, this is understandable. There is inevitably a certain amount of detail aimed at Apache and IIS configuration, and a basic knowledge of both is assumed throughout. However, any necessary information is included in detail; for example the (Apache) connector modules mod_webapp and mod_jk/jk2 are given a thorough treatment, describing their use from source installation to configuration, together with the pros and cons of the various connectors available. Beyond that, we learn how to design larger-scale setups, with an explanation of load balancing techniques and scaling of the system, and performance testing with JMeter, yet another Jakarta project component.
As ever, security is a major concern and gets a lot of emphasis. Before client authentication and the use of SSL are discussed, there's an overview of basic system security with Unix and Windows. This should be teaching granny to suck eggs for a book aimed at administrators, but it's only a few pages and completes the subject. More interesting are the sections on security realms and user/client authentication. We are presented with examples of authenticating against a MySQL database with JDBC (database connectivity with JDBC is a big enough subject in its own right, and so gets a separate chapter too), and digest authentication. We then move on to encryption with SSL: using Tomcat itself with the JSSE and PureTLS Java SSL implementations, then later with Apache and SSL (setting up mod_ssl with Apache gets a very useful appendix of its own, taken from Professional Apache 2.0, another Wrox book). Again, there's lots of detail, right down to how to get hold of signed certificates for your server. Here the book's general emphasis on Apache over IIS is most apparent, as SSL with IIS is not discussed at all. However, I have no experience with IIS, so I can't say for sure how serious this omission might be.
There's a very brief appendix on setting up Apache's Axis SOAP toolkit, but without any mention of SOAP appearing elsewhere in the book. As other concepts are introduced so well, it's a curious addition.
With nine co-authors (though only four got onto the cover photograph - I wonder if they drew straws?), one might expect wildly different styles throughout the book, but each chapter is consistently and clearly laid out with diagrams and relevant configuration file fragments where necessary. There's little levity and it's all written in a very business-like manner, but then this is hardly a subject you'd choose for holiday reading.
Professional Apache Tomcat is surely the definitive book on the subject. I recently used it to integrate Tomcat 4 with an existing Apache 2 installation, and everything went very smoothly. More than just a set of tutorials, it offers a thorough description of the whole architecture, and makes an excellent companion to either of Wrox's Professional Apache books.
There's no CD with the book, but Wrox's website provides some support code, and there are lively forums for readers at p2p.wrox.com.
You can purchase Professional Apache Tomcat from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Book is really unneeded (Score:1, Informative)
Tomcat is easy! (Score:5, Informative)
Compared to Weblogic and especially Websphere, it's so incredibly simple it's silly. (Websphere especially is a *nightmare* to install and configure.)
great book. (Score:4, Informative)
The book is well-laid out (moreso than most of the GNU/Hippy students!). It offers a good overview of all of the major pieces of functionality in Tomcat and does a particularly good job of describing the different manners which you can integrate Tomcat and Apache.
My only complaint might be that the section on Axis was extremly light-weight. I would have loved to see more detail in this chapter, even though the information in the chapter was a good starter.
Re:Tomcat??? (Score:3, Informative)
Apache and Tomcat complement each other, so they should be considered as partners. As such Apache + CGI/Modperl/ModPHP leads IIS... Add Tomcat to the mix and as they say, "The best gets better".
S
Re:Tomcat is easy! (Score:2, Informative)
You can even get struts [apache.org] installed by plopping the struts jar file into the deploy directory, and it'll autodeploy struts instantly.
Nice to see (Score:4, Informative)
All in all, good work Wrox!
Tomcat works very well in my opinion (Score:5, Informative)
We first started to use it as a development platform. The idea was, "let's develop a Servlet/JSP based application and we will choose later the production server". We wanted to test the application/web servers on our specific application. We though we will end up buying some commercial application. But when the time came to go to production Tomcat had proved itself. It was more than good enough.
We know we can get some extra performance by switching to other web servers, but we don't really need to, Tomcat is more than fast enough. Considering in the global performance of the application, the impact of Tomcat is minimal, as opposed to the database or the LDAP. Our time is better spend improving the database side of the app. Besides Tomcat is very easy to use the source code is very easy to read (as opposed to other open source projects).
At this point, if we switch platform it will be to base our application on JBoss (maybe hooking Tomcat to it). We are not yet convinced that EJBs will benefit our application, but we are seriously considering using JMS.
Re:The reason why i think twice before buying Wrox (Score:4, Informative)
I got the Professional Apache 2.0 book reviewed on
I've read about 1/4 of the book. So far half of that has been on Apache 1.3. I can understand documenting differences between 1.3 and 2.0 in a 2.0 book. But don't go into depth on building and configuring 1.3. There are also numerous typos that are so obvious.
It seems that this book was started as a 1.3 book, but 2.0 shipped so they tacked extra onto it and called it 2.0. Also to get to press first they only did a once over on the new information.
I'll not buy another Wrox book.
Re:Tomcat is easy! (Score:3, Informative)
If all you need is a servlet container, you shouldn't even consider Weblogic or Websphere--overkill. You would have been better off using JRun as a comparison point, although the latest versions of JRun bring it closer to the J2EE servers than Tomcat.
Re:review license infringement? Sorry-bullshit (Score:5, Informative)