Topic: Deploying War Files

[RatFink]

Let me first start by saying that I am an Apache/Tomcat novice, so I'm not even sure whether this question will make sense.

I have 2 environments (calling them DEV and UAT) where I have installed Apache Tomcat 8.0.41. After installation was complete, I have a .war file that I need to deploy.

In the DEV environment, I log into the Manager App. Under 'WAR file to deploy', I browse to my .war file and click on deploy. Once completed, under Applications, I can see the correct path as /warfilename. It works perfectly.

Now the strange part. In UAT, I did the very same thing. Installed Tomcat 8, logged into the Manager App. Browsed to my war file. The problem this time is that when I click on Deploy, the path under Applications is showing as the full path from where I browsed. As an example, let's say the .war file was located on D:\Install\War\example.war. When it shows up under Applications, it is listed as /DInstallWarexample.war. When I look in the catalina log, I see the following:
Deploying web application archive D:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\webapps\D:InstallWarexample.war
Failed to register object [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/D:InstallWarexample]] with name [Catalina:j2eeType=WebModule,name=//localhost/D:InstallWarexample,J2EEApplication=none,J2EEServer=none] during component initialisation
javax.management.MalformedObjectNameException: Invalid character ':' in value part of property

I have NO idea whatsoever as to why it's doing this, and hopefully someone way smarter than me can offer some insight.

Thanks!!!

[justinacolmena]

no expert here, i just want to comment on a couple of things

[RatFink]

Both environments (Windows Server 2008 R2) were installed using the apache-tomcat-8.0.41.exe file. All defaults were accepted during installation. The D: was not typed by me. The only thing I did was browse to my .war file and click on Deploy. It's interesting, because if I move the .war file to D:\TEMP\example.war, when I browse to that location and click on Deploy within the Manager App, it attempts to deploy the app to D:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\webapps\D:TEMPexample which of course fails.

[justinacolmena]

i'm a linux person. i don't usually mess around with windows, although i have installed apache tomcat a time or two on linux, or possibly openbsd. it was a long time ago.

linux (and other unix-based) file systems have the concept of a single unified "present working directory" (hence "unix") while windows maintains both a present working drive letter and a separate present working directory for each drive letter on the system.

so "D:example.war" in windows refers to the file "example.war" in the user's present working directory for the drive letter D: (while at the same time the user may have other present working directories on other drive letters.)

something is very odd here because it is in some cases (though obviously not this one) permissible if rather unusual on windows to specify the drive but not the full path for a file.