Tomcat is an open source servlet container developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It is always the reference implimentation of the servlet and JSP specifications and comes with a built in webserver for use in stand-alone mode. It can also be used in conjunction with Apache and a number of other popular web servers.

Tips and Tricks

Generating a Thread Dump

A thread dump can be generated for tomcat, on linux, by sending the QUIT message to the VM thus:

kill -3 PID

The thread dump comes out in the engine log file (if you have one).

Running the Server VM

You can make tomcat run faster by using the server JVM rather than the client JVM. The server VM takes a little longer to load but depending on what it is doing it can halve execution time. Open "/etc/default/tomcat4" and add "-server" to the CATELINA_OPTS variable.

CATALINA_OPTS="-server -Djava.awt.headless=true"